Ten lesser-known designs by women from the past century

Architect Jane Hall's Woman Made book celebrates the work of over 200 women designers from the past century. The author picks 10 items designed by lesser-known women from the book.

Illustrated with images of objects made by female designers, including Zaha Hadid and Ray Eames, Hall's book charts 100 years of work using a simple A-Z structure that focuses on one product per designer.

The book serves as an encyclopedia of household objects made by women. According to Hall, the book aims "trace how women's roles have changed throughout the 20th and 21st century".

Woman Made: Great Women Designers includes designers from over 50 countries around the world and with products made by both household names and lesser-known women.

"I wanted it to be as far-reaching as possible in a way that a lot of other books of the same ilk don't really offer or don't really attempt to do," Hall told Dezeen.

"Often these narratives can end up being a little bit one-sided, or just creating a well-known history of women that already exists, so hopefully there are quite a few surprises in this book," said the designer.

Hall is co-founder of Turner Prize-winning architecture studio Assemble. Below, she chooses 10 projects by women designers from her book, most of whom she believes are relatively unknown.

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Photo by Soft Geometry

Elio light, 2020, by Utharaa Zacharias

"Originally from Kochi in southern India, co-founder of Soft Geometry, Utharaa Zacharias moved to New Delhi to study product design at the National Institute of Fashion Technology, where she met co-founder, Palaash Chaudhary.

"Describing New Delhi as 'ripe with inspiration, materials, tools, and ingenuity', Zacharias and Chaudhary went on to study furniture design at the Savannah College of Art and Design in the US. The Elio Light was inspired by a photo series capturing the interplay between light and transparency on glass, water, skin, and even dust."

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Photo by hedwig-bollhagen.de

Watering can, 1955, by Hedwig Bollhagen

"At 20 years old while still a student at a technical college, Hedwig Bollhagen became the supervisor of an entire department of 'paint girls' in a stoneware ceramics factory near Berlin.

"Bollhagen created simple, affordable ceramics and in 1934 became the artistic director of a ceramic workshop previously owned by Bauhaus ceramicist Margarete Heymann-Loebenstein.

"The ceramic 766 Watering Can is notable for its absence of a handle, instead featuring two ergonomic indentations. Despite her influential legacy, Bollhagen herself described her work as 'just pots'."

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Photo by Archivo Privato Gegia Bronzini

Striped fabric, 1964, by Gegia Bronzini

"Gegia Bronzini, fascinated by the work of the female farmers in Marocco, Venice, was inspired to purchase a loom and went on to found a small weaving school there.

"She began experimenting with colour and texture, incorporating unusual materials such as broom bristles and corn husks into natural silk and linen yarns.

"The heavy silk seen here features bands of horizontal stripes in rich hues. Described in 2020 by Domus magazine as a "textile diva," Bronzini also designed furniture for notable Italian designers including Ico and Luisa Parisi."

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Photo by Modest Furniture / Arne Jennard

Karelia easy chair, 1966, by Liisi Beckman

"Finnish designer Liisi Beckmann is somewhat of a mystery. Although she moved to Milan in 1957 and established a successful career designing for Italian design firms, her designs remain mostly invisible, with the exception of the Karelia easy chair designed for Zanotta in 1966.

"Its undulating form of expanded polyurethane foam covered in vinyl is inspired by the coves of Karelia in Finland where Beckmann grew up. Beckmann's designs from this period are now held in the Helsinki Design Museum."

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Photo by Design by Leva Kaleja

Milo chair, 2018, by Marie Burgos

"Marie Burgos's furniture designs and product line are inspired by her appreciation of mid-century design and the aesthetics of both the natural landscape and built environment of the Caribbean island of Martinique, her ancestral home.

"A certified master in feng shui, Burgos pairs opposites, such as clean lines with curves, hard textures with soft, to achieve a sense of balance. The Milo Chair, for example, combines handcrafted wood legs with raspberry-hued velvet upholstery; its plush, curvy form is suggestive of a hug."

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Photo by Kartell US

Componibili modular storage system,1967, by Anna Castelli Ferrieri

"Anna Castelli Ferrieri was heavily influenced by European architecture circles; she helped to organise the Congrès Internationale d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) 1949 meeting and edited the architectural and product design magazine Casabella.

"She began working for the Italian postwar Neo-Rationalist Franco Albini, whom she called her 'maestro', and his partner, Franca Helg.

"She was the first woman to graduate in architecture from the Politecnico di Milano and founded the plastic furniture fabrication company Kartell. Many of her designs are still in production, including the popular Componibili Modular Storage System."

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Photo by Eliseu Cavalcante

Dune collection, 2017, by Lisa Ertel

"The Dune collection, described by designer Lisa Ertel as a family of archaic seating, is made from solid spruce wood, sandblasted to create a textured surface throwing the wood's grain into relief. This transforms the annual rings of a tree that reveal its age into a tactile surface.

"The German-born designer based the forms of Dune on traditional German Ruhsteine, stone benches placed on the side of roads where historically travellers would stop to rest and was designed while Ertel was still a student of product design at the State College of Design Center for Art and Media."

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Photo by Hannah Whitaker

Kenny dining table, 2018, by Egg Collective

"Egg Collective began through informal weekly dinner meetings between its three founders, Stephanie Beamer, Crystal Ellis, and Hillary Petrie. The trio chose the name Egg Collective to symbolise the group's creative design incubation while also referencing a naturally occurring sculptural form.

"All of their woodwork is fabricated, finished, and assembled in-house at their base in New York.

"Core designs like the Kenny Dining Table establish confident forms that are then iterated using a variety of materials, such as the walnut top and base seen here. The group frequently promotes the work of women in the industry, as organisers of the exhibition Designing Women for the non-profit arts organization NYCxDESIGN."

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Photo by Blend Interiors

Counter stool, c 1970s, by Cleo Baldon

"Cleo Baldon was already the owner of a successful landscape design business, Galper-Baldon Associates, before she founded a sister company, Terra, to manufacture furniture to accompany some of the 3,000 swimming pools she herself designed across Southern California.

"Baldon drew on the ubiquitous Spanish colonial motifs of Los Angeles, combining wrought natural wood and leather upholstery, as seen in these typical Counter Stools."

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Photo by George Nakashima Woodworkers

Concordia chair, 2003, by Mira Nakashima

"Mira Nakashima's pieces celebrate the knots and idiosyncrasies found in timber, reflecting the dictum of her father, George Nakashima, that there is a perfect and singular piece of wood for each design. Nakashima inherited her father's woodworking studio in 1990 after studying architecture in Tokyo.

"Her approach has introduced more angles and curves to the work of Nakashima Studios, which continues to be based on the craft-based traditions of her father with the richness and texture of wood still very much in evidence. The walnut Concordia Chair was created for a group of local chamber musicians."

The images are courtesy of Phaidon.

The post Ten lesser-known designs by women from the past century appeared first on Dezeen.

#furniture #all #products #design #books #features #phaidon #roundups #womeninarchitectureanddesign #diversity #janehall

Astrophotographer Turns His Space Photos Into Kaleidoscopic Artworks

Finnish astrophotographer J-P Metsavainio is known for spending 12 years exposing a gigantic photo of the Milky Way. In addition to his impressive photos, he has also been using them for abstract, kaleidoscopic "Vision" artworks.

"Pickering's Triangle," the original photo the above artwork was created from.

"I'm an astrophotographer but first of all I'm a visual artist," Metsavainio tells PetaPixel. "As an artist, I'm dazzled by all the forms I'm able to capture in my photos of cosmic objects, nebulae, supernova remnants, galaxies, etc. Colors from ionized elements are connected to the shapes and textures and they form a physical reality around us.

"The Vision series of photographic artworks is based on my photographs of cosmic formations. I have used an old photographic art method of multiple exposures over the same photo, or, as I call it, the 'overlapping lightning method'."

Mosaic Panorama of Western Gygnus A Vision artwork created from "Mosaic Panorama of Western Gygnus." A Vision artwork created from "Mosaic Panorama of Western Gygnus."

"[This concept] was fashionable back in the 1920s among experimental and surrealistic photographers, and at the time the work was done in a darkroom," the photographer says. "I'm using about the same technique but instead of a darkroom, I'm using digital image processing.

The original photo is rotated, moved, and/or mirrored as I like, and then multiple layers stacked back together so that the original brightness is maintained. For this task, I use Photoshop and various astronomical stacking applications."

Eastern Part of the Veil Nebula Supernova remnant. A Vision artwork created from "Eastern Part of the Veil Nebula Supernova remnant." A Vision artwork created from "Eastern Part of the Veil Nebula Supernova remnant." A Vision artwork created from "Eastern Part of the Veil Nebula Supernova remnant."

