Astronomical delights

Machine translated: “English photographer Vincent Fournier ( Vincent Fournier ) during the last 5 years, removes [let’s say ‘uncovers’ here, okay translation-bot?] everything connected with space exploration.”

This is a beautiful and inspiring set of images dealing with the Russian Space Programme.

(via Esquire Magazine)

Divers working for the Orda Cave Awareness Project have revealed images of the world’s longest underwater cave.

(via Orda Cave Awareness Project » gallery)

If anyone’s taking requests, can a row of Sharpies™ be next? Thanks.

(via thea)

laughingsquid:

Light Painting With A Roomba

(via eirizu)

Water Balloons Without The Balloons : The Picture Show : NPR

Edward Horsford’s high-speed photography freezes the spherical innards of water balloons — just as the balloon skins break open, and just before they splash to the floor. He works at night in his garden in London, using flashes to light the action. Amazingly, he works alone.

“A collaboration between Michael Tompert and photographer Paul Fairchild with this special tribute to the Apple brand. Destruction of products such as the iPad, the iPhone and the Macbook, presented destroyed or buried under the form of 12 large format photographs.”

lucyphermann:

Edward Burtynski and the Sublime

November 14th, 2009 by Laimonas

“The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is Astonishment, and astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror … Greatness of dimension, is a powerful cause of the sublime” – Edmund Burke

Burtynski’s work deals with the notion of the sublime, using extensions such as length, height and depth in his photographs, some creating a greater effect than others. According to Burke, length has the least effect, while height and depth share similar impact on the viewer in creating the sense of sublime.

As well as vastness, there are other passions which add to the feeling of the sublime, such as terror, power, difficulty, obscurity, magnificence.

Further reading: Edmund Burke.  A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. New York: Oxford University Press. 208.

http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/

(via aceldama)

Wait, what’s a lens flare?

gifanime:

mimikasu:

xn—c1h:

Classic Lens Flare Filter

nerdology:

Above is the first digital camera.  It was made by Steve Sasson working for Kodak in 1975. 1975! Using “a lens from a Super 8 camera, a whole stack of ni-cad batteries, a digital to analog converter from a voltmeter, [and] a highly experimental CCD.”  Oh and that cassette tape on the side, thats are how the pictures are stored.

The camera captured a 100-line image onto that cassette-tape, yet even that tiny picture took a mind-numbing 23 seconds to write. Playback was possibly clunkier still, using another tape-player hooked up to a frame-storing devices that interpolated those 100 lines to an NTSC-compatible 400-line image and then showed it on a regular TV-screen.

Though it was built in 1975 and patented in 1978 it stayed hidden from the public until 2001.  It still remains in Steve Sasson’s possession still.

[Wired]