Strange Airport #4: Princess Juliana Airport and Maho Beach

Maho Beach is located on the Dutch side of the Caribbean island of Saint Martin. If you love watching airplanes takeoff and land, this should be your next holiday destination, because sitting right next to the Maho Beach is the busy Princess Juliana International Airport. Aircrafts approaching the airport comes from the direction of the sea and because they must touch down as close as possible to the beginning of runway 10 due to its short length, the aircraft on their final approach flies over the beach at minimal altitude.

You can lie on the beach and watch the underbelly of a 747 thundering within a few dozen yards over your head; the blast from the jet engine blowing sand and belongings all over the place. The thrilling approaches and ease of access for shooting spectacular images makes the airport one of the world's favorite places among plane spotters.

Watching airliners pass over the beach is such a popular activity that daily arrivals and departures airline timetables are displayed on a board in most bars and restaurants on the beach, and the Sunset Beach Bar and Grill has a speaker on its outside deck that broadcasts the radio transmissions between pilots and the airport's control tower.

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Oradour-sur-Glane: The Village Massacred in WW2 and Preserved Since Then

On 10 June 1944, at around 2 PM, four days after the Allied invasion of Normandy, approximately 150 Waffen-SS soldiers entered the tranquil village of Oradour-sur-Glane in the Limosin region of south central France. For no apparent reason, Hitler's elite troops destroyed every building in this peaceful village and brutally murdered a total of 642 innocent men, women and children, a tragedy which has gone down in history as one of the worst war crimes committed by the German army in World War II.

A new village of Oradour-sur-Glane was built after the war, at the northwest of the site of the massacre, where ruined remnants of the former village still stand as a memorial to the dead and a representative of similar sites and events. Its museum includes items recovered from the burned-out buildings: watches stopped at the time their owners were burned alive, glasses melted from the intense heat, and various personal items and money.

To this day there is no universally agreed explanation as to why the SS acted as they did, or why they chose Oradour for their attack. The town had been far from any center of conflict, was not, nor had ever been an active resistance stronghold.

There is one theory has to what may have happened. On June 9, 1944, the day before the massacre, a German office named Helmut Kämpfe was kidnapped by the Resistance and taken to Breuilaufa by way of Limoges where he was killed the same day. Whilst he was being driven through Limoges, Kämpfe managed to throw his personal papers out of the vehicle as a clue to his whereabouts; they were found and handed in to his commanding officer Sylvester Stadler.

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Edward Burtynsky’s Photos of Industrial Landscapes

Edward Burtynsky is a Canadian photographer and artist who has achieved international recognition for his large-format photographs of industrial landscapes. Burtynsky's most famous photographs are sweeping views of landscapes altered by industry: mine tailings, quarries, scrap piles. The grand, awe-inspiring beauty of his images is often in tension with the compromised environments they depict. He has made several excursions to China to photograph that country's industrial emergence, and construction of one of the world's largest engineering projects, the Three Gorges Dam. His work is housed in more than fifteen major museums including the Guggenheim Museum, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

Also see Industrial Scars: Landscapes Destructed by Industrialization

Los Angeles, California

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Frieke Janssens’s Controversial Photos of Smoking Kids

A few months ago smoking was banned in all public places in Belgium. Photographer Frieke Janssens responded with “surrealistic, melancholic and theatrical but especially controversial pictures of smoking kids” to visualise the contradiction of the unhealthy cigarette and the immense attraction of smoking.

The children, aged four to nine, are shameless posing while enjoying their cigarette or cigarillo. So why kids? By portraying adults as children all  the attention went to the smoking. An adult would draw to much attention to the portrayed person. Thus these portraits evoke question such as: is the smoking ban the right way to get rid of an absurd addiction and are smokers treated like little kids who can’t make the difference between good and bad? While Frieke doesn’t give answers, the portraits are strong enough to start your thinking process!

Frieke got the idea after seeing a YouTube video a two-year old Indonesian smoker who smokes 40 cigarettes a day.

