f/8 and be there.

September 30, 2021 3:21 AM

"Rare Photos That Reveal The Unseen Side Of Things." Part one. Part two.
posted by Marky (28 comments total)

Part two is more "I saw a cool thing once" but they are both interesting in their own way.
posted by jacquilynne at 4:59 AM on September 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

#20 in part two = baby cthulus! So cute! So terrifying!
posted by Grither at 5:34 AM on September 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

I want a framed print of the back of the Mona Lisa! Also #26 on part two is a real eyeball kick. Bet I know what was on offer at the hospital cafeteria that day...
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 5:41 AM on September 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

Some of the comments are pretty good, too. There's one for Everest that notes "Many people don't realice that the Everest is littered with trash, bodily waste and dead bodies."
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:21 AM on September 30, 2021 [3 favorites]

I want a framed print of the back of the Mona Lisa

It's not the Mona Lisa, but I have a print of this displayed at work. It often leads to fun conversations.

Also, neat post. thanks!
posted by eotvos at 6:58 AM on September 30, 2021 [6 favorites]

fascinating. Thanks.
posted by AugustWest at 7:06 AM on September 30, 2021

God, that one of the top of Everest is pretty heartbreaking. Why do we have to ruin everything?
posted by penguin pie at 7:27 AM on September 30, 2021 [3 favorites]

I wish the questions in the comments were answered. Specifically, can a person who is not Jewish lift up the plastic in the Israeli supermarket and grab a proscribed food item? I imagine so. Maybe someone here knows.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 8:09 AM on September 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

#20 Part One, the traffic control room in Beijing resonates disturbingly with the movie "Through a Scanner Darkly."
posted by mule98J at 8:11 AM on September 30, 2021

The whale nose was amazing. I figured they were all circles, like a dolphin.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:38 AM on September 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

Some pretty cool photos, but I would like to poop on the idea that a photo of an artichoke, a tumbleweed, or a supermarket bulk container of M&M's is "rare".
posted by polecat at 8:40 AM on September 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

God, that one of the top of Everest is pretty heartbreaking. Why do we have to ruin everything?

I kind of feel like there has to be more behind that pic than just "Look how badly we've trashed the summit of Everest." Most of the apparent trash in the pic look to be prayer flags, which normally festoon the base camps. No one in their right mind is going to haul superfluous shit like what appears to be an acre of flags up to the summit with them. That's how you end up in the body count.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:40 AM on September 30, 2021

Bored Panda does have good stuff which is why I've been reading it for years but IMO the single-issue Twitter threads they've been reposting lately really bring down their collective Best-of-the-Web score.
posted by Rash at 8:46 AM on September 30, 2021

Some comments suggested the photo of the helicopter lifting the power-line pylon were fake, so I found some slightly more informed discussion at Reddit. I didn't get definitive answers about exactly when you would do this vs. just building it on site, or just how much the tower actually weighs, but I'm done Googling for now.
posted by polecat at 8:58 AM on September 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

I subscribe to a Subreddit called "Artifact Porn" which is photos and brief descriptions of various interesting artifacts from around the globe and human history. I chuckle every time one of these things is called "rare" in the title. Yes, the helmet discovered at Sutton Hoo is "rare"—but it's also the only one in existence! And I'd argue that any photo online is— by its very existence online—not-rare.
posted by SoberHighland at 9:07 AM on September 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

As somebody who's cut stuff open I must comment that the 9-volt battery is bogus. And the reason pictures of astronauts using the untethered MMU are so rare is NASA only used it three times, in 1984.
posted by Rash at 9:12 AM on September 30, 2021

Wrinkled Stumpskin, besides Gijsbrechts you might also like Vik Muniz's versos series. Here's one at MIA
posted by PussKillian at 9:15 AM on September 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

As somebody who's cut stuff open I must comment that the 9-volt battery is bogus

It's been a while since I've opened up a 9v battery, but at least some alkaline versions do indeed consist of 6 AAAA batteries. The cheap carbon zinc ones and one alkaline were a stack of sqat cells.
posted by 2N2222 at 9:23 AM on September 30, 2021

As somebody who's cut stuff open I must comment that the 9-volt battery is bogus.

Different 9V batteries have different internal construction. Some consist of stacks of flat, roughly-rectangular cells, while others contain bundles of cylindrical cells like the one pictured in the article. Check out the variety here!
posted by mbrubeck at 9:24 AM on September 30, 2021 [3 favorites]

These are really cool! Maybe the battleship shouldn't have blown my mind as much as it did, but wow.

I wish the questions in the comments were answered. Specifically, can a person who is not Jewish lift up the plastic in the Israeli supermarket and grab a proscribed food item? I imagine so. Maybe someone here knows.

It's answered there, but you have to do a bunch of scrolling down to find it... anyways, a certified-kosher grocery won't be able to sell those items, but a non-kosher-certified grocery will sell them and won't have anything covered over. Kosher-certified grocers aren't allowed to own any leavened products during Passover - they're already officially "sold" to a designated non-Jewish person for the duration of the holiday and then "bought back" afterwards - so they can't sell them to anyone, because they're not legally theirs during that time (according to Jewish law - I've always wondered how binding the contract would be in court if the designee ever decided to back up a truck and take everything). There's no law that says grocery stores have to be certified kosher in Israel, so you could go to a store in a place without a large Hareidi population (in parts pf Tel Aviv, or Eilat, for example) and never see something like this.
posted by Mchelly at 9:29 AM on September 30, 2021 [5 favorites]

While it’s true that some 9V batteries use stacks, their 2x3 shape is because they originally—and typically—hold a 2x3 bundle of 1.5V cells in series.
posted by sjswitzer at 10:23 AM on September 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

A furby without its fur is pretty nightmarish.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:36 AM on September 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

The frag grenade and bomb are pretty cool looking if you don't think about what they do.

We're so clever at killing each other.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:40 AM on September 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

The 'rarity' of these have me suspicious that maybe, just maybe, that captain on my last jungle cruise was exaggerating about the backside of water.
posted by ApathyGirl at 11:57 AM on September 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

kirkaracha: to push the nightmare that bit further, check out Kelly Heaton's Reflection Loop project
posted by recklessbrother at 4:35 PM on September 30, 2021

I laughed a lot with the question: "Uh. Where is the rest of the Penguin..." in the density of Penguin feathers (#28 Part Two)
posted by CRESTA at 5:27 PM on September 30, 2021

How are these photos 'rare'?
posted by GallonOfAlan at 12:38 AM on October 1, 2021

SoberHighland, would you mind terribly adding a link to the artifact porn subreddit you mention? That sounds like it's right up my alley.
posted by ChrisR at 7:49 AM on October 1, 2021