Did you know: Caribou and reindeer are the same species? (They are different subspecies, though.) Found in Alaska and Canada, caribou can reach 3-4 feet tall at the shoulder, and both males and females grow antlers. Their hooves act like snowshoes to keep them from sinking in the snow. We wonder if this one perfected here is getting ready for the big ride tonight. 🎅 Photo courtesy of Steve Forrest.
My love of the doll imagery of Joseph Cornell and James Ensor, for instance, is partly born of the sense of childhood kept alive. Their work preserves the uncanny perception of dolls’ attractive creepiness, a seeming consciousness. Received ideas are unwittingly incarnated in the manufactured rubber objects and identities emerge. Using artificial breasts, snakes, naked baby-dolls, and other props, I give that consciousness expression, satirizing what was unwitting and making it manifest and visceral: a weird vision ripe with resonant gender tensions, aesthetic hierarchies, neuroses, and perhaps, spirituality.
Do you need inspiring Christmas quotes and cards to send out to your loved ones this holiday season?
Friends, throughout the year, our minds are filled with thoughts of improving our businesses, boosting our productivity and focus, and ultimately creating success. It does get wearying and holidays are the perfect time to pause awhile, take stock, and turn our attention outward to all our blessings and all the people surrounding us.
Send out these inspiring Christmas messages to the loved ones in your life. It’s not about expensive gifts, rather, it’s the simple thought of being remembered that often counts.
Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas!
He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree. – Roy L. Smith
Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.
Christmas is not as much about opening our presents as opening our hearts. – Janice Maeditere
The spirit of Christmas is the spirit of love and of generosity and of goodness. It illuminates the picture window of the soul, and we look out upon the world’s busy life and become more interested in people than in things. – Thomas S. Monson
Christmas is the season of joy, of holiday greetings exchanged, of gift-giving, and of families united. – Norman Vincent Peale
Christmas is a tonic for our souls. It moves us to think of others rather than of ourselves. It directs our thoughts to giving. – B. C. Forbes
The only blind person at Christmas-time is he who has not Christmas in his heart. – Helen Keller
Christmas isn’t a season. It’s a feeling. – Edna Ferber
The BEST of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a HAPPY FAMILY all wrapped up in each other.
God never gives someone a gift they are not capable of receiving. If he gives us the gift of Christmas, it is because we all have the ability to understand and receive it. – Pope Francis
Christmas, my child, is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it’s Christmas. – Dale Evans
Please visit SayingImages.com for more Christmas Quotes, Messages and Greetings.
Happy Holidays, everyone!
The post 12 Christmas Quotes about Love and Family that will Lift Your Spirits appeared first on Dumb Little Man.
If you don’t suffer from vertigo and are looking for a little thrill, you may want to book your next trip to Switzerland, which has just opened the world’s steepest funicular. Connecting the town of Schwyz with the Alpine village of Stoos, the funicular climbs at a maximum gradient of 110%. The newly opened StoosBahn is fourteen years in the making, climbing a height differential of 2,440 feet over the mile-long track.
The StoosBahn’s barrel design has an automatic leveling system that allows the cylinders to rotate, ensuring that passengers remain level, even at the steepest gradient. A total of 136 passengers can fit in each car to enjoy the quick 4-minute ride. The project opened two years past schedule at a cost of 52 million Swiss francs ($53 million), but the StoosBahn is still a point of pride for the railway company.
We should point out, that although the StoosBahn is the world’s steepest classic funicular railway, there are other railway systems that have it beat. A classic funicular is a system where two trains connected by a cable pass each other halfway down the track, balancing each other out in a manner that lets the system function without much force. The Scenic Blue Railway in Australia has a gradient of 122%, but is an inclined lift—meaning it operates as a single train that moves up and down on a winch.
h/t: [Twisted Sifter]
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The post World’s Steepest Mountainside Railway Opens in the Majestic Swiss Alps appeared first on My Modern Met.
© The Guy Bourdin Estate, 2017
Best known for his provocative fashion photography, Guy Bourdin was a pioneer in the industry, working with Vogue, among other publications, from the mid-1950s until his untimely death in 1991. His campaigns for shoe designer Charles Jourdan, which he shot for almost 15 years, became a sensation for their surreal imagery. Mixing touches of his mentor Man Ray, Magritte, and Balthus, his shocking, slightly sinister and surreal photography made him one of the most well-known fashion photographers of the 20th century.