"The process is not very fast since I carefully plan the final composition before I do the actual work," Metsavainio says. "There is lots of trial and error before the correct combination of movements and rotations is found.

Metsavainio says he spends three to five days on average on each of his Vision series images. He has regularly created them over the past decade but has shared very few of them since they have largely been a personal project.

"As an artist, I'm telling a story with my photos, and many times my artworks are also personal notes," Metsavainio says. "The Vision series of photos are forming visual notes about shapes, structures, textures, and colors I have seen and captured during my couple of decades-long journey as an astronomical nature photographer."

You can find a larger gallery of Vision art here and more of Metsavainio's work on his website and portfolio.

#features #ideas #abstract #astro #astrophotography #jpmetsavainio #kaleidoscopic #space

23 of the Funniest Finalists in the 2021 Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards

The Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards has announced the finalists for its 2021 contest, which honors the funniest wildlife photographs captured over the past year.

Launched in 2015 by a pair of professional photographers who wished to promote wildlife conservation through humor, the Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards received over 7,000 entries from around the world this year, and 42 of those submissions have been selected as finalists. 10% of the net revenue from this year's awards will be donated to the charity Save Wild Orangutans.

"We were overwhelmed with the number and quality of entries we received this year, with well over 7,000 photos submitted from every corner of the globe," co-founder Paul Joynson-Hicks MBE says. "It was an amazing turnout, especially given the impact of the pandemic.

"The huge number of images we receive every year illustrates the appetite there is to engage with conservation and reminds us that wildlife truly is incredible and hilarious and, we must do all we can to protect it."

The Overall and Category winners will be unveiled on October 22nd, and the winner will receive a one-week Kenyan safari as well as a handmade trophy.

Here are 23 of the finalists from this year's contest for your amusement:

"Chinese whispers" by Jan Piecha. Kassel, Germany. "The little raccoon cups are telling secrets to each other." © Jan Piecha / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021. "Laughing Snake" by Aditya Kshirsagar. India. "Vine snakes are very commonly seen snakes in western ghats of India. When approached they show aggression by opening their mouth wide open. Nothing to scare of this beautiful harmless Vine snake. I was happy to find it and smiling and It looks like he was smiling back at me." © Aditya Kshirsagar / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021. "Monday Morning Mood" by Andrew Mayes. Rietvlei Nature Reserve, South Africa. "I took this shot while photographing a group of Pied starlings perched in a tree at the Rietvlei Nature Reserve in South Africa. It perfectly sums up my mood on most Monday mornings." © Andrew Mayes / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021. "Shhhh! I'm so hungover it hurts." by Anita Ross. San Bernardino county, California. "Burrowing owl youngsters are so amusing to watch. This burrowing owl caught my eye because he looked like he a hangover." © Anita Ross / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021. "Ninja Prairie Dog!" by Arthur Trevino. Hygiene, Colorado. "When this Bald Eagle missed on its attempt to grab this prairie dog, the prairie dog jumped towards the eagle and startled it long enough to escape to a nearby burrow. A real David vs Goliath story!" © Arthur Trevino / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021. "Time for school" by Chee Kee Teo. Singapore. "A smooth-coated otter "bit" its baby otter to bring it back to and fro for swimming lesson." © Chee Kee Teo / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021. "See who jumps high" by Chu Han Lin. Tainan, Taiwan. "See who can jump high, you must lose me." © Chu Han Lin / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021. "The Baboon who feels like a tenor" by Clemence Guinard. Saudi Arabia. "Resting with its pack, down a road in the Saudi Arabian mountains, this Hamadryas baboon started to yawn. But the graceful position of its paws, its fluffy cape, its eyes looking like it put some makeup. In front of the camera, this Baboon was on stage, ready to please its public and to start its tenor's solo." © Clemence Guinard / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021. "Majestic and Graceful Bald Eagle" by David Eppley. South West Florida, USA. "Bald Eagles will use the same nest for years, even decades, adding new material to it at the beginning and throughout the nesting season. Normally, they are highly skilled at snapping branches off of trees while in flight. Possibly tired from working nonstop all morning on a new nest, this particular Bald Eagle wasn't showing its best form. Yes, sometimes they miss. Although this looks painful, and it might very well be, the eagle recovers with just a few sweeping wing strokes, and chose to rest a bit before making another lumber run." © David Eppley / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021. "Shaking Off 2020" by Dawn Wilson. Louisiana, USA. "I was photographing brown pelicans on a rainy day in southern Louisiana in early 2021, still in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. As the pelicans woke up, they would shake the water off their bodies before heading out to fish. This particular one almost seemed to be shrugging his shoulders, as if to say, 'I have no idea what 2021 will be like.'" © Dawn Wilson / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021. "Monkey riding a giraffe" by Dirk-Jan Steehouwer. Murchison Falls NP, Uganda. "During a game drive, we found a group of monkeys playing around with each other, jumping up and down from a bare branch. It was a joy to watch. After a while, I saw a giraffe coming from the right. By the moment the giraffe did pass the branch, one of the monkeys was on his post to ride the giraffe." © Dirk-Jan Steehouwer / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021. "The Comedy wildlife" by Gurumoorthy Gurumoorthy. Western Ghats, India. "Indian chameleon this image capture in Western Ghats Tamilnadu (Indian) used camera Nikon D5300 70-300mm lens." © Gurumoorthy Gurumoorthy / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021. "Treehugger" by Jakub Hodan. Borneo. "This Proboscis monkey could be just scratching its nose on the rough bark, or it could be kissing it. Trees play a big role in the lives of monkeys. Who are we to judge…" © Jakub Hodan / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021. "I Guess Summer's Over" by John Speirs. Oban Argyll. "I was taking pics of pigeons in flight when this leaf landed on birds face." © John Speirs / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021. "Ouch!" by Ken Jensen. Yunnan, China. "A golden silk monkey in Yunnan China - this is actually a show of aggression however in the position that the monkey is in it looks quite painful!" © Ken Jensen / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021. "Just Checking" by Larry Petterborg. South Luangwa national Park, Zambia, Africa. "A male Vervet Monkey was hanging around a bridge over the Luangwa River in South Luangwa National Park looking for some action (handouts from passersby)." © Larry Petterborg / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021. "Opera warm-ups" by Lea Scaddan. Perth, Australia. "The kangaroo looked like he was singing 'the hills are alive, with the sound of music' in the field." © Lea Scaddan / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021. "Mr. Giggles" by Martina Novotna. Ravenscar. "Grey seal pup appears to be giggling. I loved the expression captured. It looks so human-like. I was lying on a rocky beach for hours, as motionlessly as possible, patiently waiting for seal life to unfold around me. This seal pup came onto the shore for a bit of rest and ended up sleeping on its chosen rock for hours before the incoming tide forced it to move more inland. Occasionally, it would stretch and yawn and it was one of the yawns that led to this expression, looking as if the seal was giggling." © Martina Novotna / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021. "Welcome to Nature!" by Mattias Hammar. Gothenburg, Sweden. "A red damselfly welcomes us into the world of macro nature. It was so amazing to see it climb up the straw, and pause at the intersection to say hi!" © Mattias Hammar / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021. "Peek-a-boo" by Pal Marchhart. Hargita Mountains, Romania. "A young bear descending from a tree looks like he/she is playing hide and seek." © Pal Marchhart / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021. "I got you!" by Kranitz Roland. Hungary. "I spent my days in my usual "gopher place" and yet again, these funny little animals haven't belied their true nature." © Kranitz Roland / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021. "Dancing Away to Glory" by Sarosh Lodhi. Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve, India. "A young langur sways its body to give an impression that its dancing." © Sarosh Lodhi / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021. "Smoked Deer for Dinner" by Siddhant Agrawal. Jim Corbett National Park India. "I have been following the family of a tigress called Paaro in India's Jim Corbett National Park for many years. This is her daughter who has stood on her hind limbs to be able to scratch her face with a log. But, it appears as if she is carrying the log on her shoulders." © Name / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021. © Siddhant Agrawal / Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021.

You can find the complete list of 42 finalists as well as vote for the "People's Choice" winner on the contest's website. You can also find some of the funniest photos from previous years here.

#features #animals #comedy #comedywildlifephotoawards #finalists #gallery #humor #wildlife

Photographer Captures the Beauty of China’s Landscapes with a Drone

Photographer Florian Delalee has been exploring and sharing the beauty of China's landscapes from the air using a camera drone. His aerial photos feature a dazzling diversity in colors and textures seen across the world's 3rd largest country.

Delalee first got into photography at the age of 21 when he was sent by his employer from France to Shanghai, China. It was then that he decided to buy a DSLR camera and explore Asia during his free time.

Having now lived in China since 2010, Delalee has spent the past decade crisscrossing Asia, escaping from his professional industrial world to walk off the beaten path for photographic experiences.

