Well, another year has gone by and it’s safe to say that it has been a memorable one. We’ve had a great year for photography with an abundance of images to fill us with uncontainable joy, laughter, heartache, anger, sorrow, exhilaration, and wanderlust. It’s only natural to want to feel it all again by taking a look back at the best photos of 2017.

As a year saturated with heated political discourse, shocking (but not-so-shocking) scandals, and devastating natural disasters across the globe, it’s especially important to take a look back and remember the bright spots of the past 12 months. Luckily, hope and lightness can always be tapped into through photography. Every photo is a moment frozen in time, with its own set of visual and emotional levels of value.

Often used as a medium to document life, photography serves as a modern-day time capsule. Instead of waiting decades to unlock this visual treasure trove, let’s take a look back at the remarkable images that have graced our consciousness over the past 365 days.

(For any photographers eagerly looking forward to getting their work discovered, published, and awarded in 2018, keep in mind that there are several photo competitions to submit your images to—this includes the Sony World Photo Awards which is free to enter and has an early January 2018 deadline.)

This year has been filled with beauty, adventure, laughs, and wanderlust. Let’s take a look back with the best photos of 2017.

The post Best of 2017: Top 40 Photographs From Around the World appeared first on My Modern Met.

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If you’re a fan of children’s books, prepare to lose hours browsing through the virtual UCLA Children’s Book Collection. The digital archive hosts over 1,800 children’s fiction, poems, and educational books dating from 1728 to 1999. From fairy tale classics such a Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, to Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, this collection will take you right back to your childhood.

During the 17th century, children’s books were practically non-existent. Instead, the only books available to the younger generation at the time were those made purely for their educational benefit—such as grammar texts and behavioral instruction books—rather than for their amusement. It wasn’t until the mid-18th century that the “notion of pleasure in learning was becoming more widely accepted,” claims UCLA. New markets (and minds) opened up that allowed writers, illustrators, and a stream of new publishers to work together to produce children’s books—some of which many people still know and love today.

Illustrations previously “consisting of small woodcut vignettes” began to evolve, due to innovative printing techniques founded during the Industrial Revolution. Even still, although the new manufacturing processes physically allowed more freedom when making art, many illustrators at the time chose to stay anonymous, and often only got to have their drawings printed on the books’ covers. The books may not have had many pictures, but the stories themselves sparked the imagination of the children who read them.

To start reading, head over to the UCLA Children’s Book Collection, where you can search their collection by popularity, title, date published, and creator.

The UCLA Children’s Book Collection archives more than 1,800 vintage children’s books online.

UCLA Children’s Book Collection: Website
h/t: [Open Culture]

All images via the UCLA Children’s Book Collection.

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Dutch wildlife photographer Roeselien Raimond captures the beauty and joy in nature, particularly through her fantastic red fox photos. Having photographed these charming creatures since 2010, Raimond is now an expert at catching them during their most adorable moments. Her most recent images capture a range of resilient red foxes enjoying the winter snow.

“It has been years since I had the chance to photograph foxes in a blizzard,” says Raimond, who jumped at the chance to capture the fairytale foxes. “Foxes have fascinated me for as long as I can remember,” she told us in an interview. Over the years, she realized that no two foxes are the same, and they all have their own very unique personalities. The snow photos capture how each character copes with the cold conditions. From the weary to the brave, each one of the hearty animals take the conditions in stride. As Raimond shares, “No matter how cold it gets, how heavy the snow falls, they just sit, smile and just pridely undergo their fate, waiting for the warmth and sun to come by…”

Raimond hopes that her fox photos will change many people’s negative perception of the animal. “I’d like to show them foxes as seen through my eyes; not as unscrupulous chicken killers and sly thieves,” she explains. “If my photos can make one person realize that an animal is not a coat to wear, not an object to lock up in a cage, nor something you thoughtlessly cut in slices to eat…[my] mission would be accomplished.”

Roeselien Raimond’s latest photos capture resilient red foxes enjoying the winter snow.

Each image captures the charming personalities of these often understood creatures.

Roeselien Raimond: Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

My Modern Met granted permission to use photos by Roeselien Raimond.

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Photographer Annie Leibovitz has produced some of the world’s most famous portraits over the course of her four-decade-long career. Her list of accomplishments is long, but two of the most notable include being the first female chief photographer at Rolling Stone magazine, and the first woman to have an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. With these achievements, it’s no wonder that plenty of aspiring photographers (and even professionals) want insight into how she works her magic behind the lens. Well, now they can!

Leibovitz is teaching her first-ever photography class online through the education site MasterClass. Consisting of 14 video lessons, a class workbook, and office hours, this is a great opportunity to understand how Leibovitz thinks and approaches her subjects. You even get to virtually attend a magazine shoot with her, which will give a hands-on look at her inimitable process.

The subjects covered in the course include the following: researching your subject; sharpening your observation; coming up with photo concepts; establishing a rapport with your subject; creating effective lighting; developing your storytelling; approaching photography as both an art and craft; and improving your skills by taking family portraits.

If your New Year’s resolution is to better your photography skills, this is the perfect time to start Leibovitz’s class. It’s now available as a single class for $90, or you can pay a $180/year subscription that allows you to access other courses by people at the top of their field.