It may comfort you to know that none of the children were exposed to actual cigarette smoke through the photo shoots — the cigarettes were actually made of cheese! Watch video of the photo shoot after the pictures.

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Chimborazo: The Farthest Point From the Earth’s Center

Chimborazo is an inactive volcano located in the Andes mountain range in Ecuador with a peak elevation of 6,268.2 meters. What makes Chimborazo so special, apart from being the highest location in Ecuador, is that its peak is the furthest point from the center of the Earth, and not Mount Everest as many would believe to be. This is due to Chimborazo’s location along the equatorial bulge of the planet.

The earth is not a perfect sphere. On account of rotation of the earth, the planet is "thicker" around the Equator than measured around the poles. Chimborazo lies one degree south of the Equator while Mt Everest is nearly nearly 28° north of the equator. Despite Chimborazo being 2,580 meter lower in elevation above sea level compared to Mt Everest (8,848 meter), it is 2.168 km farther from the Earth's center than the summit of Everest.

Chimborazo is not even the highest peak of the Andes. In fact, when ranked by the order of distance from the center of the earth, several other Andean peaks as well as Africa's highest mountain, Kilimanjaro, exceed Mt Everest.

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Gorgeous Photos Taken by Google Street View Cameras

Google's Street View camera cars can sometimes capture unbelievable landscapes and moments, as Pittsburgh-born photographer Aaron Hobson discovered when scouting for locations around Los Angles using Google Street View for a new project. After getting addicted to Google Street View, Hobson began exploring other places around the globe for amusement. Soon he had amassed a collection of Street View shots of the loneliest and most isolated places on earth.

After hours and hours of driving through empty countrysides, tundras, and deserts, I began to put together a dozen or more locations that matched my aesthetic appeal and narrative. I decided to turn my gaze outward at the world and the isolation of other people and places through the Google technology. This process is about the amazing technology of Google Street View and the places it has allowed anyone with a computer and internet access to explore. I am trying to share remote locations of splendor and beauty, places of isolation where life is difficult and slower being so far removed from large societies.

“The first hint that they’re not his photos is that when you take a closer look, you realize that any faces captured in these photos are blurred out”, writes Nancy Messieh on TheNextWeb. “Aaron is simply curating these photos, taken by the mechanical eye of Google Street View cars.”

Below are some images from the GSV Cinemascapes photoset. Be sure to check out his website for more. And if you liked these, you will also like Jon Rafman’s collection of interesting images found on Google Street View.

Saint-Nicolas-de-la Grave, France

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Bruce Munro’s Light Installation at Holburne Museum

Bruce Munro is a British lighting designer and installation artist best known for large scale lighting installations such as Field of Light, which was first exhibited at the V&A Museum in 2004. Right now he is working on another Field of Light installation at the Holburne Museum, in Bath, England.

At the Holburne, Munro’s piece will consist of over 5000 acrylic stems topped by frosted spheres, threaded with fibre optic cable and lit by 5x metal halide projectors on colour wheels. Munro’s new Field of Light will open to the public on Saturday November 26th and remain in place until 8th January 2012. During late December, Munro will unveil another, newly designed installation called Star Turn, for a one-day charity event at the Holburne Museum.

The Holburne Museum re-opened earlier this year after ambitious renovations, boasting a glorious new extension by Eric Parry. It has fast gained a reputation, along with the Hepworth in Wakefield and the Turner Contemporary in Margate, as one of a number of outstanding regional museums in the UK.

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Mass Whale Hunting in Faroe Islands Leave Sea Blood Red

The sea of Faroe Islands in north of Europe turned red with the blood of hundreds of whales killed by the inhabitants on November 22, as a part of their annual whale hunting culture. Every year the islanders catch and slaughter pilot whales (Globicephala melaena) during the traditional whale hunt known as 'Grindadrap'. The mass hunting is non-commercial - the whale meat cannot be sold but is divided evenly between members of the local community. The hunters crowd the whales into a bay and then cut their spines leaving the animals bleed to death slowly, while the surrounding sea turns bloody red. These images of a blood-red sea can often have a shocking effect on bystanders.

