A blog of strange (found) B&W photography
posted by grumblebee on Nov 2, 2009 - 37 comments

While many quirky news buffs may be aware of the story of Phineas Gage -- the Vermont railroad foreman who had a three foot iron rod penetrate his skull as the result of an explosion and lived to tell about it -- fewer know that the only known photograph of him was recently discovered. Fewer still know that the identification of that photograph happened via a Flickr comment. (no thanks to you LA Times, previously) [more inside]
posted by jessamyn on Jul 29, 2009 - 77 comments

RIP Julius Shulman, iconic photographer of modernist architecture.
posted by WPW on Jul 16, 2009 - 13 comments

The iconic image of Tienanmen Square protests was that of the "Tank Man," a lone individual who stepped in front of a column of armored vehicles at the height of the massacre. On the eve of the anniversary of the protests, the New York Times interviews the four photographers who took images of the event, including how they got their film out of China, and there is also a video of the event, where you can see the man blocking the tanks. In a program available in full online, Frontline tries to find the identity of Tank Man, and finds that China has been remarkably successful in erasing the image from public memory. [prev.]
posted by blahblahblah on Jun 3, 2009 - 24 comments

Zhang Peng’s elaborate photographs have been called both "beautiful" and "disgusting". You can see some of them here and here.
posted by chiraena on Mar 22, 2009 - 39 comments

There's the fascinating autistic musical savant Blind Tom Wiggins. There are musical clowns and minstrels, and poignant images of child musicians. There are tantalizing and truly exotic images of musicians from far-flung corners of the world: India, Persia, China, Japan... all this and more at the Vintage Musicians Flickr group. Oh, and who's that critter with the banjo? Why, that may just be the ORIGINAL LOL CAT.
posted by flapjax at midnite on Feb 26, 2009 - 11 comments

Trapped: Mental Illness in America's Prisons by Jenn Ackerman. [more inside]
posted by chunking express on Dec 7, 2008 - 17 comments

Fashion meets classic children's fantasy: Vogue UK has photographed some amazing scenes inspired by the poems and other works of Roald Dahl, and featuring Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter. For more, see Annie Leibovitz's fashion-filled take on the Wizard of Oz with Kieira Knightley as Dorothy. Also Vogue does Alice in Wonderland, also by Annie Leibovitz with many of the odder characters played by fashion designers. And, in a slightly more sweet vein, the same photographer uses many famous faces to illustrate Disney fairytales. Finally, and a bit darker, are these takes on fairy tales.
posted by blahblahblah on Nov 11, 2008 - 15 comments

...As he pored over the mass of texts and thumbnail photos that the eBay search engine had pulled up on that day in 2005, one strangely worded listing caught Schein’s eye. It read, “Old Snapshot Blues Guitar B.B. King???” He clicked on the link, then took in the sepia-toned image that opened on his monitor. Two young black men stared back at Schein from what seemed to be another time. They stood against a plain backdrop wearing snazzy suits, hats, and self-conscious smiles. The man on the left held a guitar stiffly against his lean frame. Neither man looked like B. B. King, but as Schein studied the figure with the guitar, noticing in particular the extraordinary length of his fingers and the way his left eye seemed narrower and out of sync with his right, it occurred to him that he had stumbled across something significant and rare... the more convinced he became that it depicted one of the most mysterious and mythologized blues artists produced by the Delta: the guitarist, singer, and songwriter whom Eric Clapton once anointed “the most important blues musician who ever lived.” That’s not B. B. King, Schein said to himself. Because it’s Robert Johnson.

Searching for Robert Johnson reveals not only what may be the third picture of Robert Johnson but a Byzantine struggle over his legacy as well.
posted by y2karl on Oct 9, 2008 - 29 comments

"Baby Lali with two faces, two noses, two pairs of lips and two pairs of eyes was born on March 11 in a northern Indian village, where she is doing well and is being worshipped as the reincarnation of a Hindu goddess, her father said Tuesday."
posted by auralcoral on Apr 18, 2008 - 52 comments

What makes a great portrait?
posted by klangklangston on Feb 7, 2008 - 20 comments

Before a hill, a figure rests, his hands folded. His face retains a unsettling demeanor of peace, or contemplation. Whatever thoughts come to his mind at this point, we shall never know, for he shall never awake from his slumber. [via] [more inside]
posted by Smart Dalek on Feb 4, 2008 - 36 comments

Gaping Maws is a collection of photos of animals with their mouths wide open. Like this.
posted by hydrophonic on Dec 3, 2007 - 40 comments

Bilderbook.
posted by hama7 on Aug 16, 2007 - 26 comments

Fighter jets, overturned tractor trailers, WW II bombers, cars parked on walls, and more of The Strangest Sights in Google Earth
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Jul 27, 2007 - 53 comments

