Tag Archives: photos
The Subject of No Subject
APRIL 2, 2014
Michael Somoroff’s “Absence of Subject” is an unconventional homage to the German photographer August Sander. Starting in the nineteen-twenties, Sander, a former miner and painter, began shooting portraits for his series “People of the Twentieth Century,” a systematic effort to document a cross-section of German society. Using an eight-by-ten camera, whose large format gave his photographs a remarkable sense of immediacy, he shot tens of thousands of portraits until his death, in 1964. Of these, only eighteen hundred survive; the rest were destroyed when his studio was bombed, in 1944.
Somoroff, a photographer from New York, began digitally removing the people from Sander’s most iconic images in 2000. What started out as, in Somoroff’s words, a philosophical experiment “to emphasize this particular power and talent that Sanders had” eventually turned into a seven-year project. He collaborated with Julian Sander, August Sander’s grandson, who gave him the support that was necessary to bring the project to life. “The idea that drove ‘Absence’ is that there is a philosophical discussion in terms of our existential condition,” Somoroff told me. “What really is our relationship to God or our relationship to being? The answer to that—universally found in all religions—is that we are a part of a whole. In so being, we are an expression of a lack. In essence, ‘Absence of Subject’ is about that lack.”
August Sander photographs © Die Photographische Sammlung/SK-Stiftung Kultur – August Sander Archiv, Cologne – VG-Bild Kunst, Bonn, 2011.
Ghost Towns
FATEHPUR SIKRI, INDIA
Built by Emperor Akbar to be the most beautiful city in the world, it was widely thought this goal was achieved – until people realized the city lacked access to water. It was abandoned as the capital of the Mughal Empire after just 10 years and is today a perfectly preserved 16th-century town.
Picture: Flickr user Sikri Goove2007
DECEPTION ISLAND, ANTARCTICA
A regular stop on Antarctic sailings, Deception Island was a popular place for scientific outposts until several volcanic eruptions destroyed the bases in the 1960s. Today you can see their remains, plus swim in hot springs.
Picture: Flickr user Wili Hybrid
KOLMANSKOP, NAMIBIA
Travellers seeking a quiet place need look no further than the numerous towns around the world that have been abandoned for one reason or another. Travel review website IgoUgo.com has compiled a list of the top 10 ghost towns around the world based on recommendations from its readers.
Before you enter this abandoned mining town in the Namib desert, you’ll need to stop in nearby Luderitz for a permit – a holdover from the days when Kolmanskop was a free-for-all for diamond hunters. The town was at its heyday in the 1920s but abandoned in 1956. It has since been partly restored.
Picture: Flickr user Coda
OATMAN, ARIZONA, US
Of the Arizona ghost towns, quirky Oatman has to be among IgoUgo members’ favourite. It’s here where wild burros roam the streets and $60,000 bills decorate the walls of the local hotel, where, incidentally, Clark Gable and Carol Lombard spent their wedding night.
Picture: Flickr user Caveman 92223
ARTLUNGA, AUSTRALIA
A favourite part of this old Outback mining town (and early European settlement) is the “loneliest pub in the scrub,” also known as the Arltunga Hotel. It’s an ideal place for lunch or a cold beer before or after exploring Arltunga which was born out of a gold rush.
Picture: Page Lovelace
GRAFTON, UTAH, US
Founded for its fertile land and abandoned largely due to conflicts with Native Americans and flooding, Grafton is most famous as the set of the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” The last residents left in 1944.
Picture: Flickr user Respres
Inventions From The Past.
How to get birds to eat out of your hand

Photo: Lighttraveler/Shutterstock





Bizarre, beautiful starfish species
19 bizarre and beautiful starfish species
Photo: Ethan Daniels/Shutterstock















Rita at the shooting gallery
Amsterdam-based publisher Erik Kessels has produced 12 books of weird, often surreal, domestic photos, never intended for publication. Here are some of funniest, most enigmatic and inexplicably heartwarming pictures from his collection
Read more about the pictures here




All the Money You Made Will Never Buy Back Your Soul
Thanks, Jim, for letting me share this
Jim Nooney
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul.”-Bob Dylan/”Masters Of War”Smithsonian Museum Of American History
Washington, D.C.
Girl grows up among wild animals
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Tippi was photographed growing up alongside wild animals in Africa. Both of the girl’s parents are nature photographers, which explains everything.
Prior to Tippi being born, her French parents relocated their family to Namibia, Africa. This is where the little girl was able to make friends with some of the world’s most feared and admired animals like lions, tigers and cheetahs. She also hung out with elephants and zebras.
Instead of having their daughter grow up around peer pressure, drama and toxic preschool friends, her parents’ chose a completely different route. The best part is that they captured the photos and chose to share their daughter’s childhood with the world. How selfless! Check them out below.
H/T: NegPoz, Photos courtesy of Tippi: My Book Of Africa