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Being an autonomous province of Denmark, where whaling is banned, the Faroe Islands’ laws allow the mass slaughter of pilot whales, beaked whales and dolphins to observe the annual tradition. Whaling in the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic has been practiced since about the time of the first Norse settlements on the islands. The meat and blubber of pilot whales have long been a part of the islanders' national diet.

Despite criticism from animal rights groups and International Whaling Commission, the whale hunting custom continues to kill thousands of whales year after year. Around 950 Long-finned Pilot Whales are killed annually, mainly during the summer.

The American Cetacean Society says that pilot whales are not considered to be endangered, but that there has been a noticeable decrease in their numbers around the Faroe Islands.

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Thomas Doyle’s Apocalyptic Dioramas

Using ordinary materials found around the house, New York based artist Thomas Doyle creates dioramas that feature tiny hand-painted figures surrounded by domesticity and destruction. In the solo exhibition “Surface to Air,” houses hover safely above their ruined and burnt foundations while soldiers huddle below. A family goes about its business inside a home that has been cleaved in two. A subterranean house juts from the earth, as a family trudges through an ash-strewn landscape above. Reflective of the apprehension endemic to our times, Doyle’s works also communicate a timeless longing for the stability of home, hearth, and family.

“Surface to Air” will also debut Doyle’s new Foregone series, consisting of photographic portraits of the child figures that feature prominently in his sculptural work. Measuring just a few millimeters high, each figure is hand painted and then photographed in an enlarged format, revealing detail unseen by the naked eye. Coated in a patina of microscopic debris, the figures reveal the limitations and random nature of painting while evoking the tenderness and anxieties of childhood.

Surface to Air runs through December 17, 2011 at LeBasse Projects in Culver City.

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The Twist Bridge Over the Vlaardingse Vaart, Netherlands

Spanning roughly 42 meters, this bicycle and pedestrian bridge called ‘The Twist’ bridge for its contorted and sculptural lines, connects the Holy-Zuid district and the Broekpolder over Vlaardingse Vaart in The Netherlands. The visitor enters the bridge through a rectangular frame, while the space evolves dynamically into a double-height diamond-shaped tube, through the bridge’s centre. Constructed largely onsite, prefabricated in a temporary shed, the bridge was made of 400 steel tubes, welded together, galvanized and painted red for maximum visual effect.

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The bridge’s strong three-dimensional character not only adds to the design’s expressiveness, but also has functional purposes. Made of square steel elements it twists on a horizontal axis, and the constantly changing sections are the perfect format to absorb vibrations, thus reinforcing the bridge’s movement, when a cyclist crosses.

The bridge was designed by West 8 Architects with structural engineers ABT.

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Pedestrian Roller Coaster in Germany

If you are scared of the loops and dizzy heights of a roller coaster, you can try out the new roller-coaster walkway at Duisburg that lets you take them at your own speed, on foot. Designed by Hamburg-based designer duo Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth, the walkable roller-coaster titled Tiger & Turtle - Magic Mountain is 45 meters high and consist of 249 steps. Visitors can climb on the curved sculpture and walk around, and take in the surrounding views from the spiral walkways in their own pace.

The structure is located on top of a mining waste tip at the Heinrich-Hildebrand-Height in the Angerpark, overlooking the Rhine in Duisburg, Germany.

About 120 tons of galvanised steel were used to make the sculpture which is supported by 17 posts. At night LED lights illuminate the handrails.

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Creative Sculptures Promoting London Ink

London Ink is a reality show on the Discovery Channel based around a tattoo parlor run by Louis Molloy, who inked David Beckham and Kate Moss. The show features the trials and tribulations of daily life in the shop, as well as delving into the personal stories of the customers. The show which was premiered on September 2007 was promoted by two gigantic figures installed on two different location around London. A statue of a giant lady with her head stuck in a photo booth was exhibited in Victoria train station, and another sculpture of a swimmer swimming through the grass took up residence near the tower bridge. Both sculptures sported elaborate tattoos promoting London Ink.