And while most of the world knows him for these colorful images, there was another side of Bourdin’s work, which, until now, remained largely unseen. Untouched, a new photography book published by Steidl, peels back the layers of Bourdin’s early black and white photography. Captured while roaming the streets of Paris in the early 1950s, Bourdin’s take on street photography is an incredible glimpse into the creative mind of a young artist on the brink of success.
For Bourdin, who discovered his love of photography while in the Air Force, his return to Paris after being stationed abroad was an opportunity to explore his newfound artistry. With over 200 black and white photographs published in Untouched, we see Bourdin testing his creative eye, playing with the shapes and surreal compositions that would later become his trademark. Whether accentuating the geometric form of a bathing costume or ironically positioning an elegantly dressed woman next to a butcher’s window, it’s clear to see Bourdin was pushing the envelope from the moment he picked up a camera.
Lovers of Bourdin’s work will be pleased to know that Untouched is just the first of eight volumes that Steidl will be publishing about the iconic photographer’s work. And with this first volume, viewers are brought along the early journey and development of the legendary late photographer.
© The Guy Bourdin Estate, 2017
© The Guy Bourdin Estate, 2017
© The Guy Bourdin Estate, 2017
© The Guy Bourdin Estate, 2017
‘Untouched’ cover
Gorgeously Surreal Fashion Photography
Surreal Portraits of the Human Form Hiding Behind Reflections of Nature
10+ Photographers Who Have Elevated the Power of Fine Art Photography
The post Guy Bourdin’s Early Unpublished Photos from the Streets of 1950s Paris appeared first on My Modern Met.
Last year we introduced you to London-based street photographer Alan Schaller, whose high contrast, black and white images capture “the realities and diversities of human life.” Previously, we covered an intimate series of his that showed the rarely photographed faces of Moroccan people. In his latest work, Schaller takes to the streets once more, but this time, his subjects are a little smaller and furrier. From tiny pups to bounding hounds, his growing collection of dog portraits capture the unique personalities of canine friends that he’s met around the world. “I find dogs are in general more consistently friendly, unpredictable, and amusing than humans,” says Schaller.
Part of Schaller’s process is to bond with the dog, by bending down to equal ground, where they can get familiar with him, as well as his camera gear. If the dog has an owner, Schaller first asks permission to photograph their pet, and from there he moves onto gaining the dog’s trust. “Almost every dog I have photographed, unless the scenario has been tragic, has made me laugh at some point when meeting it,” Schaller admits.
The photographer tries to avoid disturbing stray dogs who are often vulnerable, injured, or sick. However, in some countries most of the dogs he met were homeless—such as India, where there are approximately 30 million street dogs. One particular stray in Kerala bonded with Schaller straight away. “We ‘clicked’, and there was total mutual trust from the beginning,” he recalls. Starved of food and attention, Schaller couldn’t help but care for her during his week-long stay. Each day she would meet him outside his hotel and follow close behind him as he went about his day. “It was great getting to know her,” Schaller fondly remembers,“but she was quite painful to leave.”
Schaller hopes that this series will encourage viewers to support charities such as the UK’s RSPCA where you can adopt a dog or support their cause through donations. You can find more of Schaller’s photographs on Instagram.
London
Casino Royale, Monaco
London Underground
West Wittering Beach, West Sussex
Volterra, Italy
Kolkata, India
London Underground
London
Pisa, Italy
Koh Phayam, Thailand
West Wittering Beach, West Sussex
London
London Underground
Istanbul, Turkey
London
Alan Schaller: Website | Instagram | Twitter
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Expressive Portraits Highlight the Overlooked Beauty of Black Shelter Dogs
The post Dog Portraits Capture the Unique Personalities of Pups Around the World appeared first on My Modern Met.
My family is very passionate about Christmas trees. We insist—or rather, my wife and our two sons insist—that the search for the tree must be arduous. We are surrounded in bosky Amherst by small Christmas tree farms, as I meekly point out, but instead we drive over an hour to remote Ashfield, up near the Vermont border, to a particular farm. There, outfitted with saws and a large cart, a sort of wheeled gurney, we hike to where the trees are, a half hour’s climb up the sloping path. Then, with much discussion—should cuteness be a factor, or some elusive element of character?—we select our tree.
Snow flurries bring an eerie realism to the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Hauntingly beautiful, the 19 statues represent the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who fought in the “Forgotten War.” Visiting the memorial on the National Mall is a powerful and moving experience. Photo by National Park Service.
Sig Nordal 