Cities at the end...

Painings by MARK PETTIT

An intense childhood interest in drawing and painting gave Mark Pettit an early start in the pursuit of becoming an artist, but there was little in his early efforts to suggest that he would attain his current level of success so early in his career. MARK is based in Colorado/Texas.

Wonderful Japan

Japan is not only the 2nd largest economy in the modern world, but it is also very famous for its unique cultures, arts and architectures as well. In the collection below, you will find stunning photos about many familiar images of Japan such as Geisha, Torii gates, cherry blossom (sakura) … from macro shots to landscape images.

The Modern Ghost City of Ordos

The city of Ordos, in Inner Mongolia, China, was founded on February 26, 2001. It was designed to be home for one million people, yet, the Kangbashi district remains nearly empty five years after construction began.

Ordos means "palaces" in Mongolian, and it's richer than Beijing. In fact, with a $14,500 GDP per capita, it's one of the richest in the whole country. With 1,548,000 inhabitants, Ordos is not exactly empty. But much of its modern architecture, sometimes awesomely futuristic, sometimes nafftastically overdeveloped and underdesigned, remains completely empty. The density of this city is only 17.8 people per square kilometer. By comparison, New York City has 157.91 habitants per square kilometer, San Francisco has 6,688.4, and Madrid 5,293.69.

The Kangbashi district began as a public-works project in Ordos, a wealthy coal-mining town in Inner Mongolia. The area is filled with office towers, administrative centers, government buildings, museums, theaters and sports fields—not to mention acre on acre of subdivisions overflowing with middle-class duplexes and bungalows. The only problem: the district was originally designed to house, support and entertain 1 million people, yet hardly anyone lives there.

New York at Night

Jason Hawkes likes to photograph the world from above, and he has been doing that since 1991. In college, all he wanted to be was a studio photographer, but all that changed after a flight in a small aircraft. "I realized that, with a little attitude, you see all these amazing patterns - even mundane things look intriguing," said Hawkes.

The British photographer spent 15 weeks using state of the art technology to create these dramatic shots for his new book, New York At Night.

"The images of New York were shot on Nikons latest camera, the D3S, using three gyro stabilizing mounts and flown using twin star helicopters. We flew from heights of just over 500 ft up to 2,500-ft with no doors on, it was very very cold."

 

Majestic HDR Photography by Spreng Ben

The photographer of these stunning HDR images is  Spreng Ben from Tokyo, Japan. Ben does not consider himself to be a Photographer but he somehow loves the power that lays in a simple click that possibly lasts only a breath of a second but on the other hand gives authority over true Art and real style.

The Venice Historical Regatta

Every year, on the first Sunday of September, the Historical Regatta is held in Venice. Hundreds of Venetians pile into the long boats that have plied the city's canals for centuries for the 'Regata Storica' (Historical Regatta), a historical procession that commemorates the welcome given to Caterina Cornaro, wife of the King of Cyprus, in 1489 after she renounced her throne in favour of Venice.

The spectacular historical water pageant is driven by gondoliers wearing historic costume carrying the Doge, the Doge’s wife and all the highest ranking Venetian officials up the Grand Canal in a brightly coloured parade. This is followed by four separate boat races. The winners are awarded flags in place of medals. Until few years ago, together with the symbolic prizes, there were also some kind of awards; the most famous of them was a little living pig, that would parade on a gondola of its own. The pig ceremony has been abolished since few years ago after protests by some animal protection organizations. PETA is always ruining the fun.

New York City From Above

Breathtaking aerial photography of the New York City by photographer Daniel Acker.

Office and residential buildings stand in the financial district of Manhattan in this aerial photograph taken over New York, U.S., on Wednesday, July 7, 2010.

City Illustrations by Fernando Volken Togni

Brazilian illustrator Fernando Volken Togni created this cool series of illustrations for Oryx, the in-flight magazine for Qatar Airways. Each illustration was for an article highlighting the must-see sights in various cities. I really like Fernando’s bold, graphic style. It reminds me a bit of Federico Jordan’s work.

 

The Elevated High Line Park in New York City [25 pics]

Photograph by Joel Sternfield

The High Line is a public park built on a 1.45-mile-long (2.3 km) elevated rail structure running from Gansevoort Street to West 34th Street on Manhattan’s West Side. Previously, the High Line was a freight rail line, in operation from 1934 to 1980. It carried meat to the meatpacking district, agricultural goods to the factories and warehouses of the industrial West Side, and mail to the Post Office.

The area has recently been taken over by the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation where a non-profit organization ‘Friends of the High Line’ builds and maintains this incredible public space. Phase II of the High Line just opened last week (June 8, 2011) to much fanfare. The High Line is sure to be a popular destination for tourists and New Yorkers alike for years to come.