Photo: Getty Images

The tattoos were designed by Louis Molloy himself. The swimmer had a classic Japanese Carp shown on a bed of chips and newspaper with a Japanese wave-style splash of vinegar on top, while the girl at Victoria Station had a tattoo of a stylised pigeon made to look like a classic "war eagle" tattoo, complete with tattered feathers and a gimpy foot.

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Parting of the Sea in Jindo

The story of Moses is a famous tale among Christians and Jews throughout the world. The miracle of the parting of the Red Sea when Moses and the Jews were trapped between the Red Sea and the armies of Egypt is perhaps the most memorable and impressive part of the story. But do you know that the same miracle happens in Korea every year?

The Jindo county is an archipelago of 250 islands, of which Jindo Island is the third largest in Korea. Every year at the end of February and again in mid-June, extremely low tide causes a natural land pass 2.9 km long and 10–40 meters wide to appear connecting the main Jindo island and a small Modo island to the south of Jindo. The pass stays for about an hour before being submerged again. The event is celebrated by a local festival called "Jindo's Sea Way" when visitors and tourists gather to watch the phenomenon and walk the path in the middle of the sea.

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According to the local legend, a long time ago, there were many tigers on Jindo Island. When tigers began appearing frequently in the village, the people fled to Modo Island accidentally leaving behind an old woman named Ppong. The old lady longed to be reunited with her family and prayed for help night and day to the Dragon King of the Sea. Then, one night, the Dragon King appeared to her in a dream and told her to cross the sea by walking on the rainbow that he will provide for her. When she awoke the next morning, she ran to the sea and saw the sea part.

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Strange Airport #3: Madeira International, Portugal

Madeira International Airport, located near Funchal, Madeira in Portugal was first opened on July 1964 with two 1,600-meter (5,249 ft) runways. The short runway made landing a tricky business for even the most experienced of pilots. The high mountains surrounding the airport and the nearby ocean only complicated matters. First the pilots has to aim their aircraft at the mountains, and then break a hard right to meet the runway. Aside to the shift of direction, the warm winds coming off the ocean meet the cooler mountain dry air, which in-turn produces massive turbulence.

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On November 19, 1977, a Boeing 727 aircraft flying from Brussels tried desperately to stop after touching down 2000 feet past the threshold in heavy rain, strong winds and poor visibility, but slid off the end and plunged 200 feet into the land below killing 131 people aboard. The crash prompted officials to explore ways of extending the short runway.

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Tunnel of Love in Kleven, Ukraine

This beautiful train tunnel of trees called the Tunnel of Love is located in Kleven, Ukraine. Nothing else is known about this place. Can anybody throw some light here.

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The Cloud Covered Island of Litla Dimun

Litla Dimun is a small island between the islands of Suouroy and Stora Dimun in the Faroe Islands. It is the smallest of the main 18 islands, being less than 100 hectares (250 acres) in area, and is the only one uninhabited. One of the most striking feature of this island is that it often remains covered in clouds. This type of cloud is known as Lenticular clouds, so called because it is shaped like a lens. Lenticular clouds are always stationary and when formed over mountain peaks or islands, like Litla Dimun, looks like a majestic hat.

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Panjin Red Beach, China

The Red Beach is located in the Liaohe River Delta, about 30 kilometer southwest of Panjin City in China. The beach gets its name from its appearance, which is caused by a type of sea weed that flourishes in the saline-alkali soil. The weed that start growing during April or May remains green during the summer. In autumn, this weed turns flaming red, and the beach looks as if it was covered by an infinite red carpet that creates a rare red sea landscape. Most of the Red Beach is a nature reserve and closed to the public. Only a small, remote, section is open for tourists.

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Annual Red Crab Migration on Christmas Island

Christmas Island is a small Australian island in the Indian Ocean, 2,600 kilometers northwest of the city of Perth, that is home to many species of animal and plant. The island is particularly noted for its prodigious populations of Christmas Island red crabs, a species of land crab that is endemic to the island, and their spectacular migration from the forest to the coast each year during the breeding season.