"Every time, I try to improve my compositions and plays of light, notably at sunrise and sunset," Delalee tells PetaPixel. "I am very fond of National Geographic reportages and their ability to 'inspire globetrotters to continue to explore further,' directly echoing my own photography practice."

Delalee's aerial work these days is shot with a DJI Mavic Air 2, which he carries with his camera and lenses on hikes.

As countries tightened their borders during the COVID-19 pandemic, Delalee found himself forced to explore remote regions of China instead of traveling more widely abroad.

"With COVID-19 closing borders from many countries, I have no choice but to stay in China for professional reasons and travel extensively in remote places during the holidays," the photographer says.

His trips have taken him to the Great Wall, rice terrace fields, lakes, red forests, and more. Locations visited so far include Xinjiang, Tibet, Sichuan, Yunnan, Jiangxi, Beijing, Guangxi, Anhui, Gansu, and Inner Mongolia.

You can find more of Delalee's work on his website, Behance, and Instagram. Some of his work is also available at YellowKorner through a network of nearly 80 fine art galleries around the world.

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Image credits: Photographs by Florian Delalee and used with permission

#features #aerial #china #djimavicair2 #drone #floriandelalee #landscapes

Beautiful New Species of Jellyfish Photographed 2,300 Feet Under the Sea

As part of a 2021 North Atlantic Stepping Stones expedition, what is called a potentially "unknown" or "undescribed" red jellyfish in the genus Poralia was captured on camera. The disk-shaped red jellyfish was found floating nearly 2,300 feet below the surface.

An "undescribed" species is the term scientists use to classify a creature that has never received a specific name in a formal scientific publication and is, therefore, previously unknown to scientists.

Quinn Girasek, an intern and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Hollings Scholar with the NOAA Ocean Exploration organization describes the find as part of her role annotating the water column dive that took place in late July.

"As a Hollings intern, I am conducting research to further our understanding of previously unexplored ocean habitats," she explains. "My project this summer focuses on the abundance of organisms within the mesopelagic, or twilight zone (200 to 1,000 meters/ 656 to 3,281 feet depth) in the Atlantic Ocean around the Gulf Stream and within the deep scattering layer."

The red jellyfish is one of the species that Girasek cataloged as part of her research. This beautiful red creature in the genus Poralia is described as one that may be a previously unknown species and was seen during the third transect of Dive 20 of the 2021 North Atlantic Stepping Stones expedition, at a depth of 700 meters (2,297 feet).

<https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/08/ex2104-dive20-redjelly-640x360-1.mp4>

"Overall, a variety of animals were seen, like ctenophores, cnidarians, crustaceans, and Actinopterygii (ray-finned fishes). We also saw several undescribed families and potential new species," she continues.

In the image below, the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Deep Discoverer is shown collecting the potentially new species of jellyfish, which also gives a sense of scale to the creature. For reference, the ROV is 10 feet long, 6.5 feet wide, and 8.5 feet tall.

A total of four samples were collected during Dive 20 of the 2021 North Atlantic Stepping Stones expedition using the suction sample on remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Deep Discoverer. Here, Global Foundation for Ocean Exploration ROV pilots deftly maneuver to collect a potential new species of jellyfish during the 1200-meter (3,937-foot) dive transect.

Deep Discoverer is capable of diving to a depth of 3.7 miles (6,000 meters) and can capture high-definition video and uses a set of 20 LED lights to fire 150,000 lumens of light into the darkness of the ocean's depths.

The final dive of the 2021 North Atlantic Stepping Stones expedition was dedicated to the exploration of the water column within Hydrographer Canyon through two series of transects. The first series involved transects at depths of 300, 500, 700, and 900 meters (984, 1,640, 2,297, and 2,953 feet) and the second series started with a transect within the bathypelagic or midnight zone of the ocean at 1,200 meters (3,937 feet) depth and was followed by a transect at a depth of 630 meters (2,067 feet), within the area’s "deep scattering layer" (DSL). The DSL is a region in the water column where there is such a high density of marine organisms that they generate their own sonar signal.

The "deep scattering layer" is a term used by those using active acoustics in the open ocean as a phenomenon that occurs between about 400 and 600 meters (1,312 to 1,969 feet) depth in our geographic region of study. As described by NOAA Hollings Undergraduate Scholar Herbert Leavitt, typically this layer is seen when the sound waves come into contact with a high density of mesopelagic fish or other organisms that live at depth during the day and migrate towards the surface at night to feed.

Many other creatures were observed during the expedition, and while the red jellyfish is the only one that is called out as "undescribed" or undiscovered, there are a host of others that can be seen in detail in images and video from the NOAA.

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_Image and video credits: Video and images courtesy of NOAA Ocean Exploration, 2021 North Atlantic Stepping Stones: New England and Corner Rise Seamounts. _

#features #news #atlanticocean #deep #deepsea #discovered #dive #gulfstream #jellyfish #nationaloceanicandatmosphericadministration #newdiscovery #newspecies #noaa #ocean

Eye-Opening Photos Show How Plastic Waste is Polluting Our Planet

The UN has a new online photo exhibition titled Plastic is Forever. Captured by photographers from around the world, the stark images reveal how mankind's use of plastic has impacted the daily lives and environments of people and animals across the globe.

Crying girl beside the house, Malaysia. This girl is growing up in a squatter settlement around Sabah, Malaysia. Garbage piles collected in several such areas are estimated to amount to 216,000 kilograms per month. Photo ©BRS / Fakir Mohamad bin Md. Nor (Malaysia)

"Plastic waste can take anywhere from 20 to 500 years to decompose, and even then, it never fully disappears; it just gets smaller and smaller," the exhibition states.

Manta ray plastic soup, Indonesia. A filter-feeding manta ray attempts to eat amidst the plastic in Bali's Nusa Penida. Recent research has shown that these manta rays ingest as much as 137 pieces of plastic an hour, which exposes their population to unknown long-term risks. Photo ©BRS / Vincent Kneefel (The Netherlands)

Of the 8.3 billion tons of plastic that has ever been made, half of it was produced in just the last 13 years.

"Microplastics in particular have been found in every corner of the globe, from the peak of Mount Everest to the trough of the Mariana Trench," the UN writes. "In fact, it has been estimated that humans ingest a credit card worth of plastic per week!

"Yet of all discarded plastic so far, 12% has been incinerated, only 9% has been recycled, and the remainder has either been disposed of in landfills or released into the environment."

It's the plastic that has been piling up in landfills and littering the natural world that the photos in the new exhibition focus on.

"This year, we asked people from all walks of life around the world to share with us photos that showcase how the indiscriminate use of plastic waste is impacting their daily lives and surroundings," the UN writes. "We are proud to present to you the top-tier entries."

Live with the environment, Bangladesh. These boys spend their days fighting for food and goods. It’s a daily war for them in the depot of Chittagong, Bangladesh. Photo ©BRS / Muhammad Amdad Hossain (Bangladesh) A woman scavenges for survival in a mountain of plastic waste, Pakistan. This woman is collecting and separating plastic bottles according to their type, so she can then sell them to recycling factories in Mandi Bahauddin Punjab, Pakistan. Photo ©BRS / Sufyan Arshad (Pakistan) Aerial view of the Korle Lagoon, choked with single-use plastic, Ghana. Major drainage systems in Accra, Ghana's capital city, empty single-use plastic waste into the ocean through the Korle Lagoon. The urban poor sometimes swim in it to recover recyclable material. Photo ©BRS / Muntaka Chasant (Ghana) Beach on fire, Indonesia. This local beach in Java, Indonesia, has become an illegal dumpsite for plastic waste. One of the residents can be seen burning the plastic, so it doesn’t enter her house at high tide. Photo ©BRS / Vincent Kneefel (The Netherlands) Bon appétit, Adriatic Sea. Trash heaps near the Adriatic Sea where the Bura wind spreads plastic waste onto the grazing fields. Photo ©BRS / Goran Dorić (Croatia) Chelonia Mydas comes up for a breath amongst debris, Brazil. A young sea turtle is trying to breathe in a puddle of water filled with plastic in Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Photo ©BRS / Heidi Acampora (Brazil) Falling asleep, Bangladesh. A large number of homeless people in Dhaka, Bangladesh have lost their property due to natural disasters. For them, an asphalt street is the best they can hope for, otherwise they have to sleep on plastic trash. Photo ©BRS / Muhammad Amdad Hossain (Bangladesh) Ghost jelly, Indonesia. On the reef of a small coastal village in the Indonesian Banggai Archipelago, the villagers are doing their best to fight against plastic pollution. Plastic bags like this one represent a hollow deceit for animals that prey on jellyfish, such as sea turtles. Photo ©BRS / Shannon Switzer Swanson (The United States of America) Nature message in a bottle, Lithuania. Ever since ancient times, Lithuanian forests have been a place of tranquillity. Now nature is sending us a message, sadly in a plastic bottle. Photo ©BRS / Jurgita Šukienė (Lithuania) Plastic river, Bangladesh. Once an important commercial waterway, the Buriganga river in the southwest outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, has now turned into a plastic river. Photo ©BRS / Shahriar Hossain (Bangladesh) Shame, Croatia. Countryside 30 km outside Split, Croatia, after a great storm. Photo ©BRS / Đurđica Milosavljević (Croatia) Survival, Philippines. A youngster takes a swim in a river polluted with plastic and other waste in Bocaue, Philippines. Photo ©BRS / Jophel Botero Ybiosa (Philippines) The plastic in our river, Indonesia. Fishing in the Brantas river of the East Java province, Indonesia, means going through loads of plastic trash, discarded by the residents of thousands of buildings. Photo ©BRS / Fully Syafi Handoko (Indonesia) Two boys, Kenya. The Njoro River flows from the Mau Forest, continuing along several residential areas. By the time it reaches Lake Nakuru, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Kenya, it is filled with plastic. Photo ©BRS / James Wakibia (Kenya)

