Cat Island Paradise in Japan

Fubirai has photographed these beautiful cats who live on the island of Fukuoka in Japan.  The photos are part of a five year project and are amazing!  A cat-lady's paradise :)  Photo via buzzfeed.

Seeing Saturn

On Saturday night, I saw Saturn and it's rings through a telescope for the first time.  It really was an amazing experience seeing the elongated rings around the planet, tiny as it was.

It has reminded me how much I want to check out the Brisbane Astronomical Society and go along to one of their public viewing nights (number 5 on my list).

19 July 2013 was 'The day the Earth smiled', whereNASA's Cassini (a spacecraft that is currently orbiting Saturn), turned it's camera on Earth and took a photo of Saturn and it's rings with Earth in the background.  There were lots of events around the globe to celebrate this fun, slightly arbitrary day, but the photos that resulted are really quite amazing.

Photo of Earth from Saturn.  Image from NASA's Photo Journal.

Astrophotography

These amazing photographs are by French photographer Thierry Cohen.  He has combined photos of cities, which have altered to remove light, and photos of the night sky from similar locations, to create these images.  They're stunning, what a creative use of astrophotography.

San Francisco 

Sao Paulo

Paris

via the New York Times

Maddie On Things

Isn't Maddie the cutest/talented dog?  Maddie was rescued by photgrapher Theron Humphrey (she is a Coonhound if you're interested), and he photoblogged about his trip across America with her and has just released a book about it.  You can read about Maddie and see more of Maddie on things at www.maddieonthings.com, buy the book here and see the iPhone app here.

via A Cup of Jo here and here.

Turning photos to colour

So this is a work in progress but I'm quite happy with the results so far so decided to share it. Do you remember this tutorial to colourise historical Black & White photos?  Well I had a go at a photo of my sister and I when we were little.  I haven't done the clothes or the background, and I'd like to work on the hair a little bit more (blond hair is tricky!) but I like where it is going.  I have some family history photos that I would like to try next but one step at a time!  Here is the before and after.

Before:

75 Parisiennes

75 Parisiennes is a collection of images by French photographer, Baudouin, of Parisienne women.  The colour schemes are amazing, and I love how many of the photos have cats in them (one even looks like the cat pushed the woman down the stairs).  See them all here.

Photography Blog Lovin

I cam across this beautiful blog, Orange Juice etc (as well as their flickr and etsy pages) while browsing the other day.  It is maintained by two photographers from Seattle, Elias and Theresa Carlson, and their photos are beautiful!  I have started my journey back into using film and they have inspired me even more!

Image via Orange Juice etc. Found via Emma Dime.

Amazing Historical Photos

Mads Madsen is the person responsible for these amazing photos currently doing the round on the internet.  He colourises historical, black and white photos that make them look really natural.  Most of the photos are from the American Civil War but there are some other historical people as well like Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein.  One of the best things is, he has also posted a web tutorial and video tutorial to show you how it's done (I have also posted the video tutorial at the end of this post).  

Abraham Lincoln

Migrant Mother

More Astronomy Time-Lapse by Knate Myers

The Knate Myers 2013 Calendar I ordered came this week and the shots are so beautiful.  He posted another time-lapse video this week, I would love to be able to take shots like this!



Snow Timelapse - Test Shot from Knate Myers on Vimeo.

Our observable universe

While I have always been fascinated with astronomy, I find that reading astronomy facts is quite different from experiencing them.  For example, the Sun is approximately 150 million km from Earth; I know what the Sun looks and feels like to me on a daily basis, but that number, 150 million km, doesn't mean much.  Similarly, the fact that we are on a planet orbiting a star, in a solar system which exists as a tiny part of a galaxy, is something I know intellectually.  As much as I experience what life is like for me on my piece of Earth, I don't really know what it feels like to be hurtling through space as part of my planet/solar system/galaxy/universe.

I came across these photos by Knate Myers and then this video.  It is one of the most amazing astronomy videos I have ever seen; the images of the Milky Way are breathtaking.  It is so incredible, I feel like spamming everyone I know saying: "YOU NEED TO SEE THIS!"  It allowed me to experience those facts that I have learnt about, to see what it looks like to spin on a planetary axis in space, and to feel like I'm a part of this galaxy.


Skylights - Timelapse Film from Knate Myers on Vimeo.