Chinese families with all their stuff in a single photo by Huang Qingjun
Try mentally lining up all of your stuff in one place. Some may gather only few pots and blankets while others probably couldn’t fit everything they own into a stadium. Chinese photographer Huang Qingjun explores this topic in his photo series called “Jiadang,” or “Family Stuff”.
For the last 10 years, Huang has been traveling around China’s rural communities and capturing pictures of families with their household possessions carefully arranged outdoors, usually in front of their houses. With this project, Huang seeks to portray the lives of people living in remote rural areas, far from big cities where wealth is the most important social factor. His pictures show the simplicity of people’s basic needs: all most of them have are a few chairs, drawers, buckets and vases. However, we can also see the impact of modernization because almost every family owns a satellite TV, a DVD or a phone.
As the photographer says, “most people thought what I was proposing was not normal. When I explained I wanted to set up a photo, that it would involve taking everything out of their house and setting it up outside, that took quite a lot of explaining. But almost all of them, when they realized what I was trying to do, they understood the point.” Now Huang Qingjun is considering a new approach that might feature portraits of China’s higher classes. Continue reading »
National Geographic Photography Contest 2013 Call for Entry
National Geographic invites photographers from around the world to enter the 2013 National Geographic Photography Contest. The grand-prize winner will receive $10,000 (USD) and a trip to National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C., to participate in the annual National Geographic Photography Seminar in January 2014.
Eligible contestants can visit www.ngphotocontest.com to submit photographs in one or all of three categories: People, Places and Nature. Entry fee is $15 (USD) per photo, and there is no limit to the number of submissions per entrant. Entries must be in digital format and submitted electronically. The contest, which is now open, ends Saturday, November 30, at 11:59 p.m. ET (U.S.).
“Eastern Screech Owls like to take over woodpecker nests that have been dug out over the years in pine trees, which are the main species of tree at this swamp. Fish and wildlife also paint a white ring around the base of a tree that has active nests in order to avoid when conducting controlled burns. Screech owls can range in height anywhere from 8-10 inches, so you have to have a sharp eye to find these little birds of prey. I spent the first few weeks of April this year photographing the grey morph screech owl that was living in the nest, and had no idea there were three owlets inside”. (Photo and caption by Graham McGeorge/National Geographic Photography Contest) Continue reading »
Melanie Faith Dove and Andrew Chapman – ‘Working Dogs’ Book
Photographers Melanie Faith Dove and Andrew Chapman have collaborated on a project about the dogs that work in our outback. ‘Working Dogs‘ book launched on Sunday October 27 at Collingwood Children’s farm here is a collection of their pictures documenting the bonds between farmers and their dogs.
Chocolate or Red Border Collies, Floss and Pepper pup at Vin Stapleton’s Bushfield Property, February 2013. Photo by Melanie Faith Dove Continue reading »
Terrifying Portraits of Indonesia’s Street-Performing Macaques
“Terror often stems not from the unknown, but from something familiar that has been subtly – but unmistakably – transformed. This certainly helps explain why Finnish photographer Perttu Saksa’s series, “A Kind of You”, is so unsettling. Saksa, a portrait photographer by trade, was appalled when, traveling in Jakarta in 2012, he first caught sight of macaque monkeys that had been manacled and forced into roles as “actors” in street performances. In the fall of last year, with the help of an Indonesian journalist, Saksa began investigating people known as “monkey masters” – entrepreneurs who train and rent monkeys to beggars. Continue reading »
Project DOCUMERICA: 1970’s Skiing Resort Photos of Aspen, Colorado
American photographer Ron Hoffman captured images of skiing and other recreational activity in the Aspen, Colorado, area, in January and February of 1974.
Looking North on Galena Street to the Ajax Mountain Ski Area 02/1974 Continue reading »
Journey in the Search for the American Dream
Photographer Pavel Prokopchik plans to travel across the USA trying to capture the essence of the American life today. He’d like to find out what “The American Dream” means to people in the USA today. The project he has in mind is one that will shape itself as it proceeds, and is essentially elastic, where unexpected meeting can easily deviate him from my original route. Continue reading »
Cheap Food and Proud Waitresses
White Spot Cafe
Trinidad, Colorado, October 1, 2004
Waiter: Carol
Order: steamed burrito with beef, tea, Diet Coke ($ 7.34)
Swiss photographer Stephen Shaher traveled all over America, from coast to coast, and took pictures of things that he remembered most of all – cheap food and waitresses who served it. Continue reading »
Mexican Pointy Boots: Las Botas Picudas
Photographers Alex Troesch and Aline Paley first saw the long, pointy Mexican boots on a video through Facebook. Inspired by the video they saw, the Brooklyn-based duo, who have known each other three years, traveled to Matehuala, Mexico in late January to see the boots with their own eyes.
In northern Mexico, the pointy boots trend is more about flash than fashion. “They’re worn by people who want to impress other people,” Troesch says. In fact, one boot maker they met had transformed a regular pair of shoes into pointy boots for a client who wanted to impress the jury of a dance contest. That’s how the fervor started—but not everyone is a fan. Continue reading »
Gardens of Eden: The Heavenly Horticulture Blossoming on Roofs High above the City
Married couple Diane Cook and Len Jenshel travelled the world capturing their photographs of these stunning sights. It is their latest project after 25 years spent producing images that show how human’s influence their environment.
The eye-catching plants and flowers not only transform the top of dull office buildings but create habitats for birds and insects and are good for the environment.
Manhattan marvel: The first green roof the photographers visited, on top of Cook and Fox architects in New York. Continue reading »
Steve Russell’s 2011 Favourites
Steve Russell is a staff photographer of Toronto Star.
A laneway off of Yonge is transformed into a movie quality rain scape in Curtis Grahauer’s “I just Know Something Good is going to happen, 2011” during the 2011 edition of Nuit Blanche where the city core is transformed by the work of hundreds of artists in the sixth installment of the sunset-to-sunrise celebration of contemporary art in Toronto. October 1, 2011. Continue reading »
Flying Over the Frozen Waters
A lorry and cars travel on a road over the ice-covered Vistula river near the village of Kiezmark. Photographer Kacper Kowalski took this image from a paraglider (Kacper Kowalski/Panos)
Animals On Bikes
Photographer Peter Rae travelled from Molong to Dubbo, in western New South Wales, Australia, photographing the roadside sculptures along the way. (Peter Rae / The Sydney Morning Herald) Continue reading »
Open Your Eyes to the Hidden Night
The Photopic Sky Survey is a 5,000 megapixel photograph of the entire night sky stitched together from 37,440 exposures, created by photographer Nick Risinger. Large in size and scope, it portrays a world far beyond the one beneath our feet and reveals our familiar Milky Way with unfamiliar clarity. When we look upon this image, we are in fact peering back in time, as much of the light—having traveled such vast distances—predates civilization itself.
Photo of the Day: Grimsvotn Volcano Erupts in Iceland
Erupting steam and ash interact with clouds above Grímsvötn volcano. Photographer Jóhann Ingi Jónsson traveled within 1 kilometer of the eruption site on the evening of May 22, 2011, to get these photos. Click to zoom.
Iceland’s most active volcano, Grímsvötn, erupted on Saturday for the first time since 2004, hurling a plume of steam and ash nearly 20 kilometers (12 miles) into the sky. People living next to the glacier where the Grímsvötn volcano burst into life were most severely affected, with ash blocking out the daylight and smothering buildings and vehicles. Iceland also closed its main international airport and canceled domestic flights on Sunday, and aviation officials will be closely monitoring European airspace for the next few days. (Source: theAtlantic)
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