"Let’s work together to find a sustainable way to co-exist with plastic," the UN writes. "If #PlasticIsForever, then society needs to re-think and re-shape our relationship with this complex, useful and ubiquitous material."

The photographs in this exhibition were selected from winners of The Plastic Waste Partnership photo contest put on by the Basel Convention, the international treaty that's designed to reduce the amount of hazardous waste transferred from developed to less-developed nations. You can find a larger selection of photos in the online exhibition over on the UN website.

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Image credits: Header photograph by ©BRS / Muntaka Chasant. All photographs courtesy the UN.

#culture #features #news #environment #exhibition #landfill #plastic #plasticwaste #pollution #un #waste

European solar under the spotlight: The emergent markets

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Not only will solar be the dominant source of new power generation in Europe by 2025, cementing its position as the third largest market for solar globally, but the continent has placed the asset class at the very heart of its COVID-19 recovery strategy. As part of a week-long special report on PV Tech Premium, Liam Stoker, Edith Hancock and Jules Scully explore the drivers for solar in Europe, the key markets and the challenges that remain. This installment of PV Tech\xe2\x80\x99s European solar special uncovers the emerging markets of Europe\xe2\x80\x99s PV sector, including Poland, Denmark and Greece.
https://www.pv-tech.org/european-solar-under-the-spotlight-the-emergent-markets/
#solar, #europe, #finance, #investment, #articles, #featured, #iea, #features, #european

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Photographer Catches Goose Flying Upside Down

Here's a curious photograph that's turning heads online: a Dutch photographer managed to catch this goose flying with its body upside down and its head right-side up.

Amateur photographer Vincent Cornelissen was shooting wildlife back in March near the town of Arnhem in The Netherlands when he noticed the goose flying strangely in the choppy weather.

"The weather was bad, so I put on my waterproofs and sat with my back against a tree looking over a lake," Cornelissen tells KJZZ. "I saw that one of the three had trouble flying in a straight line. He was having a hard time which I thought was because of the wind. He seemed to be struggling, so I took some pictures of him.

"I immediately realized that I had captured something special, but at the same time, I was afraid that no one would believe me. The image looked like it was edited in Photoshop."

The bird wasn't flying for a long time upside down -- bird wing aerodynamics wouldn't allow for that. Instead, Cornelissen captured a bird maneuver called whiffling that has been observed in several bird species.

It's when a bird rapidly descends to the ground in a zig-zag flight path, sometimes briefly turning its body upside down and using its wing aerodynamics to accelerate its journey.

"As a mechanical engineer who learned Bernoulli's theorem and aerodynamics, I could easily understand why this goose turned down against strong wind for landing," mechanical engineer Alpay Lök tells Cornelissen on Instagram. "Because the wings have the [aerofoil] shape, it was creating lifting force. But when it turned down, [it] created down force, same way spoilers of F1 cars. This picture will be very useful for the engineering students."

The acrobatic maneuver resembles a falling leaf, and birds may use it to land faster or to avoid predators in mid-air. But there may be another reason why birds whiffle: to show off.

"Once young geese have mastered flying, they start to see what is possible and how far they can go," Dutch wildlife photographer and conservationist Lars Soerink tells KJZZ. "They [could] do it to brag to their peers. Like, look at me!”

You can find more of Cornelissen wildlife and nature photography on his Instagram.

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Image credits: Photograph by Vincent Cornelissen and used with permission

#features #news #bird #bizarre #caughtoncamera #goose #strange #vincentcornelissen #whiffle #whiffling #wildlife

Hubble Captures ‘Gravitational Tug-of-War’ Between Three Galaxies

NASA has published a spectacular image that was photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope that shows what the space organization describes as a three-way tug-of-war between interacting galaxies.

Hubble captured the dramatic triplet of galaxies -- which is known as Arp 195 -- and is featured in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, which is a list that shows some of the stranger and weirder, though no less wonderful, galaxies in the universe.

That Atlas was written by Halton Arp and published by the California Institute of Technology in 1966 and contains a total of 338 galaxies. The entire purpose of the Atlas was to show photographs of different kinds of odd or unusual structures found in galaxies in the universe. While there are many photos of unique galaxies found in that Atlas, this latest photo shows Arp 195, which is located in the Lynx constellation about 747 million light-years from Earth.

Hubble's back! 🎉

After the Hubble team successfully turned on backup hardware aboard the telescope, the observatory got back to work over the weekend and took these galaxy snapshots.

Find out more here: https://t.co/2mWwSGyIKc pic.twitter.com/Y6tVQWrjig

-- Hubble (@NASAHubble) July 19, 2021

Hubble's team originally posted the black and white version of the photo on July 19 which was featured as part of the celebration of the satellite's return to full functionality after it went offline for over a month due to a software error. On June 13, 2021, Hubble went offline due to a glitch in its payload computer and NASA's team spent weeks attempting to fix it. The error almost took down the legendary satellite for good, but scientists were able to bring Hubble back from the brink on July 16.

Observing time with Hubble is extremely valuable, so astronomers don't want to waste a second. The schedule for Hubble observations is calculated using a computer algorithm which allows the spacecraft to occasionally gather bonus snapshots of data between longer observations. This image of the clashing triplet of galaxies in Arp 195 is one such snapshot. Extra observations such as these do more than provide spectacular images – they also help to identify promising targets to follow up with using telescopes such as the upcoming NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope.

Galactic siblings fight, too.

This #HubbleFriday view shows a triplet of galaxies, called Arp 195, caught in a gravitational tug-of-war game.

It’s featured in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, which showcases some of the weirder galaxies in the universe: https://t.co/3hYBoCsc66 pic.twitter.com/SDSHazfgYc

-- Hubble (@NASAHubble) July 30, 2021

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Image credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Dalcanton

#culture #features #news #astrophotography #caltech #esa #galaxies #hubble #hubblespacetelescope #hubbletelescope #nasa #peculiargalaxies #space #universe #unusual

Photographer Spots Owl Perfectly Blending Into a Tree

A photographer was hunting for a great grey owl to photograph in a Canadian forest when he happened to come across one that was perfectly blending into the bark of a tree with impressive camouflage.

James S. Batuigas, a 45-year-old amateur photographer based in Burnaby, Canada, was driving 5 hours to his favorite wildlife photography area in a British Columbia forest back in May when he encountered the owl.

"I was planning to look for the great grey owl that day," Batuigas tells the UK newspaper Daily Mail. "I was driving on a forest road searching for the great grey owls, scanning every tree hoping to find one during noontime, where they're usually resting.

"Then suddenly in the corner of my eye I noticed something moving in the tree trunk, that's when I realized it was the owl cunningly blended with the bark of the tree."

The color and pattern of the owl's plumage matched the tree it was sitting on so well that the photographer says he would have completely missed seeing the owl there if it hadn't turned its head to look at him.

The great grey owl ( Strix nebulosa ) is the world's largest owl species in terms of length, which can reach 33 inches (84cm). Found across the Northern Hemisphere, the owl can be recognized by the white collar (often called its "bow tie") found under its face.

Read also : Can You Spot the Leopard Cub in This Photo?

"The colors of an owl’s feathers help it blend in with the natural environment and, of course, keep it warm," the Owl Research Institute writes. "Feather colors are not the only things that help camouflage owls. They have other tricks to conceal themselves.

"Many stand tall and pull their feathers in tightly, making the owls skinnier and harder to see. When trying to conceal themselves, owls raise the whitish feathers surrounding the bill."

