Camouflaged Self Portraits by Cecilia Paredes

Cecilia Paredes was born in Lima, Peru, and currently lives and works between San Jose, Costa Rica and Philadelphia. Her artistic career began as a painter but her creative concepts evolved, revealing themselves first in three-dimensional objects, then through photography. This works is a series of self portraits where Paredes paints her own body to blend in with the background.

Working with her assistants, Cecilia covers herself with make-up, body paint and clothes to literally vanish into the background. Her works reminds me of the Liu Bolin who is a master at disappearing.

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Giethoorn: The Village With No Roads

Giethoorn is a well-known tourist village in the Netherlands, dubbed the "Venice of the North". This is because of the fact that the village has no motor-able roads, and all transport is done by water over one of the many intersecting canals.

The water surrounds came from the big flood of St Elizabeth in 1170, and the village itself was founded and developed back in 1230 when Mediterranean fugitives came to settle here. The fugitives discovered many horns of wild goats which had probably died in the flood, and that is where the name comes from. Originally they called the settlement ‘Geytenhorn’ which means ‘horn of goats’, eventually becoming Giethoorn over the years.

The village owes it characteristic appearance to peatdigging. The peatdiggers dug up the peat-soil at the places that most suited them, mixed it in a trough and spread it out on the land to dry. This led to the formation of large and small lakes. To transport the peat, ditches and canals were excavated. Many houses are as it were built on little islands, reached through a high bridge. The villagers use small boats with a quiet electric motors known as whisper boats, and wooden bridges are used to connect one island with another.

Giethoorn became famous, especially after 1958, when the Dutch film maker Bert Haanstra made his famous comedy "Fanfare" there.

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Calamita Cosmica: The Giant Travelling Skeleton

‘Calamita Cosmica’ (Cosmic Magnet in English) is a 28 meter long sculpture of a human skeleton created by Italian artist Gino De Dominicis and is on display at the Museo Nazionale della Arti del XXI Secolo – MAXXI museum of contemporary art in Rome, Italy. Except for the strange long nose, is a perfect scaled model of the human skeleton.

Before Calamita Cosmica settled at the MAXXI, it toured Europe for a number of years visiting places such as Versailles, Naples, and Milan. The Giant was first unveiled in 1990 at Centre National d’Art Contemporain in Grenoble, France. Thereafter in 1996 it moved to the courtyard of the Palace of Capodimonte, Naples. In 2005 it was at display at Mole Vanvitelliana, Ancona, Italy - the home town of the artist. In early 2007 it moved to Palazzo Reale at Milan and after few months it landed in Versailles at 'Parterre d'Eau', in front of the facade of the Versailles Chateau. Thereafter in 2008 it was at display at Musée des Arts Contemporains, Hornu, Belgium. After the display in Belgium it was moved to Rome, where it currently resides.

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Paintings by Hubert De Lartigue

Hubert De Lartigue was born in 1963 in Angers, France. He started to work as an illustrator while studying at the Ecole Duperré and the Ecole Estienne and has produced many covers for science fiction books and board games. In the past decade he also starting painting pin-ups. His precise and delicate rendering combines the French pin-up aesthetic of Brénot and Aslan with the American aesthetic of Vargas, Petty and Elvgren. At the end of the millennium Hubert de Lartigue is among the very best of just a few artists who have followed in the steps of the great Pin-up artists of the mid century. He is continuing the quest for the perfect beauty. His French Pin-ups are the embodiment of our fondest fantasies.

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Cross Bones Graveyard: Burial Ground of Medieval Prostitutes

Located in stretch of lane between two busy roads just south of the Thames, and within a few minutes walk from the busy Borough Market lies the Cross Bones graveyard. This medieval burial ground is home to more than 15,000 people, mostly prostitutes and later paupers, socially outcast and other victims of misogyny and coercion.

Cross Bones graveyard is believed to have been established originally as cemetery for "single women," a euphemism for prostitutes, known locally as "Winchester Geese," because they were licensed by the Bishop of Winchester to work within the Liberty of the Clink. The liberty lay outside the jurisdiction of the City of London, and as a consequence it became known for its brothels and theatres, as well as bull and bear baiting, activities not permitted within the City itself.

