Rusty Fire Hydrant Planets

March 18, 2013 7:06 PM

Rusty Fire Hydrant Planets
posted by Confess, Fletch (15 comments total)

Fom Neatorama:

Adam Kennedy was inspired by the rusty round spheres atop older fire hydrants in San Francisco, because they displayed patterns that look like planets. So with Photoshop and other effects, he makes them into images of exoplanets! See more of them with the hydrants at an imgur gallery, and the artwork with all the effects at his site.

Artist's website
posted by filthy light thief at 7:14 PM on March 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: How hyrdogen-normative


These are great :)
posted by Bohemia Mountain at 7:22 PM on March 18, 2013 [2 favorites]

Oh my. I'm never going to be able to look at fire hydrants in the same way. Ever again. Ever.

Thanks for this.
posted by medusa at 7:24 PM on March 18, 2013 [3 favorites]

Once again I am astounded at how people can see something ordinary and then enable the rest of us to expand our vision to encompass their wonderful reality. Beautiful stuff.
posted by BlueHorse at 7:36 PM on March 18, 2013 [5 favorites]

LOVE. THIS.

Similar: Christopher Jonassen's frying pan planets.
posted by gwint at 7:45 PM on March 18, 2013 [4 favorites]

I find it encouraging that each of these planets has water.
posted by twoleftfeet at 7:46 PM on March 18, 2013 [6 favorites]

Fantastic to see these and see something totally unique as well.
posted by arcticseal at 8:17 PM on March 18, 2013

Came here to point to similar photographs by Christopher Jonassen, but I see that gwint has beat me to it.

I love these just as much as the frying pans. SO AWESOME. Thanks for posting
posted by FirstMateKate at 8:25 PM on March 18, 2013

Canals! I knew there were canals.
posted by telstar at 11:00 PM on March 18, 2013

I find it disturbing that none of these planets have polar ice caps left. We just ruin everything, don't we?
posted by Seiten Taisei at 11:18 PM on March 18, 2013

I find it encouraging that each of these planets has water.

Well, duh. Fire hydrants.
posted by dhartung at 11:29 PM on March 18, 2013 [2 favorites]

I made a bunch of planets in Photoshop for a work project using rusty textures and making them look spherical. Never though to use actual spheres. It really is amazing how much the texture looks like a planet surface with just a tad bit of modification. In my case, I needed 3 or 4 planets for two project, but ended up making at learn a dozen because it was so fun to create new worlds. I even gave each one a back story in my head.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 12:19 AM on March 19, 2013

Once again I am astounded at how people can see something ordinary and then enable the rest of us to expand our vision to encompass their wonderful reality. Beautiful stuff.

Rust is gorgeous, and part of it is that these presuppose a civilization where metal objects are common. Even civilization's cast-offs are beautiful.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 12:36 AM on March 19, 2013

The fire hydrant planet across the street from my house is pentagon shaped.
posted by double block and bleed at 3:51 AM on March 19, 2013

These are really great. It's interesting how any sphere can become a planet in our minds - we've all seen pictures of planets our whole lives. My 84 year old aunt told me that she used to see the moon as flat but then when the first pictures of it that really showed it was a sphere came around, she could never see it the same way again. She said she missed it when it was flat but I, who grew up on images of spheres in the sky, can't even imagine life without them.
posted by mygothlaundry at 7:22 AM on March 20, 2013