Photographer Jeremy Harris shot the crumbling interiors of abandoned mental institutions in the eastern United States for his series "American Asylums, Moral Architecture in the 19th Century." These institutions operated when patient overcrowding, misdiagnosis and abuse were commonly reported.
These dismal circumstances almost seem to imprint on the decomposing buildings as photographed by Harris. If Harris' photo series — shot over a period of almost a decade — seems to have a haunting quality, that is a state that Harris is apparently comfortable with. As he says via his website,
"Jeremy currently resides in a semi-haunted (by friendly ghosts), rustic brownstone in Crown Heights, Brooklyn with his two cats, Delilah and Jezebel."
The night sky is a glorious sight that can be a challenge to capture with a camera, but it's photographer Vincent Brady's specialty. He shoots using various techniques, closeups, long exposures, time lapse and infrared included. Yet according to Brady, he's best known for the beautiful shots he acquires using the following method:
"While experimenting with different photography tricks and techniques back in 2012, I was shooting 360 degree panoramas in the daytime and long exposures of the stars streaking in the sky at night. It suddenly became clear that the potential to combine the two techniques could be a trip! Since the Earth is rotating at a steady 1,040 mph I created a custom rig of 4 cameras with fisheye lenses to capture the entire night-sky in motion. Thus the images show the stars rotating around the north star as well as the effect of the southern pole as well and a 360 degree panorama of the scene on Earth. Each camera is doing nonstop long exposures, typically about 1 minute consecutively for the life of the camera battery. Usually about 3 hours. I then made a script to stitch all the thousands of these panoramas into this time-lapse."
Brady spent over a year shooting footage for and editing the video. Visit his website to read more. Via Colossal.
These brightly colored, beautiful creatures look as if someone carefully designed their markings. There are thousands of sea slug species known in the world, and many likely remain undiscovered. Each sea slug has both male and female reproductive organs and releases eggs into the water in clusters, which can contain thousands of eggs.
Sea slugs consume plankton and decaying matter on the ocean floor and algae on rocks and coral reefs. Because they essentially clean the ocean waters, sea slugs are an important part of the marine environment.
The fact that they remain motionless much of the time makes the animals easy prey for lobsters, crabs and other sea creatures. Sea slugs are often caught by humans for food, and also for traditional medicine in eastern cultures, some of which believe that they have healing properties.
Artist Jim Dingilian, first introduced to Neatorama in early 2012 by John Farrier, continues to receive attention and art gallery showings for his unusual art. Dingilian fills bottles with smoke, thus coating their inside surfaces with soot. He then reaches inside and selectively erases certain areas of the soot, using brushes and small implements mounted on the ends of dowels.
Dingilian’s work overall focuses on subtractive images created on found objects. The artist explains his thought process, which strikes me as being remarkably similar to film director David Lynch:
“The miniature scenes I depict are of locations on the edge of suburbia which seem mysterious or even slightly menacing despite their commonplace nature. The bottles add to the implied narratives of transgression. When found by the sides of roads or in the weeds near the edges of parking lots, empty liquor bottles are artifacts of consumption, delight, or dread. As art objects, they become hourglasses of sorts, their drained interiors now inhabited by dim memories.”
Sometimes, the décor and ambience of a restaurant or bar is so pleasing that one is less (or not at all) disappointed if their food isn't a fabulous culinary experience. Of course, when the coolness of the establishment's interior is matched by top-notch food, the sensory experience can be an enticing combination; a major draw, typically with a big line and/or waiting list to match.
Take, for examble, the Blug Frog Lounge, with two locations, in Mumbai (pictured above) and Delhi, India. A visitor to the Mumbai location posted a review on a travel site, which reads in part,
'Inside, a full length stage runs along one side of this old converted warehouse, and on the opposite side is a full length bar and open kitchen. In between is the dance floor, and the venue's highlight -- the round booths with tables called "pods". The area surrounding the pods is backlit and changes color with the music, and the venues's walls are clad with acoustic absorbers to provide maximum sound quality.
The really appealing thing about Blue Frog is that it's so adaptable. The venue doesn't restrict itself to any particular genre of music. Instead, some nights it transforms itself into a club with live DJs, while other nights it take on a more traditional and laid back vibe with live bands and solo performances."
The reviewer revealed the same drawback to this venue as I experienced with the popular spots on my recent trip to San Francisco:
"One big drawback to this very popular place: on a busy night, the crowds make it very time consuming and challenging to get to the bar and get a drink. The winding walkways between the pods get packed, and the bar area also becomes extremely congested. The reason for this is that the area in front of the bar just isn't big enough to accommodate all the people trying to get served."
See this article for pictures of 20 restaurant and bar designs that are crowd pleasers, from the Blue Frog Lounge to the Truth Coffee Shop in Cape Town, South Africa (pictured below), a steampunk-themed coffee shop inspired by designer Haldane Martin's thought that the form of espresso machines and coffee roasters shared similarities with the Victorian futuristic fantasy style of the steampunk aesthetic.