At the beginning of the wet season (which is usually October / November), over 50 million adult red crabs suddenly start migrating from the forest to the coast to breed. The migration is usually synchronized all over the island. The males lead the first wave of the migration and are joined by females as they progress. The crabs take about five to seven days to reach the sea. The rains and moist overcast conditions make their journey to the sea long and difficult.

During peak migration times, sections of roads where crabs cross in high numbers are closed to vehicles for short periods of time. The bright red carapaces and sheer density of crabs make their routes to the sea observable from the air.

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The Sunken Bridge of Fort de Roovere

During the 17th century, a series of moats and fortresses were built over the West Brabant Water Line region of the Netherlands to provide protection from invasion by France and Spain. Fort de Roovere was surrounded by a shallow, muddy moat that was too deep to march across and too shallow for boats. Recently the fort was opened for tourist but instead of building an overbridged over the moat which would have definitely taken away the fort’s dramatic view, a sunken bridge was designed.

From afar, the bridge is invisible to the eye. The flow of the moat appears continuous, as the water level remains at the same level. As visitors approach the fort, the bridge appears as a break in the water.

The project was recently awarded with the prestigious BNA (Union of Dutch Architects) Building of the Year 2011, Southern Region.

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Terrifying Glass Skywalk on the Side of Tianmen Mountain

Jutting out from a sheer cliff 1,430 meters high, the glass skywalk in Zhangjiajie National Forest Park offers sightseers terrifying thrills and clear view of the mountains below as they tread nervously across the 60 meter long bridge encircling the vertical cliffs of Tianmen Mountain in Hunan province. The 3ft-wide, 2.5in thick glass walkway is so scary that sightseers are requested to wear cloth slip-ons over their shoes when they cross the skywalk, presumably to make the job easier for the cleaners.

No matter how terrifying the glass skywalk looks, it can only be an improvement from the treacherous road made of wooden planks thousands of feet high on the sides of the Huashan Mountain, located in the south of Huayin city.

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Amazing Street Art at Sarasota Chalk Festival

The Sarasota Chalk Festival brings in artists from around the world to display their art on the streets of Sarasota, Florida. The festival, which took place between November 1 to 7, 2011, is the only international event celebrating 16th century Italian street painting.

The festival attracted 200,000 visitors to see more than a hundred artists from all over the world transform Burns Square in downtown Sarasota into an outdoor museum gallery in motion using chalk as their medium and the pavement as their canvas. This year’s lineup includes innovator of 3D pavement art Kurt Wenner from Washington, Melanie Stimmell Van Latam from California, Michael Kirby from Maryland, Leon Keer from Netherlands, Eduardo Relero from Spain, Vera Bugatti from Italy and Tomoteru Saito from Japan.

Here are some amazing creations from the festival.

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Ivanhoe Reservoir Covered With 400,000 Black Plastic Balls

In 2007, the Department of Water Protection in Los Angeles detected high levels of bromate, a carcinogen that forms when bromide and chlorine react with sunlight, in Los Angeles’s Ivanhoe Reservoir. Bromide is naturally present in groundwater and chlorine is used to kill bacteria, but sunlight is the final ingredient in the potentially harmful mix. The 102-year-old facility serves about 600,000 customers downtown and in South Los Angeles. When the Department of Water Protection realized the problem, they began construction of a new underground reservoir in Griffith Park, but while the new facility was being built they had to determine a way to keep the sunlight out of the water.

The possibility of tarps and metal coverings were explored but they were either too expensive or will take too long to install. So one of the DWP's biologists, Brian White, suggested "bird balls," commonly used by airports to prevent birds from congregating in wet areas alongside runways. The balls are made of polyethylene and cost only 40 cents each. The coating contains carbon and black is the only color strong enough to deflect ultraviolet rays.

400,000 balls were dropped into the reservoir on June 2008, where they will remain for the next four to five years until the new underground reservoir is completed.

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Strange Airport#2: Kansai International, Japan

Kansai International Airport is Japan's second most important international airport, located on an artificial island in the middle of Osaka Bay, 38 km southwest of Ōsaka Station. The airport was opened in 1994 to relieve overcrowding at Osaka International Airport, which is located in the densely-populated suburbs of Itami and Toyonaka surrounded by buildings and therefore could not be expanded. A man-made island, 4 km long and 2.5 km wide, was proposed.