Owls' impressive powers of camouflaging allow it to stay hidden from both prey and eager wildlife photographers.

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Image credits: Photographs by James S. Batuigas and used with permission

#features #news #animal #blended #camouflage #hidden #jamesbatuigas #nature #owl #spotted #wildlife

These Photo Represent the Seven Base Quantities of Physics

The International System of Quantities defines seven base quantities in physics: length, mass, time, electric current, thermodynamic temperature, amount of substance, and luminous intensity. For his project Base Quantities , photographer Greg White set out to shoot 7 photos representing these 7 fundamental quantities.

White, based in London, came up with beautiful minimalist ways to convey each of the quantities.

"Captured entirely in camera, this project playfully visualizes using creative photographic techniques the seven base quantities," White writes.

White says he was inspired by the work of the late American photographer Berenice Abbott, who's known for shooting photos depicting scientific concepts in the 1940s to 1960s.

"We live in a world made by science," Abbott wrote in her April 1939 manifesto titled Photography and Science. "There needs to be a friendly interpreter between science and the layman. I believe photography can be this spokesman, as no other form of expression can be."

Length. "Length is a measure of distance. In the International System of Quantities, length is a quantity with dimension distance. Length is commonly understood to mean the most extended dimension of a fixed object. However, this is not always the case and may depend on the position the object is in." Mass. "Mass is both a property of a physical body and a measure of its resistance to acceleration (a change in its state of motion) when a net force is applied. An object's mass also determines the strength of its gravitational attraction to other bodies." Time. "Time is the indefinite continued progress of existence and events that occur in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future." Electric Current. "An electric current is a flow of electric charge in a circuit. More specifically, the electric current is the rate of charge flow past a given point in an electric circuit." Thermodynamic Temperature. "Thermodynamic temperature is defined by the third law of thermodynamics in which the theoretically lowest temperature is the zero point. At this point, absolute zero, the particle constituents of matter have minimal motion and can become no colder." Amount of Substance. "Amount of substance is a measure of the size of an ensemble of elementary entities, like a collection of atoms, molecules or other particles." Luminous Intensity. "Luminous intensity is a measure of the wavelength-weighted power emitted by a light source in a particular direction per unit solid angle, based on the luminosity function, a standardized model of the sensitivity of the human eye."

"I wanted the images to only show something through a technique, so for instance without the motion of an object it would appear completely different or without the strobe again it would be different and not be representational of the concept," White tells Colossal. "A lot of the techniques involved (the) motion of an object captured over a long exposure. Some additionally have a strobe effect during the long exposure, others use multiple exposures while shifting the lens for instance, or simply incorporating simple props/fx to distort or reveal a notion."

You can find more of White's work on his website and Instagram.

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Image credits: Photographs by Greg White and used with permission

#features #abstract #basequantities #gregwhite #minimalist #physics #project #science #series #visualization

These Astrophotographs Were All Shot with Smartphones

If you’d asked me 5 years ago if I thought a smartphone would ever be able to capture a decent image of the Milky Way my answer would have been a resounding no. With tiny sensors and small lenses that aren’t capable of guiding much light onto the sensor there’s no way they’re ever going to be much use in such low-light conditions, right? Well, ask me the same question today and my answer would be a lot different.

By using techniques such as stacking multiple images for noise reduction, or using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the image's look, smartphones are becoming scarily capable of producing decent astrophotographs.

I asked my followers on Instagram to send in their smartphone astrophotography and I was blown away!

Google Pixel Astrophotography Mode

The Milky Way core captured with a Pixel 4a astrophotography mode. Cornwall, UK. @ayers949 The open star cluster Pleiades (M45) above the Brecon Beacons, Wales. Pixel 4XL. Alyn Wallace

Let’s first take a look at the Google Pixel line which has a built-in astrophotography mode. It’s a bit hidden away in the GCam app. You first have to go into Night Sight mode and then your smartphone has to be on a tripod, or by some other means perfectly still, and then it will automatically suggest that you try astrophotography mode.

There are no options for manual control, you just press the shutter button and then a timer starts. At maximum, it will be 4-minutes long, but maybe shorter if you’re not in such a dark environment. The smartphone then captures multiple 15-second exposures and stacks them to create an average, which removes a lot of the noise. As the noise is random in each exposure, creating an average will remove the noise, and the scene that remains constant throughout shines through. The final edit of the image is then applied by AI which Google has trained by making it assess thousands of astrophotographs captured by professional cameras.

The resulting image is a pretty clean, decent-looking astrophotograph. What’s more impressive is that in order to do the stacking process the software is stacking the foreground first, separating the sky and aligning the stars in each frame before stacking those and blending the result back onto the foreground.

Whilst it doesn’t offer much creative control, it’s certainly a really accessible way for beginners to try astrophotography. All you have to do is put the smartphone on a tripod, press the shutter button and wait.

Manually Stacking

Unfortunately, no other smartphone offers automatic stacking but there are apps that allow you to do the stacking process yourself. For Windows users the best option is Sequator and for Mac users the best option is Starry Landscape Stacker. Most smartphones come with a “Pro Mode” in the camera app that allows you to capture RAW files, so all you need to do is capture multiple images, the more the better, and stack them yourself. The examples below are a testament to the results you can achieve with this method.

Xiaomi Mi9T. 470 exposures (15secs, ISO6400) collected over 3 nights. Stacked in PixInsight. São Paulo, Brazil. @lucasgoncalvesmiranda Xiaomi Mi10T. Milky Way above Gökçeova, Turkey. 6-exposures stacked. Okan Bozat.

Panoramas

Doing panoramas is a great simple technique to improve your astrophotographs. It results in an image with higher resolution that appears to have less noise as the grain becomes smaller relative to the overall size of the image. To take things a step further, you can stack multiple images for each frame of the panorama and end up with a high-resolution image with even less noise.

Stitching a panorama in PTGui. Each frame was a stacking of 5-exposures captured on a Huawei P40 Pro. Uruguay. @astropolo_ The resulting panorama is highly detailed and pretty noise free. Huawei P40 Pro. Uruguay. @astropolo_

Use a Star Tracker

Mounting your smartphone to a star tracker will allow you to take longer exposures before the stars begin to trail. It’s just a shame that most smartphones will max out at 30 seconds. Stacking tracked images is the best way to produce clean images and unveil faint details in astrophotography.

The Milky Way core captured on a Huawei P30 Pro with a home-made barn door star tracker. 60 x 30 seconds, ISO3200, f/1.6. Nico Carver The Milky Way rising above a road in Chile. Xiaomi Mi Note 10 phone, f/1.7, ISO3200, 32 sec x 8 (tracked) + ground (untracked). Yuri Beletsky The Milky Way above Inceğiz Kanyonu, Turkey. Xiaomi Mi10T. 20 x 30″ f/1.7 ISO 3200. Sky tracked with a Move Shoot Move Star Tracker. Okan Bozat

Note : You can use code ALYN for 5% off the Move Shoot Move Star Tracker.

Shoot Through a Telescope

While it may be an expensive upgrade to your smartphone camera, taking photographs through the eyepiece of a telescope is a great way of capturing the Moon and planets.

Lunar Eclipse, Saturn, Mars and Juptier captured with an iPhone 6 through an 8-inch Dobsonian telescope. Louisiana, USA. @logansoileau Orion Nebula and Mercury transiting the Sun captured with an iPhone SE through a Celestron 130slt. @Southern_astrophotographer

Deep Space Without a Telescope

Even if you don’t have a telescope you can still do some pretty incredible things by using the zoom lenses in some smartphones and utilizing the stacking technique to improve image quality.

Andromeda galaxy captured using the zoom on a Huawei Mate 20 Pro. 150 exposures stacked. Almatsum Almaadi A partial solar eclipse captured using the zoom on a Xiaomi RealMe XT. Jashandeep Singh

Moon Mode with Huawei Phones

If you’re using 10x zoom on a Huawei phone aimed at the Moon it will automatically detect that you’re taking a photo of the Moon and automatically recommend “Moon mode”. Then when you capture your image it uses AI to improve the surface detail.

This mode only works if the Moon is at least half full and you need to have a clear view with no clouds. The results are pretty impressive but you have to ask if it’s a gimmick. I mean, how many photographs of the Moon are you going to take?

Captured with “Moon mode” on a Huawei P30 Pro. @dakri_und_wer_bist_du Captured with “Moon mode” on a Huawei P30 Pro. (C) VIs Pat

Star Trails

I was also sent a number of impressive star trails. iPhone users were using the app NightCap whereas those on Android were using either Star Trails or Light Trails. Another technique is to use an intervalometer app which basically presses an area of your screen at a set interval, so you program it to press the shutter button of your camera app every 30 seconds, for example, and then manually stack the images in a program like StarStax. I have a full tutorial on YouTube about “How to Create Stunning Star Trails”.