Truth Cafe Cape Town, South Africa Designed by: Haldane Martin
The Jane Restaurant Antwerp, Belgium Designed by: Piet Boon
The Museum H.R. Giger Bar Gruyères, Switzerland Designed by: H.R. Giger
This humorous video is made by self-described mentalist and magician Jose Ahonen and comedian Rudi Rok, the same guys who made Magic Tricks for Dogs. In it, they record the varied reactions of various dogs of breeds big and small to great dog imitations by Rok. I'd love to see my two dogs in this situation to see what they would do! Via Twisted Sifter.
A cat named Shelby that went missing from an Australian family's home thirteen years ago returned to their front doorstep recently, with severely matted fur and a lice infestation. The mother of the family took the seventeen-year-old cat, which she thought was a stray, to her veterinarian's office for treatment. It was only then, as she sat in the office, that she wondered if the cat could possibly be Shelby. After an old photo comparison to the cat's markings and the opinion of the vet, the cat was considered to be their long-lost pet after all. Shelby's return was a happy occasion for everyone in the household — except for their other pet cat! Via Laughing Squid.
French freelance designer and stop-motion animator Micaël Reynaud's unique animated GIFs are created utilizing slit-scan, time-lapse and masking techniques, some from as many as 100 images. (Is it wrong that, out of all these impressive examples, my favorite is the bubblin', cheese-gooey pizza?)
OK Go, an alternative band originally from Chicago, is known for their interesting music videos. Neatorama has featured several of their previous videos, including one with a Rube Goldberg machine. Their new video for "The Writing's On the Wall" — from their studio album Hungry Ghosts, to be released in October, 2014 — is not a disappointment in the "interesting" category. The video contains one trick on the eyes after another, and has the appearance of being filmed in one take (although it's not a true one-take shot). Read more on the video in this Rolling Stone article. Via Colossal.
Image: Flickr User Calypso Orchid Osoyoos is a small town in British Columbia, Canada that is home to an incredible natural phenomenon called the Spotted Lake, thought to be the most mineralized lake in the world. The Okanagan people — aboriginal people of Canada, collectively called the First Nation — believe the lake is sacred and has medicinal power. The Okanagan have been coming to the lake for centuries, in search of healing for their ailments.
During summer, most of the water in Spotted Lake evaporates, exposing large mineral deposits. The mineral in highest concentration is magnesium sulfate, which crystallizes in the summer. Spotted Lake also has high levels of calcium, sodium sulphate and eight other minerals, as well as small concentrations of silver and titanium. Read more about the Spotted Lake of Osoyoos in this article. Via Unique Daily.
Drew Hamilton, a photographer and tech worker at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, encounters a (luckily for him) friendly, satiated brown bear at the McNeil River State Game Sanctuary and Refuge in Alaska.
I don't know if Hamilton felt as nervous during his bear visit as I did watching the video of it, but when I see "Alaska" and "bear," all I can think of is Timothy Treadwell, The Grizzly Man, who had one encounter too many with Alaska's bear population and did not live to tell about it. Via Tastefully Offensive.
...not this wolf pup! In fact, Nikai, the yawning, young wolf shown here, would likely be asleep if it wasn't for his hiccups!
Nikai is in the care of The Wolf Conservation Center (WCC), an environmental education organization and sanctuary located in South Salem, New York. A portion of the work done at the WCC helps preserve two critically endangered wolf species, the Mexican gray wolf and the red wolf, which are among the rarest mammals in North America. At one time, both species were completely extinct in the wild. Currently, there are approximately 400 Mexican gray wolves and 300 red wolves remaining in the world, the majority of which live in facilities such as the WCC. Via Viral Viral Videos.
Have you ever known anyone with a "death wish?" I know I have, and it didn't end well. Adrenaline junkies who push the boundaries of safety sometimes play the odds and lose. Others seem to have a special kind of luck that keeps them living a life full of death-defying stunts. The subject of the photographs included in the article "30 Death-Defying Photos That Will Make Your Heart Skip a Beat" are hopefully in the latter category. Via Bored Panda
New York City-based freelance photographer Sam Alive'sproject “Through the Phone” features landscapes and urban cityscapes as seen through an iPhone. Adding interest to Alive's photographs is the juxtaposition between the crisp, clear image within the frame of the iPhone camera and the blurred bokeh effect of the real background behind it. Shots were photographed through a digital lens.
The artist's project began in 2012; since then he has traveled and photographed Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong and San Francisco, in addition to his home city of New York. Alive says,
“Life is like an adventure, because you never know what is going to happen next; you only have one life, all we can do until we die is live everyday to the best of our ability. As long as I am still alive, I will continue to take pictures everyday of my life.”