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Denied proper burial because their trade, the prostitutes of the area were instead buried without ceremony in the Cross Bones graveyard, where the bodies were piled in an undignified heap on top of each other. Excavations have revealed that most of the skeletons in Cross Bones belong to either women or infants who had either been born dead or tragically expired shortly after birth. Tests showed those buried had suffered from various diseases including smallpox, tuberculosis, osteoarthritis, and vitamin D deficiency. Later on in the graveyard was used to bury the poor of the area. It was also a favorite hunting ground for bodysnatchers, seeking out specimens for the teaching hospitals of London.

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Chara Sands: Miniature Desert in the Freezing Cold of Siberia

Just 40 kilometers from the Kodar Glaciers in Kalar district of Trans-Baikal region, right next to the snow-capped mountains and the limitless sea of taiga spotted with blue lakes and huge ice fields, lies a bright yellow spot – the Chara Sands. This sand dune is approximately 10 kilometers long and 5 kilometers wide; some of the dunes are as high as 15 – 30 meters. The terrain here is so pronounced it almost looks like a real desert. Nowhere else in the entire tundra such large volume of loose shifting sands can be found. Against the backdrop of the cold mountains, the Chara Sands is an extraordinary sight.

Writes the Russian Geographical Society website:

The contrasts seem to be impossible: as if an incredible open-air museum was set up, displaying natural curiosities of the north and the south next to each other.

Chara Sands is a truly amazing place. It’s like a real desert, but with features you won’t see anywhere else except in Trans-Baikal. Cold blue icing right next to warm yellow sand; instead of camels, a reindeer caravan treads across the sands, tended by an Evenk driver. You might stumble upon an oasis among the sand ridges where palms gave way to northern larches. The desert is surrounded by mountains covered with snow even during the summer; the dunes run into bogs or lakes.

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Matthew Davis’ Unique Oil Pool Paintings

Berlin-based artist Matthew Davis has a unique style of painting that he had developed. Using his brush Mr Davis slowly drip oil paints to form small pools. He lets the paint dry over a period of several days after which a new layer is added resulting in a dense, multi-dimensional surface.

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Artist Vacuum Seals Couples For Photo Portraits

Tokyo-based photographer Hal vacuum-sealed couples together to create a bizarre photo series titled ‘Flesh Love’.

Hal wraps willing couples in plastic normally used to store futon covers, then sucks the air out with a vacuum cleaner nearly smothering them. The subjects then have to hold their breath for about 10 seconds, while he snaps a couple of quick pictures with his Pentax 645D DSLR. Sometimes the models are clothed, other times naked, and occasionally they'll bring a prop, like a guitar, into their vacuum pack of love. ‘Flesh Portrait’ is available in a book form and will also be available in a $13 iPad app.

If you are wondering where he gets his couples, the artist explains:

I go to Kabukicho in Shinjuku, underground bars in Shibuya, and many other places which are full of activity like luscious night time bee-hives. When I see a couple of interest I will begin to negotiate. I'm sure that many people initially think of my proposal as unusual or even look through me like I am completely invisible, but I always push forward with my challenge to them. The models appear from all walks of life and individually have included musicians, dancers, strippers, laborers, restaurant and bar managers, photographers, businessmen and women, unsettled and unemployed, et al.

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Reflections: Street Photography Through Puddles by Ira Fox

Reflections is a series of photographs by New York-based fine art photographer Ira Fox, where she used puddles as a looking glass to capture the city life on a rainy day.

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Spotted Lake, Canada

Located near the city of Osoyoos in British Columbia, Canada’s Spotted Lake draws visitors from around the world. The Spotted Lake has a very highly concentration of numerous different minerals such as magnesium sulfate, calcium and sodium sulphates. It also contains extremely high concentrations of eight other minerals as well as some small doses of four others such as silver and titanium.

Most of the water in the lake evaporates over the summer, leaving behind large “spots” of minerals. Depending on the mineral composition left behind, the spots will be of white, pale yellow, green or blue in color. The spots are made mainly of magnesium sulfate, which crystallizes in the summer to form harden natural “walkways” around and between the spots.

During the First World War, minerals from the lake were harvested for manufacture of ammunition. Chinese laborers were said to have skimmed up to a ton a day of salts from the surface of the lake and shipped them to munitions factories in eastern Canada.

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Known as Kliluk to the natives of the Okanagan Valley, the lake is a sacred and culturally significant site whose potential for commercial exploitation recently generated much controversy. The therapeutic quality of the waters has been known for millennia - the Native Indians used the mud and waters of the lake to heal aches and ailments. According to a story, once two warring tribes signed a truce where both parties were allowed to tend to their wounded in the Spotted Lake,

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