Star trails around the southern pole. Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro phone, f/1.7, ISO1600, 10 sec sequence (1-hour total). Yuri Beletsky Captured with the Star Trails android app. (C) Pata Nahi Star trails and fireflies captured with the “Comet Mode” on the Light Trails android app using a Redmi Note 7 Pro. @Genda_fool

Night Sky Wonders

Milky Way aside I was also sent an impressive mix of different night sky subjects. It’s so awesome to see people using smartphones to capture such a range of different night sky phenomena.

Comet NEOWISE above the Brecon Beacons, Wales, captured on a Xiaomi Mi8. @adamtattonreid Noctilucent clouds above Dublin captured on a Samsung Galaxy S20. @roman1e2f5p8s Aurora captured on a Huawei P30 Pro. @zenderfull Lightning as Volcano Taal was erupting in the Philippines captured by @eugeneappleseed on an iPhone 11

Summary

While I’m still confident that smartphones will never catch up to professional cameras and lenses, the progress made over the past 5 years is seriously impressive. I’m interested to see just how much the AI can improve and whether more brands will adopt the stacking method like we see in the Google Pixel’s GCam app.

I do love how smartphones are providing an accessible way for beginners to try out astrophotography. I imagine a lot of people who photographed comet NEOWISE last year with their smartphones have gone on to purchase their first professional camera and have a go at astrophotography.

Finally, a huge thank you to all of my followers who submitted images. You have blown me away!

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About the author : Alyn Wallace is a landscape astrophotographer based in South Wales, UK. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can find more of Wallace's work on his website, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. This article was also published here.

#educational #features #alynwallance #astrophotographs #astrophotography #galaxy #gallery #nightsky #phone #smartphone #stars #startrails

Photos of the Sulfur Miners at the Ijen Volcano in Indonesia

Every day hundreds of men climb the 9,000 feet to the summit of Mount Ijen located in Sulawesi, Indonesia and then trek 3,000 feet down into the crater to break slabs of sulfur. Each load of sulfur is around 100-135 pounds, which is the approximate total body weight of the miners.

Many of these men do not wear gas masks and carry their loads of sulfur up a steep volcano wearing sandals versus shoes. Through a translator, many of the workers told me that they have health and respiratory issues as well as back deformities while only earning the equivalent of $5 to $10 U.S. dollars a day.

I met an old man in his 70s that earned $5 for a day’s salary of back-breaking work. I encountered a young man in his 20s who had a bandage wrapped around his head due to a fallen rock that fractured his skull. These are just a few of the stories that inhabit Mount Ijen and the resiliency of spirit that I encountered.

I spent close to two weeks photographing the sulfur miners after being inspired by photographers like James Nachtwey and Sebastião Salgado who have also been to the same hallowed grounds documenting the human condition.

As a mental health therapist, I realize that growth happens when we put ourselves into uncomfortable situations and run towards the things that we fear the most. This is the reason why I wanted to travel to this far away place and spend the time to truly see this part of the world that I have only experienced through the lens of other photographers that I have admired.

A typical day would begin leaving in the middle of the night to get to the mountain a little before sunrise. At that point, I would stay for the majority of the day photographing the people long after the tourists have left.

Even though I wore a gas mask, the sulfur burned through my lungs and I was coughing the majority of the time. I can not imagine someone spending year after year inhaling that toxic gas and the damage it does to one’s health after years of abuse.

What new can be said that hasn’t already been said before about the people of Mount Ijen? It has been covered a lot by photographers better than I. I live in a country that is extremely divided among multiple facets: America. However, if there is one truth that I have learned throughout my travels is that despite our religious, economic, and racial differences, we are more alike than we are different.

This is evident when I was told that the worse fear that these men go through is that their children would end up doing the same laborious work as them. All parents want their children to live better lives than them, especially coming from an immigrant background. We all want some semblance of dignity to hold onto.

It’s a very simple idea, but I hope my images can somehow express that love transcends the differences in our lives and can actually bring us closer together than divide. I believe in the power of images. As I get a little bit older it may be too naive to think photography can catalyze “change” but perhaps it can encourage a little bit of empathy.

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About the author : Wesley Du is a visual journalist documenting the human condition. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can find more of Du's work on his website, Facebook, and Instagram.

#features #documentary #ijen #indonesia #photoessay #sulfur #volcano #wesleydu

Macro Photos of Plant Growths Caused by Tiny Wasps

Photographer Timothy Boomer captures beautiful macro photographs of plant galls, which are growths that form in response to some outside stimulus. For his work, Boomer focuses on growths caused by the tiny gall wasp.

Boomer is a natural history photographer based in Northern California who has a special interest in California's smaller flora and fauna.

"The fancy title on my business card says 'natural history photographer,' but really I'm just a guy who loves nature and who uses a camera to

explore and share its beauty with others," Boomer tells PetaPixel. "I aim to show people things they otherwise wouldn't see - sometimes that's an obscure species they'd never heard of, and other times it's a highly magnified view of a commonplace subject which puts it into a new perspective."

Plant galls certainly qualify as a subject most people have probably never heard of or seen up close, so Boomer gets close to show the world all their beautiful colors, patterns, and intricate details.

"There are fungi, arachnids, and many insects that induce plant galls, but I personally focus on those caused by tiny cynipid wasps, as their homes tend to be the most beautiful and whimsical," Boomer says.

Cynipid gall wasps are tiny, sometimes measuring just a single millimeter in size. When an adult gall wasp lays an egg in a plant, the plant responds by growing new tissues to surround the egg. The process speeds up once the egg hatches and the larva begins eating the plant, and soon a gall has developed on the surface that both protects and nourishes the developing insect.

These growths "generally only cause cosmetic damage to the host plant," Colossal notes.

"Since most galls are quite small, I use specialized macro equipment to capture their intricate details, generally between 1x and 5x lifesize on a full frame sensor," Boomer says. "Depth-of-field is extremely shallow at these magnifications, so I stack focus whenever possible.

"A series of images are captured with small, incremental focus shifts between exposures, and the sharpest portions of each frame are later combined into a single picture using specialized computer software (I prefer Helicon). Most of my newer gall photos are composites of several dozen exposures and represent hours of processing."

You can find more of Boomer's beautiful work on his website and Instagram.

#features #cynipidwasp #galls #gallwasp #insect #macro #nature #plantgall #timothyboomer #wasp #wildlife

Photos of Bees, Our Helpful Insect

As you all know, bees help us put food on the table. Their pollination of California almonds alone has been valued at a billion dollars. They have also become my favorite photographic subject. I wrote about this last September.

In this article, I'd like to present a portfolio of some newer bee photos and comments about the bees and the process of photographing them.

In September I wrote about shooting with my Sony a6400 APS-C camera. I've gradually transitioned to my Sony a7R IV full frame. Both cameras have very similar pixel density and produce similar final results. I typically crop about 1500 pixel wide images from the center of any frame, so the final edits are about equal for both formats. But I've come to prefer the full frame camera because finding is easier with the greater field of view for any given lens.

The a7R IV is the only full frame camera that matches APS-C pixel density, so given a choice between APS-C and any other full frame camera, I'd choose APS-C.

My favorite lenses are a Tamron 28-200mm f/2.8-5.6 Di III RXD on a 10mm extension tube and a Sigma 105mm f/2.8 DG DN ART Macro.

In September I was shooting at f/16 to f/22. I've since discovered that my camera autofocus works in different ways:

1. For f/11 and larger apertures, the lens opens for focus, then stops down for the exposure.

2. For smaller apertures than f/11, it focuses and exposes at the set aperture.

Method 1 delivers more sharp keepers than method 2. So now I shoot at f/11.

Another improvement in my technique is shutter speed. Using my standard aperture- preferred "mode A", the fastest shutter speed with flash was 1/160 or 1/60. But I found that a simple way to speed the shutter is to set the camera mode to Manual and the shutter to 1/250. (I've tried faster than 1/250 with spotty results). I set the ISO to the lowest available (50), and the aperture, as mentioned above, is f11. This is about ten percent or less of the necessary exposure, so about 90% of the light is provided by the flash in TTL mode. The flash duration of 1/10,000s freezes most action except for the bee's very fast wings.

But enough of technique, on to the portfolio.

Honey Bees

Western Honey Bees (often called European Honey Bees) live in large hives of more than 10K individuals. This hive is wild, and in an old pepper tree near my home.

Hive – outside. Hive – inside. I illuminated the cavity with a powerful flashlight to focus. Then added flash for the exposure. A Western Honey Bee with his mandibles (jaws) open and tongue out. Some are gray colored. Note her white neck. I've seen this neck on all types of bees. Another view of a bee's neck. Open mandibles and extended tongue Western Honey Bees are cultivated for pollination. Professional bee keepers bring hives to orchards or fields and leave them while the bees work. A rare lucky shot, on-the-wing and in-focus.

