Tag: Art and Photography

Around the world in pandemic Street Art

Pavel

Throughout the ages, artists have taken their messages to public spaces, from Pompeii’s walls in Roman times to New York City’s subway cars in the 1980s. Driven by the current pandemic and its unique and unusual aesthetic, made of knobby viruses, face masks and messages of solidarity, creatives around the world have continued to express themselves publicly. During lockdown, cities and not only were studded with love for healthcare workers, cynicism for politicians, frustration at the crisis, or simple encouragement. We have collected some of these messages, depicted in street…

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Ravi Hongal, the Indian photograher that has built his house in the shape of a camera

Pavel

Can a passion become almost an obsession? Yes, apparently it is possible, and this Indian man confirms it: he is so fond of photography that he named his three sons after iconic camera brands, Canon, Nikon and Epson, and, if this wasn’t enough, he live on a three-story villa shaped like a giant camera! Probably you hear the phrase “passionate about photography” a lot among photography enthusiasts and among all those who consider themselves (unjustly) photographers only because they hold a camera in their hand, but Ravi Hongal, a 49-year-old…

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“Faces of Century”: the same people photographed as young and centenarians

Pavel

Youth is a phase of life that is (almost) always remembered with happiness and, indeed the period flows quickly, especially if you look with your eyes turned to the past. So many things change when a person ages. Wrinkles, graying hair, are only some examples. But one thing that always stays the same is a person’s identity. In his series, Faces of Century, photographer Jan Langer from Opava, Czech Republic, visually presents the inevitable changes that accompany aging. With 100-year-old Czechs as his muses, he composed of several pairs of…

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A splendid collection of rare color Photos of Paris taken about 100 Years Ago

Robin

For most of us are normal to see historical photographs in black and white, due to the diffusion of monochrome films during the early years of photographic technique. The color images, however, were almost contextual to the invention of photography itself, and it was only the difficulty of creating the supports capable of resuming the different colors that changed over the years, making the spread of colour photograph more and more common. Tired of the endless series of black and white photos that were popular in that days, French banker…

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The “Hidden Mothers”: macabre portraits of children in the Victorian era

Pavel

In a technological age like the one in which we live, characterized by the constant sharing on every social networks of photos and selfies of ever-increasing quality, it is probably difficult to imagine how the world could have been at the origins of photography, in the Victorian age. And not the world of photography in general, or the post-mortem photography we have already talked about, but that of photography that depicted nineteenth-century English children. Have you ever had difficulties trying to get a baby to sit down and pose for…

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Portraits from Bedlam: 17 photographs from one of the most infamous mental hospital of the 19th Century

Pavel

It was called Bethlem Royal Hospital, but it was nicknamed “Bedlam”, London’s famous horror hospital. Founded in 1247, It was the first mental health institution to be set up in Europe, and reaches up to the present day, resulting still active today in the heart of the English capital. Among the most famous treatments are the “rotational” treatments, invented by Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of the most famous Charles, which involved positioning the patient on a chair suspended in the air that was turned for hours, with the declared aim of…

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Far from Civilization: portraits of the Modern Hermits from all over Europe

Pavel

The French photographer Antoine Bruy has embarked on a long hitch-hiking journey across Europe, which lasted from 2010 to 2013, penetrating between the remote mountainous regions not normally reached by the main roads. Bruy first developed the idea for the project after traveling from the north of France to the south of Morocco in 2006. Along the way he met people living in the wilderness who intrigued and fascinated him. Why did they choose to live away from major populations and what philosophies lay behind their lifestyle choices? So In…

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The macabre beheaded portraits of the Victorian era

Danijel90

It’s true: the Victorians beated the internet taking bizarre pictures which show 19th Century Photoshop! My personal opinion: for many graphic designers (I humbly beg your forgiveness, but I can’t defining them photographers) it is not easy to remember the world before Photoshop and digital photo editing. Despite this, probably some people believe that, before the advent of technology, photographs were simple representations of reality at the time of shooting. However, these amusing pictures show how the Victorians were the first to edit photographs to create some rather bizarre images.…

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Tsuneko Sasamoto: the first Japanese Photojournalist who still works at 105 years

Pavel

Tsuneko Sasamoto was born in Tokyo on September 1st 1914. Although photography had been invented the previous century, it was still a not very common practice, mostly a studio work. World War I had begun a little over a month, television was far in the future and some of the inventions that would have characterized the 20th century, such as airplanes, telephones or cars, were in the early stages of dissemination. Tsuneko grows in the Japanese capital, and manages to become the first female photojournalist in her country, shortly before…

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Ariduka55: the japanese illustrator and his world where humans live among giant animals.

Nathan

A super creative mysterious illustrator from Japan, imagines the world like no other. On social media, the artist is known as Ariduka55, or Monokubo, and it seems artist loves cats the most, even if there are a lot of other cuddly animals like pandas, rabbits, raccoons and others, and they are all giant creatures! “A world where you can surrender yourself to sleep on a giant ball of fur is a world where you wouldn’t be able to get any work done. A perfect world.” In this world people are…

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The disturbing Victorian fashion of very long hair in 35 Photos

Pavel

The Victorian era technically spanned from June 20, 1837, until Queen Victoria’s death on January 22, 1901. This was a rather peaceful time in the United Kingdom, a change from the highly rational Georgian period that preceded it. Many people, including myself, are fascinated by this historical era, from the architecture to the etiquette, and right down to the way they dressed and spoke. Photography was also on the rise, and was much more accessible than previous years. Because of this, we have some very beautiful portraits and pictures from…

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25 best photos of working cats!