Construction started in 1987. A sea wall was erected made of rock and 48,000 concrete blocks. Three mountains were excavated for 21,000,000 cubic meter of landfill. 10,000 workers and 10 million work hours over three years, using eighty ships, were needed to complete the 30-metre layer of earth over the sea floor and inside the sea wall. A three kilometer bridge connects the island to the mainland.

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The total cost of Kansai Airport is estimated to be $20 billion. This includes land reclamation, two runways, terminal and facilities. Most additional costs were initially due to the island sinking, expected due to the soft soils of Osaka Bay. After construction the rate of sinking was considered so severe that the airport was widely criticized as a geotechnical engineering disaster. Despite the early misfortunes, the Kansai International Airport is a great engineering achievement. In 2001, the airport was named one of ten structures given the "Civil Engineering Monument of the Millennium" award by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

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Cricket Fighting Contests in China

Cricket fighting is a form of amusement popular in many areas in China. It was nurtured by Tang Dynasty emperors more than 1,000 years ago and later popularized by the commoners. During the Tang dynasty (618 – 906 A.D.), people started to keep crickets in cages and enjoy their songs while in captivity. Under the Song dynasty (960 – 1278 A.D.), cricket fighting flourished as a popular sport. In the 13th century, the Southern Song Dynasty prime minister Jia Sidao even wrote a how-to guide for the blood sport. Jia's obsession with cricket fighting is believed to have contributed to the fall of the empire. During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) China's Communist government banned cricket fighting as a bourgeois predilection, but it is now undergoing a revival among a younger generation eager to embrace genuinely Chinese pastimes.

During the fall in big cities like Shanghai, pet markets are crowded with cricket enthusiasts. They huddle over suppliers from the countryside, haggling as they lift lids on soup-can-size cylinders to inspect each occupant's legs and jaws. Buyers often buy two crickets and make them fight, keeping the winning one for contests.

Crickets from Shandong province, particularly those from Ningjin County, are most prized. The cricket bred in Ningjin County is big in head, neck and legs with fine color of skin. Meanwhile, they are born with indomitable will to fight and strong power of endurance, ferocity, toughness and unyieldingness. Ningjin County had provided crickets as tribute to emperors during the past dynasties in ancient China.

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Acrobatic Display of Starling Murmuration

Every year during autumn, thousands of starlings put on a spectacular dance show just before dusk over the sky in Scotland (and other countries in the temperate regions), in a breathtaking phenomenon called murmurations. This is when a huge flock of migratory birds form a magical shape-shifting flight pattern in the sky. Murmaration is common among starlings, a small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Sturnidae, commonly called mynas in Asia. Flocking starlings are one of nature’s most extraordinary sights.

Scientists aren’t sure how they do it. Even complex algorithmic models haven’t yet explained the starlings’ acrobatics, which rely on the tiny bird’s quicksilver reaction time of under 100 milliseconds to avoid aerial collisions—and predators—in the giant flock. The birds tend to flock together for protection and can reach speeds of up to 20 mph.

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Bosco Verticale: World’s First Vertical Forest in Milan

A fascinating new pair of residential tower called Bosco Verticale is being constructed at Milan, Italy. Designed by architect Stefano Boeri, Bosco Verticale is being construed as “a project for metropolitan reforestation that contributes to the regeneration of the environment and urban biodiversity without the implication of expanding the city upon the territory”. Towering over the city’s skyline the world's first forest in the sky will be a sight to behold. The 27 storied building will accommodate nearly one hectare of forest trees as tall as oak and amelanchiers in its cleverly designed balconies. The 365 and 260 foot emerald twin towers will house an astonishing 900 trees, 5,000 shrubs and 11,000 ground cover plants.

This is a concept illustration of how Bosco Verticale will look like when completed.

