How gorgeous is that photo? I came across it on Gadling today and loved it so much that I had to reblog it. It’s by Flickr user il leleВ and part of his stunning photo set of White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. It kind of reminds me of the Bolivia’s Salar de Uynui–except with dunes. But nevertheless, I’ve now added it to the long list of places I want to visit.
This afternoon, I came across the coolest cards:В San Francisco print maker Niki Baker illustrates song lyrics, carves them onto rubber stamps and emblazons them onto paper.
I love the cards depicting Cat PowerPhil Phillip*’s
“Sea of Love”
В and The Velvet Underground’s
“I’ll Be Your Mirror.”
В (It doesn’t hurt that I’m big fans of both of those songs!)
But my favorite design is of Billie Holiday’s “I’ll Be Seeing You.” The outside of the card says, “I’ll be looking at the moon” and the inside says, “but I’ll be seeing you.” SoВ forlornВ and sweet!
P.S.
(Image via Foreign Spell’s Etsy shop; found via Scoutmob)
I feel like New Yorkers can’t help but be voyeurs.
No matter where you are in the city, you always have the opportunity to peek into other peoples’ lives. At work, I can wave to office workers in other buildings and look longingly uponВ outdoor roofdeck terraces. While walking, I can peep enviously into stately brownstones or check out the decor in glassy, ultra-modern apartments. A few times at ballet, I’ve been momentarily distracted (or almost knocked off balance) from catching a glimpse of someone’s TV in an apartment across the way.
And I wonder if my neighbors across the way know my habits–like coming home late most nights, eating dinner on my living room floor, then spending an hour or so on my laptop. (Although close proximity can be a good thing. I once locked myself in my bathroom and had to scream out my window until a very nice woman in another building heard, spoke to me from her window and got my super to rescue me.)
So I love the concept of the gorgeous book,В “Out My Window.”В PhotographerВ Gail Albert Halaban shot New Yorkers through various windows around the city. It’s a beautiful collection of what we New Yorkers do every day. As Halaban so nicely describes it on her blog:
I have found that many New Yorkers spend much of their window gazing time looking into their neighbor’s apartments. Through this voyeurism, form a sense of community. We are never alone here in New York.
Are you also guilty of peering into your neighbors’ windows?
(Photos via Out My Window )
The travel photos that you tend to show off usually feature the highlights of a trip–I know mine are usually of me standing on the summit of a mountain, a gorgeous vista I drove hours to see, an amazing meal before anyone’s taken a bite. But the time I spent in a car/train/plane to reach that place? I could probably count those photos on two hands.
In her gorgeous series, “Transit,” German photographer Katrin KoenningВ captures those quiet moments before travelers reach their destinations–those times where they’re sleeping upright in airplane seats, dozing in cars, spacing out through subway windows.
According to Koenning:
Transit documents people on journeys. While travelling, you hear laughter and bits of stories in amongst the monotonous sighing of the train or the mourning sound of an aching ship. Mostly, you hear silence. By fate, destiny or chance, strangers are thrown together for a short while, forced to share an intimate space. There is a quiet comfort in sitting back and watching the world fly by.
Here are some of my favorite photos from the series:
(Photos by Katrin Koenning; found via My Modern Met)
Yesterday, as I was about to venture out into a soggy NYC evening–sans umbrella, of course–an art exhibit I’d seen photos of popped into my head.
In ГЃgueda, Portugal, rows of colorful umbrellas hang over a walkway creating a whimsical, rainbow canopy. The installation is part of the AgitaguedaВ art festival. I wish I could take a stroll beneath it (on a sunny day, of course)!
(Photos by Patricia Almeida via This Is Colossal)
I’m not a great swimmer and I don’t love heights (though I’ve tried to conquer that fear by doing things like leaping off the Macau Tower). But I think I could muster up the courage to spend some timeВ in theВ Holiday Inn Shanghai Pudong Kangqiao‘s swimming pool, pictured above. As you can see, part of it extends over the edge of the hotel–24 stories off the ground–and has a glass bottom, so swimmers are literally floating above the city. I imagine this must be especially thrilling at night, when Shanghai is lit up below.
The Atlantic has more pools in the sky here; scroll to the bottom to check out a truly terrifying shot of Devil’s Pool in Victoria Falls. As much as I’d love a shot of me in that guy’s place, I really don’t think I could do it!
Would you swim in one of these pools?
(Photo via The Atlantic )
NewYork-now, a website I came across via Gothamist ,В is both cool and nauseating. As in, it literally gave me motion sickness.
Using geotags, the site displays InstagramВ photos that New Yorkers take in real-time. There are snapshots of iconic places (the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty) interspersed with local landmarks (the big pig outside Rudy’s in Hell’s Kitchen), lots of food shots, funny signs, self-portraits and more.
I love how the siteВ provides a minute-by-minute look at what people find worth documenting in this city. But something about the way the photos appear made me a little dizzy.
Check it out here–but maybe take a Dramamine first!
(Photo above by me–I actually couldn’t save a large enough image from the site!)