Nathan

Although this might seems incredible, some cats don’t shy away from getting their paws dirty! And to prove that they got more important things to do than enchanting their human friends with their purrs, below there are some of the best pictures of the most hardworking felines. There have been numerous cats who held real jobs as well. For example, when Empirical Brewery in Chicago noticed that their grain is being eaten by rodents and insects, they started thinking about the best way to solve this problem and decided to…

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Chernobyl Disaster in 33 rare photographs taken at the time

Pavel

On 26 April 1986, a series of explosions destroyed reactor no. 4 of Chernobyl, and several hundred workers, firemen and army men faced a fire that burned for 10 days and spread toxic radiation throughout Europe. We talked about Chernobyl disaster in various articles, also documenting the current state of the area of alienation of the zone (to find out more visit our dedicated section), but less known among those who risked life there were also the many photographers who immortalized moments that will remain unique in the history. Following…

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983 Followers: the spooky mural in an abandoned house in the countryside of Scotland

Leo S

Spanish artist and illustrator Daniel Munoz, aka “SAN”, made a mural in Scotland, where he spent a few days working in an abandoned building somewhere in the Scottish countryside. Entitled “983 Followers”, this beautiful piece of work was painted on concrete using acrylic and brushes, a different way of painting than the traditional spray-cans murals, and it is showing hundreds of monochrome silhouettes giving a rather impressive effect. The mural covers three of four walls of an abandoned building and portrays the images of a large number of men (really…

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Inside Costa Concordia: the photographic book of an Italian drama.

Nathan

These extraordinary images of the cruise ship was taken by Jonathan Danko Kielkowski and published in his book Concordia. The German photographer swam out to where the ship, which ran aground off Tuscany in 2012 with the loss of 32 lives, was moored. The photographs of the interior of the Costa Concordia depict a drama almost always observed only from the outside, a tragedy that we have only imagined for what may have happened between those corridors and large halls to those who, on the evening of 13 January 2012,…

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The history of photography of a woman buried alive in a chest in the desert of Mongolia

Pavel

Despite this photo, taken in July 1913, became popular under the name of Albert Khan and if you look for it on the Internet, the first results you find will present him as the author of the image, if you dig up a little bit, you’ll find out that the actual man who pointed his camera towards this scene in Mongolia was Stéphane Passet. But why this confusion? Stéphane Passet, and several other photographers were commissioned by Albert Kahn to travel the world and take pictures of the cultural traditions…

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Dawid Planeta, the artist that illustrates his battle with depression

Danijel90

Polish artist and graphic designer Dawid Planeta, in his series of grayscale illustrations, summons gigantic beasts placed in a mysterious and unknown land. Titled “Mini People in the Jungle”, artworks explore the artist’s personal experience with depression, visualizing his mental journey through dark moments. The same Dawid Planeta explains, “It’s a story of a man descending into darkness and chaos in search of himself.” A small man appears in the series, perhaps the artist himself, wandering through the fog-filled labyrinth, bravely facing the disturbing jungle animals whit their glowing eyes…

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The bone church – Sedlec Ossuary in Czech Republic.

Adam

The 40,000 to 70,000 skeletons within Sedlec Ossuary (known also as Kostnice Ossuary Beinhaus) in Czech Republic welcome you, literally, with open arms: the ossuary, located close to Kutná Hora is a singular place, displays some of the world’s more macabre art, and undoubtedly is a fascinating destination not to be missed. Known to most as “the Bone Church,” its history begins in 1278 when the Abbot of the Sedlec Monastery (Abbot Henry) brought a handful of earth back from a journey to the Grave of the Lord in Jerusalem.…

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Roman Opalka: the artist who tried to paint the infinite

Pavel

Roman Opalka (1931-2011) was a Polish conceptual artist, born in France, who spent his artistic career painting numbers, a functional activity for the graphic representation of the passing of time. He started at number 1, in 1965, and spent all the days of his life drawing the following numbers, reaching the number 5,607,249 on August 5, 2011, the eve of his death. For his first canvas, or “detail” as he called it, Roman decided on a black background of 195 x 135 centimeters, with the height corresponding to his physical…

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The first photograph in Paris it is also the first photograph in which Human Beings appear

Pavel

Beyond the many stories that have built the city of Paris, the French capital also contributed to scientific innovations. Indeed, it was in Paris that the first picture of a human being has been taken. Nowadays, anyone knows the word “selfie” and our photographs are shared almost everywhere, practically worldwide, through a large number of social networks. But try to imagine a time when human beings weren’t photographed. The first photograph of human beings, which was also the first of the city of Paris, was taken by Louis Daguerre, the…

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Sea fireflies which turn Japanese beaches into a beautiful work of art.