Details on the park along with a brief history and construction overview can be found below amongst the stunning gallery of photographs of this incredible space. Enjoy!

Voices of Haiti - A Photo Essay by Jeremy Cowart

After the 7.0 earthquake rocked Haiti on January 12th of this year, I was deeply moved as most of you were. For days I watched as the television flashed images of gloom and doom... dead bodies, crumbled buildings... It just felt like a heartless display of numbers and statistics. "How were the people feeling?" I wondered. I was tired of hearing endless reports from strangers that just arrived to this devastated nation. So I decided to go to Port-Au-Prince myself and ask them directly. My question was simply "What do you have to say about all this?" This photo essay reveals the many answers to that question.

“The earth can shake but Haiti remains in my heart.”

  Mathieu lost 2 siblings, but he still works the streets in hope of a better Haiti

Jens Fersterra, Berlin, Germany

Work's Jens Fersterra, Berlin, Germany
Canon EOS 5D MKI ))))

Work's Ronnie Yip

Photography from the streets of Toronto, or wherever else I happened to be.

Aquarelle by Minh Dam

Captured: New York City from Above

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Office and residential buildings stand in the financial district of Manhattan in this aerial photograph taken over New York, U.S., on Wednesday, July 7, 2010. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg #

Shanghai World Expo Opens

SHANGHAI (AP) -- A steady flow of visitors joined long lines in sweltering heat at the Shanghai World Expo 2010 on Sunday, a day after organizers said visitor numbers were just more than half of what was expected. Organizers say they are still grappling with estimates about just how many people will attend the massive event aimed at showcasing China's rise as a modern industrial power. Early estimates put the number of visitors over the six-month run of the World Expo at 70 million, the vast majority of whom are expected to come from China. High temperatures and bottlenecks at security checks and long waits to enter the various pavilions are challenging organizers. On Saturday, when the event opened, organizers said about 350,000 tickets had been sold for Day 1, but about 200,000 people attended. Events on Saturday continued well into the evening, with people still lining up at midnight to visit pavilions. The European pavilions, which offer a wide range of entertainment, drink and dining, seemed to be attracting the largest crowds. China is splashing out 28.6 billion yuan ($4.2 billion) on the Expo itself, and many billions more on improvements such as public transit for this city of 20 million people. (28 images)

People walk by illuminated fountains, which are synchronized to music during the night of the second day of the Shanghai World Expo Sunday, May 2, in Shanghai, China. AP 

HDR Architecture Photography – Expanding the Horizons

Architecture and photography – these are two separate forms of art, each living their separate, unique, and independent lives at the first sight. However, the points of contact between architecture and photography are really numerous. Today, we want to show you magnificent results of the art process, stemming from the amazing and impressive fusion of the best architecture designs and innovative photography technique, called HDR. The key purpose of the High Dynamic Range Imaging here is to represent or portrait architectural masterpieces at such levels of contrast and brightness, which are as much close as possible to the levels we normally observe in the natural environment.

Amazing depth and intensity of colors, diversity of shades and halftones are combined with perfect lines of buildings, authentic shapes, and innovative materials. Such combinations, which you can see at this gallery of HDR architecture photographs, are capable of generating powerful streams of emotions, aroused by aesthetic impulses. One of the benefits of HDR photography is that it enables viewers to see the details, which usually remain invisible on the standard photographic image. This feature is especially valuable for architecture photography, where every single detail matters and contributes to the proper perception of the entire ensemble.

HEP NAVIO, Umeda, Osaka by Hidehiko Sakashita

80+ Exceptionally Beautiful Photographs of Paris

Who hasn’t dreamt of visiting Paris once in this lifetime? Dubbed the ‘City of Light‘, Paris is one of the, if not the most, romantic city to ever grace the earth. Any tourists to this beautiful and culturally rich city will be overwhelmed with excitement by the thousands of places this city has to offer. Wherever one goes, a good photo spot is simply around the corner for one to capture the moment forever.

 

Newly released September 11 images

This is a collection of the newly released aerial photograph made on September 11, 2001 by the New York City
Police Department and provided on Feb. 10, 2010 by ABC News. The images show the collapsing World Trade
Center in New York following attacks by terrorists who flew two airliners into the towers. This and other
aerial photos from the 9/ 11 attacks were obtained by ABC News, who in 2009 filed a Freedom of Information
Act request with the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The photographs were made by Greg
Semendinger of the New York City Police Department. (10 images)

 

AP / NYPD via ABC News / Greg Semendinger

Monochrome Italy From 1890s