In summer, the trees will provide shade and filter the city’s dust; in winter, sunlight will shrine through the bare branches. Bosco Verticale's greenery will absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, while protecting the building from wind and penetrating sunlight. Boeri claims that the inclusion of trees adds just 5 percent to construction costs, and is a necessary response to the sprawl of the modern city. If the units were individual houses, it would require 50,000 sq m of land, and 10,000 sq m of woodland.

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North American Wife Carrying Championship

The North American Wife Carrying Championship is a fun sport in which male competitors race while carrying a female teammate on their backs. The objective is for the male to carry the female through a special obstacle track in the fastest time. Several types of carry may be practiced such as piggyback, fireman's carry (over the shoulder), or Estonian-style which has the woman upside down with arms wrapped around the man's waist and her legs draped over his shoulders. Teams are also encouraged to create their own style. The sport was first introduced at Sonkajärvi, Finland. From there it spread to other parts of the world such as the United States and Hong Kong.

Although called, ‘Wife Carrying’, the female does not need to be the legal wife of the male. She must however be over 17 years of age and must weight at least 49 Kg. If the female weighs less than 49 kg, she is usually burdened with a rucksack containing additional weight to make the competition fare.

The origin of North American Wife Carrying Championship is based in Finnish history. According to Wikipedia:

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Incredible Light Paintings by Brian Matthew Hart

Light Painting Photography is becoming more and more popular each day. Also known as light drawing or light graffiti, light painting is a photographic technique in which exposures are made usually at night or in a darkened room by moving a hand-held light source or by moving the camera. In many cases the light source itself does not have to appear in the image.

American light painting artist Brian Matthew Hart has taken the art of light painting to a new height with his new series called 'Illinois 4'. Using photographic techniques, Hart creates unbelievably complex scenes depicting mundane, sometimes whimsical, domestic life drawn mostly in reds, yellows and greens. 'Illinois 4' was conceived, arranged and drawn in collaboration with Dena Pickering on the night of October 15th, 2011 in a western-illinois attic.

Each these light drawings can take 6 to 17 minutes and some of the paintings consist of hundreds of individual photographic exposures.

Brian explains how he captured this painting. In his own words, “open the shutter in a dark room—no lights on—then for this one, 3 of us sat in a circle and tossed these small blue led frisbees around for a few minutes. After that we used these tiny pin leds to trace ourselves. after we're done drawing, we close the shutter”.

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World's Largest Collection of The World's Smallest Versions of The World's Largest Things

The World's Largest Collection of the World's Smallest Versions of the World's Largest Things is a traveling roadside museum out of Kansas, US, by artist Erika Nelson, a pioneer of grassroots art environments, community development, and arts education.

Visible from the windows of the van are dozens of miniature giant roadside attractions, all hand-crafted by Erika: Albert the Bull, Brainerd's Bunyan and Babe, the Talking Cow, Big Brutus, the World's Largest Strawberry, the Largest Ketchup Bottle, and the Largest Ball of Yarn. Inside the van are more, along with research files, work space, publicity clippings, and a stack of offbeat travel guidebooks.

Erika travels alone looking for the wackiest roadside attractions. Once the World's Largest Thing has been photographed, researched, and a site visit made, a tiny replica of the 'thing' is created. The replica is then added to the window displays of the van. “When possible, I bring the World’s Smallest Version back to its parent World’ Largest Thing, taking a Meta-Photo of the Big with the Small,” Erika says.

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UPrinting Giveaway: 3 Sets of Die Cut Business Cards

This weekend we are organizing a great giveaway for Amusing Planet readers. UPrinting.com has generously agreed to sponsor this event, and thanks to their goodwill, three lucky persons from among you will receive 250 pieces of business cards printed in their name and business. Each winner will get the opportunity to upload a custom design or use their online design wizard to build a custom business card from scratch right inside the browser. We have a lot more to say about the prizes, but first a word about the business who is making this possible.

UPrinting

UPrinting.com, a leading online printing, marketing and technology firm, who has established itself as a major player in the industry with its distinct vision and clear approach to helping small businesses grow. It serves thousands of on-demand business printing and graphic printing orders online daily, using high-quality press printing and a robust yet simple and easy-to-use online ordering system, resulting in high-end printing services and reliable color printing at discount printing costs.