Pavel

The bright blue stripes that color the rocks just off the coast of Okayama beach, Japan, are not strange special effects, but very small luminescent living beings, called “sea fireflies” or, in Japanese, umi-hotaru. Scattered in the sands of shallow ocean water, these 3mm long tiny bioluminescent shrimp look like tiny blue gems washed up on shore. These small are able to emit a powerful light beam that can make the beaches and the Japanese sea a true multicolored spectacle: grouped together their natural light can be breathtaking. In 2015,…

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Fureai Sekibutsu no Sato: the creepy abandoned Japanese park with 800 statues.

Pavel

Visitors would be forgiven for thinking they’ve entered in a set of a horror movie: hundred of statues stare straight forwards, some dressed in suits and others imitating Buddhist deities. They stand near the town of Osawano in Japan in a village named Fureai Sekibutsu no Sato, which translates literally to “the village where you can meet Buddhist statues”. Some time ago, the Japanese photographer Ken Ohki, or Yukison, began a journey across the globe to search for areas and places to find “unreal” environments. Not far from Japan, he…

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Grandparents and Grandchildren: 18 Photographs of Correspondences between Generations

Nathan

According to Bored Panda, the source of this article, our grandparents may be grey and wrinkled but once they were young, facing many life problems and experiencing its joy just like we are now. The site has collected some of the best grandchildren attempts to mimic their grandmas and grandpas: from visiting the same sights to wearing identical outfits. All we know that the concept of love for grandparents is often unconditional but rarely do we think of our ancestors during their youth. The photographic documentation of ordinary people began…

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AcquaSpa: a dive into the urban decay.

Anya016

This water park and wellness center, located in Pantigliate, at the gates of Milan and inaugurated in 2005, was completely abandoned in 2014. The abandoned Aquapark was divided into Blue Lagoon, which was the area for adults and had 10 types of water slides, including the Black Cannon for the most daring, and Laguna Baby, the area for children aged 2 to 10 years. Within the aquaspa there were swimming pools, sauna and massage rooms, as well as gyms and a sport hall. What, until a few years ago, was…

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Top 25 of the most famous ghost photographs ever taken

Nathan

To start with, this article has nothing to do with whether or not ghosts exist. I don’t have an official stance on such matters. Whether or not these ghost images are real or not is up for the reader to decide. Since ancient times, various legends and folk tales have told about the presence of otherworldly figures in the real world. With the spread of photography, some of these testimonies have resulted in disturbing images of ghosts (more or less real). Skeptics consider these photographs to be the work of…

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From a meeting place of high society to an esoteric temple: the sad fate of the abandoned hydrotherapy center of Oropa.

Anya016

The road that connects Biella to the sanctuary of Oropa winds through the crags of the valley, and resembles any winding mountain road in northern Italy. In reality, this small road carries with it an endless series of testimonies of the “glorious” Biellese past. The most evident traces are those of the suggestive tram that connected Biella and Oropa from 1911 to 1958. The sanctuary of the Black Madonna of Oropa, located in the Italian province of Biella, in Piedmont, is one of the most important religious destinations in the…

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The watercolours paintings that documented Earth

Pavel

A new website is digitising millions of watercolours, to make instantly available a wealth of incredible historic images. Watercolour World is the brainchild of former diplomat Fred Hohler, who embarked on a tour of Britain’s public collections and realised quite how much there was to do on watercolour alone: Norwich Castle Museum held about 4,500 paintings by a single artist and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew had somewhere between 200,000-300,000 watercolours in its drawers. The value of this project is that it views these historic paintings as documents, not…

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Villa Rodella: the most important asset confiscated in Veneto, now is abandoned.

Anya016

Villa Pasqualigo-Pasinetti-Rodellana was built in 1500 in Cinto Euganeo (Padua). Belonged to several Venetian lords (as many as its names) it is better known as Villa Rodella. In 2005 it became the property of the former Governor of the Veneto Region and former Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Culture, investigated in the investigation into the Mose scandal for corruption. According to the Judiciary, the bribes that he would have accepted for the realization of the project have been invested in the restructuring of the Villa. This is the main…

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The Venice Carnival: a history lasting over 900 years.

Anya016

The Carnival of Venice, which has just ended a few days ago, if not the most grandiose, is certainly the best known for the charm it exerts and the mystery it continues to possess even now that 900 years have passed since the first document that refers to this famous celebration. Who has never heard of it? There are memories of the Carnival festivities since 1094, under the doge Vitale Falier, in a document that speaks of public entertainment in the days preceding Lent. Historically, It’s said that the Carnival…

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Morano sul Po: history of a circuit that didn’t make it.

Anya016

Once upon a time, on the banks of the Po, a few kilometers from Casale Monferrato, there was an autodrome: the Morano sul Po circuit. A simple path, surrounded by a beautiful natural environment, not far from the Monferrato industries and a crossroads between the Turin of Fiat and the Milan publishing industry (here the very popular magazine “Quattroruote” did several test drives). Called “Circuit of Casale Monferrato”, given the greater importance that the historical center covered (and still covers) in the area, the track touches two municipalities, Morano sul…

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