Croc Bites Off Hand
posted by Stynxno on Apr 13, 2007 - 69 comments

Seeing Beyond Sight: Photographs by Blind Teenagers is the product of Sound Shadows, a literacy-through-photography class taught by Tony Deifell, Shirley Hand, Dan Partridge and Jessica Toal from 1992 to 1997 at the Governor Morehead School for the Blind.
posted by fandango_matt on Mar 20, 2007 - 12 comments

Turkey Cinemascope is a series of dramatic photographs from director Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Shot all across Turkey, he used them to record locations he was scouting for his films. Many are panoramic, some are epic, others intimate, and all are beautiful. (via and via)
posted by ztdavis on Feb 26, 2007 - 11 comments

Beijing artist Li Wei switched from oil painting to performance art in 1999; in 2000 he used mirrors to create a ... detached collection. Then he began falling into things.
posted by Terminal Verbosity on Jan 29, 2007 - 17 comments

Picture Newsletter.
posted by hama7 on Dec 26, 2006 - 3 comments

Michael Hughes takes cheap souvenirs, and then takes photographs with them superimposed over the real thing. A Flickr photo set.
via Wired's Table of Malcontents
posted by Bugbread on Nov 17, 2006 - 30 comments

Picture-History.com has "thousands of the most important photographs of the last 150 years", organised by collections and themes.
posted by MetaMonkey on Sep 21, 2006 - 17 comments

digit.exp: snapshots of Hokkaido, occasionally elsewhere
posted by hama7 on Sep 2, 2006 - 13 comments

Rachel Papo - photographer and soldier Some great pictures from Rachel Papo, a photographer and sometime (1988-90) soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces...
posted by runkelfinker on Mar 14, 2006 - 21 comments

Back to the Bowery: The End of McGurk's Suicide Hall is a photographic walking tour of the Bowery as it is today. Don't miss The Sunshine Hotel (the last of the flophouses) or the photo of the gen-yoo-ine Bowery rat.
posted by kalimac on Feb 18, 2006 - 16 comments

This utterly stunning panorama of Paris by night (WARNING! 15000x520 image, 1.8mb) is almost too good to be true. You can see so many landmarks it's ridiculous - this version has them labelled for your convenience. I traced it back to Arnaud Friche's gallery of panoramic photographs of Paris, churches and cathedrals, and other cities. There are so many beautiful hi-res photographs here that I won't waste any more of your time talking about them.
posted by BlackLeotardFront on Dec 13, 2005 - 66 comments

The Home Galaxy. What does the galaxy in which we live look like? via Cheryl's Mewsings
posted by thatwhichfalls on Aug 16, 2005 - 17 comments

Astronaut Steve Robinson took a picture of himself that Escher would've loved, when out fixing the Space Shuttle Discovery. Available in hi-res, too (not safe for dialup).
posted by cerebus19 on Aug 5, 2005 - 67 comments

Bird Watchers Guide on Flickr. "Linked list of species submitted; find all photos of a species here".
posted by nthdegx on Jun 5, 2005 - 11 comments

At Nine Past Nine everyday, he takes a selfpicture and posts it.
He's been doing this since October of 2002. Twenty eight months of selfpictures at 9:09 am with whoever he happens to be with or whatever he happens to be doing.
posted by fenriq on Feb 10, 2005 - 19 comments

a visitor to rio takes a bunch of disposable cameras and hands them out to children in the favela of rocinha to take pictures of their lives (via k5) (scroll down)
posted by pyramid termite on Aug 30, 2004 - 53 comments

Fed up with anti-piracy warnings in your local cinema? Why not take a picture?
posted by Katemonkey on Jun 17, 2004 - 54 comments

I feel safer already! A US requirement for foreign visitors to be fingerprinted and photographed is being expanded to include citizens from America's closest allies, starting September 30th.
posted by johnnydark on Apr 2, 2004 - 22 comments

You've probably seen those photo mosaics where a large image is made up of many smaller images acting as pixels. Kelly Houle has taken the idea a mile further by creating a photo collage that is also anamorphic -- a collage of illustrations and related material from Alice in Wonderland that, when a curved mirror is placed in the correct position, forms a portrait of Lewis Carroll. Absolutely amazing stuff.
posted by ewagoner on Jan 23, 2003 - 19 comments

In the long line of "take a picture of things" collaborative sites, we now have Snap Your Desk, which takes a few design *cough*hints*cough* from The Mirror Project.
So show us your crap-covered geek pit.
posted by Su on Jun 13, 2002 - 3 comments

I didn't know you needed a wind tunnel to test those things.... So that's where my tax money is going. I feel much better about NASA now.
posted by christina on Jul 2, 2001 - 23 comments

This reminded me of one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. Once on vacation in Eastern Oregon, there was a total eclipse of the moon, just like this one. And some people nearby were taking photographs of it. Flash photographs. The round-trip time to the moon at the speed of light is 3 seconds and I wouldn't even want to calculate the attenuation caused by 320,000 miles of range. Sometimes it seems as if some people are completely and totally clueless about what they're doing.
posted by Steven Den Beste on Jul 25, 2000 - 12 comments