Wild Bees

Wild bees are important pollinators. Many live alone or in small groups. The larger bees are called bumblebees.

Large, smooth black bumblebees are Carpenter Bees. They live alone or in small groups in cavities in wood. They can adopt existing holes, or chew their own. People put "Bee Blocks" in their yards. Any piece of wood with drilled holes. This variety of pollen is structured like tiny doughnuts. These beauties are named Wool Carders. They scrape fuzz from leaves, creating "wool" to line their nests.

Wasps can be quite beautiful. I see them while photographing bees.

That's all for now. I hope you've enjoyed viewing our insect friends. Please treat them well. They help our food to grow.

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About the author : Alan Adler lives in Los Altos, California. He has been an avid photographer for 60 years. He is also a well-known inventor with about 40 patents. His best-known inventions are the Aerobie flying ring and the AeroPress coffee maker.

#features #inspiration #tips #alanadler #bee #howto #insects #wildlife

Goecha La: The Himalayan Trek in India to the Third Highest Peak

The Dzongri - Goecha La trek takes you to the base camp of the third highest mountain peak in the world, Mount Kanchenjunga. This trek lies in the western side of the Indian state of Sikkim, which lies in the eastern part of the country just adjacent to Nepal.

The trek starts from Yuksom, which means the meeting of three Lamas. Situated at an altitude of 5,800 feet (~1,767m), Yuksom lies in the southern fridges of Mount Kanchenjunga.

Yuksom

The trek takes you to places like Sachen, which is covered by full coniferous forests and gives you a feel of the rainforests of the mountains.

Toward Sacen. The Goeche La trek follows the river PREK-CHU that originates from the Samiti lake and meets the Rathong Chu at Sachen.

There are a few pockets or windows that are really astounding because they show the sunset. The place called Tshoka is one of the most wonderful Himalayas hamlets, and there is a trekkers hut on site. The place has a beautiful view of the snow-clad peaks.

Whatever I say about this place, it would never be enough. It has all the beauty a Himalayan place should have. Starting high snow-clad peaks, structured clouds, valleys, flowers, and last but not the least wild horses.

Moving forward what you see is something that extremely rare sight one can behold.

Each trail section in the Himalayas is famous for its uniqueness, and there is hardly any trail that does not have beauty. But there are a handful of parts in each and every trek that has a "wow" factor.

Only if you are walking alone in this path you get to feel the real chill and the hear the most unheard sounds of the forest.

Morning at Tshoka.

The trail from Tshoka to Phedang, even though it's damn hard, is one of the few trails in India that has wooden logs embedded deep into the paths. Coupled with red rhododendrons, blue Himalayan meconopsis, and mist, the lands are truly divine.

Goddess of outward journeys. The downward trail from Phedang is covered with high rising magnolia forest.

The trail from Phedang to Dzongri will give you chills if you are going around alone. The entire area is covered by snow and blowing winds will literally make you feel like someone is standing or following you.

Once you enter the trail for Dzongri, after a little hike you get to see what might not expect. The beauty of chaos - created by the rhododendrons. It is trees all over, its branches and creepers falling all over from the top. In between that chaos you get to see the little red flowers that will simply blow your mind. After hiking the toughest part of the trek viz. from Tshoka to Dzongri we were all gasping for a breath.

The next that blows you off is Dzongri. The best part about this place is that when it snows it's all white and when it's not snowing it's all red and brown. This place gives you chills during the night as the mercury touches -20 during the nights but warms you up with crystal clear skies and the clearest view of stars if you are lucky enough.

The best part about this place is that when its snows its all white and when its not snowing its all red and brown. This is a panorama from the top of Dzongri.

Coming down from Dzongri it was all white as it was snowing for the last two days.

With the sunrise at Dzongri, you will be seeing giants that are beyond the scope of scale. You will be literally standing at the base of the highest peaks of the world.

Most of the peaks stand above 6,000 meters and it's only an experience of a lifetime. The next steps take you to the place called Goecha La, which is basically the base camp of Mt. Kanchenjunga if anyone wants to scale up the mountain from the Indian side.

The entire range starting from Mt. Pandim to Mt. Kanchenjunga is visible from here and knocks anyone off his/her feet.

4am in the morning we started to climb for the GoecheLa top and reached there by 5:30, just see the entire surrounding full of storm clouds - dark, heavy and fast moving.

I hope you enjoyed seeing the beauty of the Indian side of the Himalayas.

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About the author : Tanay Das is an amateur fine art landscape photographer based in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can find more of Das' work on his Facebook and Instagram.

#features #travel #goechala #himalayas #india #landscape #tanaydas #trek

Stunning Macro Photos Shot Within the Unique World of Vernal Pools

A conservation photographer has documented the unique biodiversity found in the vernal pools of Appalachia and has released a free e-book that shares the result of his years-long passion and provides tips to others who are curious about this type of photography.

Steven David Johnson is a Virginia-based conservation photographer and professor who has been published across multiple magainzes such as Nature Conservancy Magazine, Virginia Wildlife, Orion, and others. Johnson has a lifelong dedication to documenting the natural world and is the Vice President of the Virginia Wilderness Committee and an Affiliate of the International League of Conservation Photographers.

Growing up in rural western New York state, Johnson was surrounded by forests, ponds, and the Genesee River and as a result, newts, toads, and fireflies became a regular part of his childhood exploration. His early love for nature grew into the pursuit of an art major with a photo concentration in college and continued through a degree in digital media studies in grad school.

As an adult, Johnson moved to Virginia in 2005 and became a photography teacher at Eastern Mennonite University. He tells PetaPixel that nature photography became a way for him to understand and communicate about his new environment, most notable learning about the central and southern Appalachians, which provide biodiversity hotspots for salamanders -- with more than 50 species in Virginia alone. Johnson says that this fueled his macro photography skills as he learned to document salamanders, frogs, and other -- often hidden -- life forms in the forests. He eventually moved to underwater photography to capture complete life cycles.

The vernal pools of Appalachia -- which is the central stage for Johnson's photography work and the basis of his e-book -- are temporary bodies of water formed from seasonal rains and snowmelt. This environment is ideal for many egg-laying creatures and in late winter and early spring, these pools host breeding events for amphibians and macroinvertebrates.

"There’s a tiny world of beauty and complexity that deserves appreciation and protection," writes Johnson in his e-book.

Although documenting vernal pools life cycles is cyclical -- because the same events happen annually -- each year brings an additional layer of complexity, depth, and new discoveries about behavior.

"It's a dramatic cycle that takes place on a minute scale," explains Johnson.

Johnson's goal is not just to document biodiversity and behavior, but also to "help viewers to experience an emotional connection with the amazing creatures that live in vernal pools," which means getting close with a low perspective using macro and wide-angle lenses.

To capture the fascinating underwater world, Johnson uses two sets of cameras. The first one is Sony Alpha a6500 in a Fantasea underwater housing with Sea&Sea YS-01 strobes and Light and Motion Sola video lights. He uses either a Sony f/2.8 Macro lens or a Sony 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 lens in conjunction with a Nauticam WWL-1 Wet Wide lens.

His other camera setup uses a Sony a7R III in a Seafrogs underwater housing with the same lighting tools along with either Sony FE 50mm F/2.8 Macro lens or a Venus Laowa 25mm f/2.8 2.5-5X Ultra-Macro lens.

Johnson switched to mirrorless cameras in recent years as he says that it is much easier to observe an LCD viewfinder than an optical one when the camera is submerged in water. Although, in deeper pools, it is sometimes necessary to position the camera a couple of feet below the surface, which makes viewing the LCD difficult. At times, Johnson also positions the camera and tries focusing without actually seeing the camera screen.

Shooting late at night -- during winter and early spring -- makes good lighting a necessity. The Sola underwater lights serve as general flashlights for his fieldwork and as focus lights. In addition, he uses one or two underwater strobes attached to an underwater housing for most of his vernal pool stills, although positioning them requires a lot of patience and experimentation.

"I’ll often experiment with lighting setups on action figures at home before heading out into the field," he says. "Yoda and Hammerhead are my standbys."

Although this is his personal choice of equipment, Johnson explains that shouldn't deter beginners. Shallow freshwater environment photography equipment can range from setups as simple as a waterproof phone to a full-blown underwater housing with attached strobes and video lights. Just using a smartphone can be enough for burgeoning photographers to try their hand at documenting underwater life, especially when choosing an app that allows manual focus and even underwater time-lapses. The ability to shoot video on smartphones can be helpful as are add-on lenses that allow macro or wide-angle photography below the surface.