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Strange Airport: Gibraltar, World’s Only Airport Runway Intersecting a Road

Gibraltar Airport or North Front Airport is a civilian airport that serves the British overseas territory of Gibraltar, a tiny peninsula with an area of only 6.8 square kilometres. The lack of flat space on Gibraltar means the peninsula's only runway is bisected by its busiest road, the Winston Churchill Avenue that heads towards the land border with Spain. A pair of flimsy-looking barriers closes vehicular traffic every time a plane lands or departs. Fortunately, it’s not a busy airport. It handles only about 30 flights a week, all flying to and from the United Kingdom.

Also see Barra Airport–World’s Only Beach Airport

Cars wait patiently as a Jumbo taxies on the runway at the Gibraltar Airport. Photo credit

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Max de Esteban’s Photos of Deconstructed Gadgets

At first glance these images look like X-Ray’s, but they are not. Barcelona-based artist Max de Esteban meticulously took apart different gadgets like camera, cassette player and typewriter layer by layer, shot them and photographically reassembled them in his latest project Proposition One. The result is retro-chic, x-ray-like artworks displaying an evocative look into the inner workings and complex designs of these devices.

Max de Esteban’s Proposition One is on display at Klompching Gallery, New York City from November 3rd through December 9th.

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Sunland Baobab - A Bar Inside a Hollowed Out Tree

Sunland Baobab is a well-known enormous baobab tree in South Africa. It is one of the largest baobabs in South Africa with a circumference of 47 meter, or 33 meter, depending on who you believe, and a height reaching 19~22 meter. Regardless of the actual figure, everyone agrees that it is the widest tree on the entire continent. It is so big that there's room enough for a small pub inside. The Sunland Baobab is understandably, one of the area's most popular attractions.

But Sunland Baobab wasn’t hollowed out artificially so that a pub could be placed inside. The trunk of this remarkable species is naturally hollow. The small pub inside the tree was created in 1933, and if you visit it today you will still be served a drink. The bar has 13-foot high ceilings and can comfortably fit 15 people inside. The tree is situated on a farm owned by the Van Heerden family, who take care of this majestic specimen.

Besides its remarkable dimensions, the baobab is also one of the oldest trees on earth. Carbon dating has estimated it to be around 6000 years old.

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Darwin Beer Can Regatta

The Darwin Beer Can Regatta is an event which has been held annually since 1974 in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia at Mindil Beach. Participants create boats using empty beer cans, soda cans, soft drink bottle and milk cartons. The vessels are not tested for seaworthiness, prior to water events, and those that fall apart are part of the day's entertainment. A great many sundry events go along with the regatta, including concerts, a thong-throwing contest and the "Henley-on-Mindil" competition (named after the Henley-on-Todd Regatta), where participants run their "boats" around like Flintstones cars.

Photo credit

The 1st Beer Can Regatta was the brainchild of Lutz Frankenfeld and Paul Rice-Chapman, both of whom were members of the Darwin Regional Tourism Promotion Aassociation. At the time, Paul had a deal with Swan Breweries to stage a water festival of somesort, and was developing the idea of building rafts out of empty beer cans. Lutz took this idea a step further and added an outboard motor to the vessel, and things grew from there.

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Beautiful Close-Up Pictures of Animal Eyes by Suren Manvelyan

Armenian photographer Suren Manvelyan surprised us with his close-up pictures of human eyes revealing unbelievable desert landscape like structures. This time he has photographed animals’ eyes.

Suren Manvelyan was born in Yerevan in 1976. He is a PhD holder in Theoretical Physics, won The President Award of Republic of Armenia for the investigations in the field of quantum technologies, scientific researcher in Institute for Physical Research of national Academy of Sciences and plays five different musical instruments. And he is also a photographer.

Suren started to photograph when he was sixteen, and established himself as a professional photographer by 2006. Suren involved nearly in all fields of photography, especially in Macro, Portraits, Creative photo projects, Landscape.

Nylus crocodile

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