photograph by Mireille de la Lez

Vanity Fair has a 9 image sampling of Mirelle de la Lez’s pictures from the Arctic, which are visually stunning and full of impact. These pictures are part of the book described below.

An extraordinary visual summary of the landscape, wildlife, and beauty of the Far North, photographer and naturalist Mireille de la Lez’sVanishing World:The Endangered Arctic shows the Arctic as a place of surprising color and quickly fluctuating form. Accompanied by text from Fredrik Granath, the photos also function as an arresting reminder of what we stand to lose if climate change goes unchecked. In 30 years, according to Dr. Neil T. M. Hamilton, director of the World Wildlife Fund’s Arctic Initiative, in his foreword to the book, the warmer periods of the year may produce a contradiction in terms: an iceless Arctic.

Pop over to Found in Mom’s Basement for a great collection of vintage ads.

(C) NASA

Astronaut Charles M. Duke Jr., Apollo 16 Lunar Module pilot, is photographed collecting lunar samples at Station No. 1 during the mission’s first extravehicular activity at the Descartes landing site. This picture, looking eastward, was taken by Commander John W. Young. Duke is standing at the rim of Plum crater, which is 40 meters (131 feet) in diameter and 10 meters (about 33 feet) deep. The lunar rover can be seen in the background.

Apollo 16, the fifth mission in which humans walked on the lunar surface, launched 35 years ago today on April 16, 1972.

Denis Darzacq has a very interesting portfolio of pictures, entitled ‘Le Chute‘ featuring people suspended in mid-air.

via swissmiss

Pop over here for a wild collection of images of the tunnels and systems that lie beneath some Russian streets.

Mizue Hirano is a Tokyo-based freelance artist whose watercolour and canvas illustrations and paintings are imaginative and superb works of mainly abstract art. Plus, you have to love the website.

(c) mizue hirano
via design milk

Likely in the spirit of the gnome in Amélie, there is the website ‘Where’s Mudhead’, which tracks and photographs the adventures of the teddy bear Mudhead. Mudhead has been all over and this week seems to be in Malaysia. Occasionally you will see some friends (of stuffed form) tag along with Mudhead. Visiting the site should put a smile on your face, so I recommend visiting almost daily.

The two images show above are a part of this collection of pictures entitled ‘Only in Japan’.

Georg Wendt is a German photographer (and has nothing to do with the actor George Wendt who played Norm Peterson on Cheers) who produced an interesting collection of images where miniature people are painting faces.

via growabrain

Pop over to this site, Corsham Underground Depot, to learn about, and see pictures of, ’secret underground cities’ of England. The ‘cities’ generally were large underground bunkers used for military purposes.

via Look-At-This

Now this is an interesting photo project:

The rules are simple: I put the self-timer on 2 seconds, push the button and try to get as far from the camera as I can.

View the flickr photset and the project’s blog.

via Bibi’s Box

Photo of the Year in the 2006 Photobloggies

Time lapse movie of a parking lot, shot by Sam Javanrouh with a Canon Rebel DSLR

Naomi Harris’s ‘Haddon’

The many flickr photo sets of LeoL30, including squared circles, numbers, letters, photomosaics, signs and plaques, much more. (From Swiss Miss)

All symbols contains on Imallfake are carefully selected to provoke thought through association. (From Surfez Avec Moi)

‘Little Bits of Spring’ by Chris Glass

‘Stranded’ - The isolation of Amy Stein

Vintage camera manuals (Warning - it is one 650mb file)

Philip Greenspun’s Guide to Digital SLR cameras: what to look for, what you want and what they are

Start the day with a year of mornings

An old Kodak commercial with Bill Cosby

Bill Sullivan’s photos of people going through a subway turnstile in New York

The portfolio of Nick Koudis

A gallery of walls with stuff written on them

Trish CupcakeMomma’s archive of cupcake pictures

The Narrative - Mark O’Sullivan’s Toronto photography

Shannon Richardson’s Black & White “Electrolite”

13 Photographs that Changed the World

Today’s postings take on a different format, as I am “co-posting” with Hanan Levin, who blogs at Grow-a-Brain. Grow-a-Brain is a wonderful blog that has, on a daily basis, a smart and eclectic mix of links that are typically grouped together thematically. Hanan is also the co-owner of ‘The Champion’ Real Estate Company in Riverside, California.

Credit:NMPFT/Syndication International/Science & Society Picture Library

A photograph of Huddersfield Town players lining up to shake George VI’s (1895-1952) hand before the start of the 1938 FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium, taken by Malindine for the Daily Herald newspaper on 30 April, 1938. This was the first time the FA Cup Final had been transmitted live on British television. The final score was Preston North End 1 Huddersfield Town 0. In the 1920s, Huddersfield Town were the first team to win the English First Division title - now the Premiership - three seasons in a row. This photograph has been selected from the Daily Herald Archive, a collection of over three million photographs. The archive holds work of international, national and local importance by both staff and agency photographers.

In Collection of: National Museum of Photography Film & Television

(c) 2007, The New York Times - photo by Stuart Isett

The New York Times has this ‘Day in the Life’ photo piece of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at the Redmond, WA HQ.

According to this page, the world record for the highest number of bonnets worn at the same time was set at 51 on January 18, 1997.

Pop Cult has a great find on its hands - the illustrations of a 40’s or 50’s era cookbook from the Ukraine. The gallery of images provides an interesting glimpse into the cuisine of that era.

(c) Daniela Edburg

Photographer Daniela Edburg has made a deliciously evil photo series featuring death by sweets as her subject matter.

For anyone who has eaten the whole box, or bag, or carton the photographs in this series make light of our secret binges. Here, the consequences of indulgence are tabloid or monster movie deaths. Daniela Edburg’s Drop Dead Gorgeous both mocks and satisfies our cravings. 

You can learn more about Daniela’s work via this interview with The Morning News.

via bibi’s box

Photo: ANDINA AGENCY / AP

Two men rest next their truck that was partly covered by mud in a landslide in San Ramon, Peru, 300 kilometres northeast of Lima.

After going very, very little digging, I found this gallery of Spy vs. Spy images. You remember Spy vs. Spy from your days of reading Mad Magazine right?

I always loved the “V” for victory finger salute.

From PopCult Magazine:

With its uncontrolled pollution, rampant government corruption, frequent energy shortages, violent social unrest and division, and a meaningless war sacrificing too many lives, the 1970s now seem like a golden age of tranquility compared to our current era. But there is one thing we’ve improved upon since the ’70s: Eating. Although the roots of gourmet cooking utilizing regional and organic ingredients sprouted on the West Coast during that decade, food of the 1970s was mostly horrible. (Unless, of course, you really liked steak and potatoes.) As evidence, we offer these recipe cards from 1973. Often advertised on UHF channels, “The Complete Family Recipe Card Library” was promoted as a sure way of bringing “new excitement and new interest to your table.” Today, these dishes—as depicted in “Beautiful Full-Color Photography”—mostly bring gag reflexes to your table, but back then they seemed like an integral part of the modern kitchen. There were 15 series of cards in all, perhaps meant to inspire a collecting fervor among Brady Bunch-style mothers across the nation. The especially hardcore collectors could also purchase a special-made recipe file box that was not only “Tested Lifetime Guaranteed,” but also came equipped with two sets of “beautiful decorative decals:” Early American and Floral Bouquet. There is no historical record of any of these recipes actually being used by ’70s-era homemakers, but we invite anyone with memories of actually digesting these entrees to write us. Likewise, if anyone still has the complete set, we’d certainly like to complete our collection in order to share this vital record of America’s culinary past.

See the pictures from the collection here.