Eric Zelinski
Our Beautiful Planet: Images from Space by an Astronaut Photographer
1. Volcano, Onekotan Island, Russia. May 23, 2011
2. Delta, May 23, 2011
3. Saudi Arabia, southern desert, Mar 31, 2011
4. Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA. May 17, 2011
Amazing. I love how sometimes you can’t tell what’s up and what’s down in shots like these.
(via scinerds)
Prix Pictet-winning series Yangtze, The Long River by Nadav Kander
Artist statement
Yangtze, The Long River
The Yangtze River, which forms the premise to this body of work, is the main artery that flows 4100miles (6500km) across china, travelling from its furthest westerly point in Qinghai Province to Shanghai in the east. The river is embedded in the consciousness of the Chinese, even for those who live thousands of miles from the river. It plays a significant role in both the spiritual and physical life of the people.
More people live along its banks than live in the USA, one in every eighteen people on the planet.
Using the river as a metaphor for constant change, I have photographed the landscape and people along its banks from mouth to source.
Importantly for me I worked intuitively, trying not to be influenced by what I already knew about the country. I wanted to respond to what I found and felt and to seek out the iconography that allowed me to frame views that make the images unique to me.
After several trips to different parts of the river, it became clear that what I was responding to and how I felt whilst being in china was permeating into my pictures; a formalness and unease, a country that feels both at the beginning of a new era and at odds with itself. China is a nation that appears to be severing its roots by destroying its past in the wake of the sheer force of its moving “forward” at such an astounding and unnatural pace. A people scarring their country and a country scarring its people.
I felt a complete outsider and explained this pictorially by “stepping back” and showing humans dwarfed by their surroundings. Common man has little say in China’s progression and this smallness of the individual is alluded to in the work.
Although it was never my intention to make documentary pictures, the
sociological context of this project is very important and ever present. The displacement of 3 million people in a 600km stretch of the River and the effect on humanity when a country moves towards the future at pace are themes that will inevitably be present within the work.
A Chinese man who I became friends with whilst working on the project reiterated what many Chinese people feel: “ Why do we have to destroy to develop?” He explained how in Britain many of us could revisit the place of our childhood, knowing that it will be much the same, it will remind us of our families and upbringing. In China that is virtually impossible, the scale of development has left most places unrecognisable, “Nothing is the same. We can’t revisit where we came from because it no longer exists.”
China’s landscape both economically and physically is changing daily. These are photographs that can never be taken again.
(via unusualyoung)
Amazing. Incredible to see how small things look from way up there.
So that was weird…I just felt my first earthquake…in Kansas!!
I read that earthquakes travel farther in the midwest because the the plates are so much flatter or something. I missed the last one people in Lawrence felt because I was away in Georgia.
Honestly I thought somebody upstairs was being a little too rowdy, the cafe I was in kept shaking and I heard a crash upstairs. Everyone was just looking at each other like, “wtf?”…it didn’t even occur to me that it could actually be one. Then someone looked it up and sure enough!
So weird. I honestly thought that unless I move to California I may get through life without feeling one; I’ve only ever been worried about tornadoes. I have to admit it’s very unsettling to feel the Earth shake.
Anybody else feel it?
NASA Satellite Spots New Behemoth Sunspot
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory has spotted one of the largest new sunspots to appear on the surface of the sun in years. It is nearly 25,000 miles wide, or more than three times larger than the Earth. The enormous sunspot was seen rotating over the sun’s northeastern limb on Nov. 3.
Cool how that little pimple is THREE TIMES LARGER THAN EARTH
…wtf, universe?
(via scinerds)
Stunning Video of a Spinning World
In the tradition of sharing amazing views of our planet from our orbiting “place in space” here’s yet another incredible video from the International Space Station (ISS).
Wow.
Facebook Friendship map (you should really click through for high res)
After a few minutes of rendering, the new plot appeared, and I was a bit taken aback by what I saw. The blob had turned into a surprisingly detailed map of the world. Not only were continents visible, certain international borders were apparent as well. What really struck me, though, was knowing that the lines didn’t represent coasts or rivers or political borders, but real human relationships. Each line might represent a friendship made while travelling, a family member abroad, or an old college friend pulled away by the various forces of life.
Later I replaced the lines with great circle arcs, which are the shortest routes between two points on the Earth. Because the Earth is a sphere, these are often not straight lines on the projection.
NG: A half-mile block of 40-story buildings could fit inside this lit stretch of Hang Son Doong in Vietnam, which may be the world’s largest subterranean passage.
The cave was found by a local man named Hồ-Khanh in 1991, however, it was only made public in 2009 when a group of British scientists conducted a survey, which determined it to be the world’s largest cave. It has a jungle inside and the end is out of sight.