As an experienced professional, Johnson is familiar with health and safety practices. For example, when he descends into deeper water with chest waders, he moves slowly and chooses his steps with care. In order to reduce the possible transmission of disease, he dips his wader boots into a mild bleach solution and scrubs off any mud before traveling between watersheds. Johnson also notes that he avoids using insect repellent because it can impact fragile freshwater environments.

Johnson also says that a reliable GPS is essential since this type of work requires shooting in the dark forests, as is an extra load of batteries for the equipment. To protect himself and his equipment in the case of rain, Johnson dresses in layers and brings a poncho and a camera bag cover. He also started wearing shoulder-length waterproof gloves to extend his working time seeing as early-season vernal pools can make fingers numb.

Regardless of the available equipment a photographer has access to -- whether it is a smartphone, a compact camera, a DSLR, or a mirrorless -- Johnson recommends simply starting by taking photos in their own backyard. Observing the living world that photographers have at their doorstep will provide a good entry to documenting it, such as "jumping spiders ambushing flies inside of flowers, spicebush caterpillars mimicking snakes, and green frogs competing for mates," and more.

In his free e-book, titled "Vernal Pools: Documenting Life in Temporary Ponds," Johnson provides a detailed insight not just into his own findings and the resulting imagery but also practical equipment suggestions, lighting strategies, and general tips on working with this type of environment.

More of Johnson's conservation photography can be viewed on his website and Instagram page.

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Image credits: All images by Steven David Johnson and used with permission.

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Photographer Captures an Incredible Quadruple Microburst

Storm-chasing (and wedding) photographer Mike Olbinski was hunting for crazy weather phenomena to capture at sunset early this month when he was treated to a stunning sight: a quadruple microburst in which four columns of hail and rain were being dumped onto the landscape below.

Olbinski was running a storm-chasing tour on June 1st, with two guests in tow and his friend Brett Wright assisting.

"It was one of those days where the outlook was marginal, meaning no tornado chances, maybe not much of a chance of even a photogenic supercell," Olbinski tells PetaPixel. "On days like that, if I didn't have a tour group, I may have been home in Phoenix. But that's half the reason I do them, so I'm out there for everything, not missing the huge surprises or the moments you aren't expecting."

After failing to find anything photo-worthy in New Mexico, Olbinski and the group were en route to Lubbock, Texas, to watch some basketball, grab some dinner, and rest up for another hunt the next day. But on the way, they kept their eye open for storms on the horizon, and one caught their eye just north of Andrews, Texas.

There was an "awesome wall cloud on it, the towers looked amazing, so we switched back into chase-mode and got on the south side of it, just desperate for something resembling a supercell to shoot at sunset," Olbinski says. "What we got was what felt like total insanity."

As the storm unfolded in front of their eyes and cameras, the photographers' jaws began to drop.

"We found a great elevated area to shoot, the storm was perfectly moving south towards us and just started dropping hail/rain downbursts like crazy," Olbinski says. "First the left edge was dumping, an awesome rain foot kicking up, and the setting sunset colors blasting through it. But then we realized we had two monster downbursts ongoing at the same time and it was incredible!

"However, as things happen fast, it was only a matter of less than a minute when microburst/downdrafts started happening on the right side too, and suddenly we had these four columns of hail/rain dumping right in front of us.

"It was just spectacular in person, with the colors of the storm and the orange/pink tones of the sunset. It was exhilarating."

The above photograph was captured with a Canon R5 mirrorless camera using a Canon 11-24mm f/4 wide-angle lens (with an EF-to-R adapter). Olbinski also captured the storm on video:

"The colors are true to life… even the blues have been desaturated a little, because adding contrast actually made the image way too blue," Olbinski says. "But standing there and after, we all agreed we'd get a lot of skeptics and comments about it looking fake or overprocessed, but it really wasn't. All four of our images of the storms, from a variety of cameras, all looked like this."

Yesterday happened so fast right in front of me, I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. It looked so surreal. Otherworldly. South of Andrews, TX. The Four Pillars of Pain. #txwx #weather pic.twitter.com/zBXBvo029o

-- Brett Wright (@WxMstr) June 2, 2021

"It was one of those moments where I was thankful to be out there chasing and blessed to have an amazingly supportive wife and kids who keep me going," Olbinski says.

You can find more of Olbinski's work on his website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vimeo, and YouTube. PetaPixel 's prior coverage of his photos and videos can be found here.

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The Winners of the PA2F Environmental Photography Awards 2021

Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation (PA2F) has announced the winners of its 2021 Environmental Photography Award, which examines the relationship between people and the environment.

To mark the foundation's 15th anniversary, PA2F launched a new environmental photography award that judged entries in three categories: Incredible Wildlife, Wildlife in Crisis, and Reasons for Hope. The organization explains that "the choice of theme for this first edition is significant, reflecting one of the fundamental lessons to be learned when we come out of the current global crisis: that humankind’s future is closely tied to the future of the species we coexist with on Earth,"

The competition awarded winning, second-placed, and third-placed image winner in each category, as well as awarded a Public Vote winner, and a number of shortlisted images in each category. Also, "The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation Environmental Photographer of the Year 2021" title was awarded based on the strength of a single entry to the awards.

Photographer of the Year 2021

The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation Environmental Photographer of the Year 2021 © Kathleen Ricker / PA2F Environmental Photography Award 2021

The grand prize and "The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation Environmental Photographer of the Year 2021" title was awarded to Kathleen Ricker whose photograph, above, titled, Gorilla by the water, received recognition in the competition. The image depicts a young male gorilla with an endearing expression by the edge of a water stream in Uganda.

The photographer explains that the mountain gorilla is named Tabu, which, in Swahili, means trouble, and was full of energy and life when he was captured swinging from the trees and playing in the water during a trek in Bwindi National Park.

Incredible Wildlife

First place: © Lincoln MacGregor / PA2F Environmental Photography Award 2021

Photographer Lincoln MacGregor was awarded first place with his image, titled Enchanted Forest , taken in Australia. It is a photo of a wombat, wandering through a forest aglow with the light of bioluminescent mushrooms. The photographer explains that wildlife in this region experiences this phenomenon only at certain times of the year when Ghost Fungi glows in the dark.

Wildlife in Crisis

First place: © Maxim Sayapin / PA2F Environmental Photography Award 2021

Titled Traces of life in the realm of death , Maxim Sayapin's image was awarded first place in this category. It shows an abandoned bird nest woven from pieces of garbage on the Mediterranean coast. This powerful image "denounces the imprint of man on nature, undermining a life that is about to be born."

Reasons for Hope

First place: © Emmanuel Rondeau / PA2F Environmental Photography Award 2021

Emmanuel Rondeau was awarded the winning title for his photograph, The stag above the highway , which depicts a wildlife crossing in the Charente-Maritime region of France being used by a stag during nighttime. This type of structure allows animals to freely and safely travel without being interrupted by people and vehicles.

Public Vote

"Incredible Wildlife" Public Vote winner © Mitchell Lewis / PA2F Environmental Photography Award 2021

Hidden from sight , a photograph of a large Red Deer by Mitchell Lewis was awarded a Public Vote title in the Incredible Wildlife category. Taken in Richmond Park, London, United Kingdom, this image shows a stag hidden in some dead ferns as he watches over his herd of females.

"Wildlife in Crisis" Public Vote winner © Maxime Aliaga / PA2F Environmental Photography Award 2021

Maxime Aliaga received the Public Vote title in Wildlife in Crisis category with his thought-provoking photograph, titled Captif , above. It was shot in Malaysia, which is a location where young orangutans are often poached from their mothers and sold as pets on the black market. Although it is illegal to hold a wild animal in domestic captivity, the photographer explains that it still "is a mark of richness for some families to have a young orangutan."

"Reasons for Hope" Public Vote winner © Mathieu Courdesses / PA2F Environmental Photography Award 2021

Public Vote winner title in the Reasons for Hope category was awarded to photographer Mathieu Courdesses with Love in the Jungle. He documented an intimate moment between a female orangutan and her cub, in the jungles of Sumatra. In this region, the orangutan population is estimated at around 14,500, which has seen an increase from past estimated figures.

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The over-arching aim of PA2F is to address critical environmental issues by limiting the effects of climate change, safeguarding biodiversity, managing water resources, and combating desertification, with its mission also present in its photography competition. Judges, consisting of professional photographers and representatives of entities committed to more sustainable development, received over 5,700 entries from photographers across the world. The grand prize winner was awarded €6,000, each of the three category winners received a €1,000 prize, while public vote winners received €500 each.

The full list of judges, category winners, and other finalists can be found on the PA2F Environmental Photographer of the Year 2021 website.

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Image credits: All photos individually credited and provided courtesy of The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation Environmental Photographer of the Year Awards 2021.

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