Watch the 2-minute-long trailer for Annie Leibovitz’s first-ever online photography class:

Annie Leibovitz: Facebook | MasterClass
h/t: [PetaPixel, Open Culture]

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As esteemed art museums continue to digitize their archives, it’s becoming more and more effortless to view and learn about famous artworks by the world’s master painters, sculptors, and printmakers. So far, with over 45,000 digitally archived artworks, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC regularly update their featured image collections, which are “designed to facilitate learning, enrichment, enjoyment, and exploration.” Titled according to theme—such as Self Portraits, Mythology, and Nature and Ecology—the collections are packed full of free images for art lovers to search, browse, share, and download via NGA Images.

Among the amazing collections, you’ll find high-resolution images of Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait from 1889, ancient folklore scenes by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, and Henri Rousseau’s iconic Tropical Forest with Monkeys oil painting from 1844–1910. The best part? You can even become a curator of your own online art collection by using the resources’ Lightbox Arranger. With this tool, you can click and drag to sort, store, and annotate each artwork. When you’re done, you can download your research to create presentations, making NGA Images the perfect resource for art students and scholars.

You can start browsing the gallery’s vast collection via the NGA Images website, where you can sort by artist, title, and date.

The National Gallery of Art has digitally archived 45,000 works of art that are freely available to browse and download.

National Gallery of Art | NGA Images: Website
h/t: [Open Culture]

All images via the National Gallery of Art | NGA Images.

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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.

The StoosBahn funicular in Switzerland reaches a gradient of 110% as it ascends one mile to the Alpine village of Stoos.

Watch the StoosBahn, the world’s steepest funicular, as it makes its ascent.

h/t: [Twisted Sifter]

All images via Standseilbahnen.

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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.

Untouched is the first of eight volumes about Guy Bourdin’s photography. This first book explores his largely unseen black and white photographs taken in 1950s Paris.

My Modern Met granted permission to use photos by Steidl.

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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.

Street photographer Alan Schaller’s ongoing collection of dog portraits captures the unique personalities of canine friends that he’s met around the world.

From pampered pooches to stray street dogs, Schaller hopes his series will encourage viewers to support animal welfare charities.

Alan Schaller: Website | Instagram | Twitter

My Modern Met granted permission to use photos by Alan Schaller.

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In many ways, Bettie Bee is an ordinary newborn cat. The tabby-colored feline has four paws, two ears, and a tail. That, however, is where the similarities end. Bettie is known as a Janus cat, a term for a feline that has two faces—literally. Her head has two noses, two mouths, and three eyes. Bettie’s extra face is the result of an extremely rare congenital condition called craniofacial duplication that causes certain facial features to double in the womb.

After Bettie was born, her owner knew that she would need extra help. Due to the additional mouth, it meant Bettie would have a difficult time nursing normally, if at all. The owner then brought the kitten to a rescuer who has experience in taking care of special-needs cats.

“She was born on December 12 and I went to fetch her the very next morning,” the rescuer (who wishes to remain anonymous), told The Dodo. “I took her to the vet that day and his first opinion was to put her down. But she was, at one day old then, very feisty. We wanted to give her a chance. And she’s been thriving.” Bettie’s rescuer has been feeding her via a tube, and she discovered that both mouths led to the stomach.

Although a two-faced cat like Bettie is certainly an anomaly, there’s a chance that she will grow up to live a healthy life; in one case, a Janus cat named Frankenlouie passed away after 14 years. With love and care, Bettie will hopefully have the same.

“She’s [Bettie] amazing — I still look at her and can’t believe she’s real,” the rescuer marvels. “I’m taking it day by day and hope she will continue to thrive and be with myself and my husband for many years. It’s wonderful to see how many people are rooting for her.”

You can follow along with her incredible story, too. The rescuer has set up a Facebook page for the little kitty, who is already becoming a worldwide sensation at barely a week old.

Meet Bettie Bee, a tiny kitten who is gaining worldwide fame for her unusual looks.

She’s a janus cat, a two-faced cat that has two noses, two mouths, and three eyes.

This could result in some health difficulties, but so far the young kitten is thriving.

Bettie Bee: Facebook

h/t: [The Dodo]

All images via Bettie Bee.

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French Photographer Ludwig Favre’s stunning photographs capture the beauty of Copenhagen’s Grundtvig’s Church—one of the most well-known churches in Denmark, and a rare example of expressionist church architecture. Built between 1927 and 1940, the church was designed by architect Peder Vilhelm Jensen-Klint, who found inspiration in many different architectural movements, building techniques, and materials. His final design merged the modern geometric forms of Brick Expressionism—a specific variant of expressionist architecture that uses bricks or tiles—with the classical aesthetic of Gothic architecture.

Expressionist architecture paralleled the rise of the European expressionist art movement during the beginning of the 20th century. In the case of Grundtvig’s Church, Favre was drawn to it’s impressive interior, that comprises approximately 6 million yellow bricks—a typical Danish building material at the time. In typical Gothic style, the two long, narrow aisles allow space for a congregation of 1,800. The floor is dwarfed by incredible vertical columns which rise up to pointed arches that meet the high vaulted ceiling.

The space’s lack of ornamentation focuses attention on the church’s construction, lighting, and the select objects included within the space, such as the cylindrical chandeliers. Favre’s photos manage to capture both the church’s minimalist style, the contrasting warm and and cool light within the space, as well as its immense scale.

You can see more of Ludwig’s images on Instagram and Behance.

French photographer Ludwig Favre captures the incredible beauty of Copenhagen’s expressionist church architecture.

Ludwig Favre: Website | Facebook | Instagram | Behance

My Modern Met granted permission to use photos by Ludwig Favre.

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