Photography

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Art Photography

Dozens of Mushroom Characters Populate a Family Tree in Whimsically Painted Photographs by Jana Paleckova

An affinity for fleshy spores runs in the long line of ancestors laid out in a family tree by Jana Paleckova. The Prague-based artist layers antique photographs with playful oil paintings of spindly enoki or ribbed chanterelle, creating hybrid characters brimming with fungi-fueled personalities. “There are many types of mushrooms, all of which have different characteristics. Just like people,” she says.

In a note to Colossal, Paleckova says she was prompted to start the whimsical project when she was flipping through her family’s atlas of fungi. “Czech people are known mushroom hunters. It’s quite common for families to go out looking for mushrooms together,” she says. This atlas later served as a reference point for the 90 small portraits, which consist of the dozens of vintage photographs that the artist sourced from flea markets, that comprise the sprouted kin.

Paleckova’s body of work features a variety of surreal combinations, like eggheads, human-spider hybrids, and balloons shaped like children, all of which you can find on her site and Instagram.

 

Photography

A Dazzling Series of Photos Captures the Soft Glow of Firefly Mating Season in Japan

An enchanting series by Russian photographer Daniel Kordan (previously) frames a sea of flickering fireflies as they populate a dense bamboo forest. Captured in pockets and trails of light, the insects radiate across the thick vegetation on Japan’s Kyushu Island, which Kordan visited back in 2019 during their mating season.

The beetles search for partners from about May to July, with the males first producing the flashes of light and the females generating responses. Generally swarmed together, the exchanges have a twinkling effect that emits a continuous soft glow across the area. “Fireflies are very sensitive. They need clean water nearby, warm humid air (but not rain), and no lights,” Kordan says. “Not a single photo can show how beautiful it is—shimmering and blinking forest full of little stars.”

Kordan shares technical details about his equipment and timing for the magical shoot on Instagram, and if you’re interested in adding the radiant images to your collection, pick up a print in his shop. (via designboom)

 

Photography

Sheets of Frosted Glass Obscure Floral Bouquets in a Photographic Series About Ambiguity

Exuding elegance and obscurity, Foggy Flowers is a two-photograph series by Sander Plug and Lernert Engelberts that centers on our collective outlook for the future through a blur of frosted glass. The duo, who work under Studio Lernert & Sander, unearthed the delicate shots from their archive—the images were taken in 2018 during a week-long period when they worked continuously on various projects—in May 2020 for Volkskrant Magazine, which asked them to epitomize their creative process during lockdown.

They didn’t want “to jump on the ‘look how very creative we are during this lockdown’ train,” Plug says, and despite their anachronistic context, the two-year-old series fit the studio’s perspective. “When I look back, I see that the blurry and fuzzy flowers are about ambiguity,” he writes. “It symbolizes the way we looked to the future then and how everyone sees the future now. There’s no point in worrying because no one can say how things will turn out now.”

Based in Amsterdam, Plug and Engelberts have been collaborating for about a decade, creating a variety of commercial photography and film projects. A few limited-edition C-prints of the blurred bouquets are still available on their site, and head to Instagram to explore more of their work that ranges from documentaries to animal portraiture to installations filled with cubed cheese. (via Iain Claridge)

 

Photography

A Serendipitous Shot Frames a Meteor Soaring Over Russia's Klyuchevskaya Sopka as It Erupts

In a single, fortuitous photograph, Daniel Kordan proves his astute eye as he documents two of nature’s rarely seen phenomena: the brilliant trail of a meteor streaking through the sky and Klyuchevskaya Sopka as it spews a mass of glowing lava. Striking and similarly explosive, the pair even reflect in the small body of water in the foreground.

Raised near Moscow, the now-itinerant photographer took the unexpected shot while leading a 2016 workshop at the Kamchatka Peninsula, which sits at the northeast corner of Russia facing the Pacific Ocean. The group was in the area hoping to capture the dramatic eruptions from Klyuchevskaya Sopka, which is the tallest active volcano in Eurasia—records show it’s been live since 1697—and the highest in the region scaling 15,580 feet. “We stayed with my group at camp close to a small pond,” Kordan says. “We caught reflections of volcanoes, and accidentally, I also caught a shooting star during a long exposure (of) 25 seconds.”

Kordan is known for his stunning landscape and outdoor photography, including shots of the jagged icicles on Lake Baikal, Namibia’s rippled sand dunes, and Lofoten, a fairytale-like town in Norway, to name a few. Follow his travels on Instagram, and pick up a print in his shop. (via PetaPixel)

Photography

Hilarity Ensues as Everything Goes Catastrophically Wrong in an Ad for Etisalat

Strap on a helmet and fasten your kneepads before watching this ad for international telecommunications giant, Etisalat. Nalle Sjoblad’s “Moonwalk” uses brutal Home Alone-esque sequences of poor planning, office rage, and failure to appreciate even basic spatial relationships in order to remind us that the most uncomfortable, humiliating scenarios only last for a moment. Based in Helsinki, Sjoblad approaches a variety of commercial and personal projects with his distinct style of humor, many of which you can watch on Vimeo.

 

Photography

A Rare Yellow Penguin Has Been Photographed for the First Time on a South Georgia Island

On a trip to a small island in South Georgia in December 2019, Yves Adams spotted an unusually bright creature bobbing through a sea of 120,000 king penguins. Whereas most of the flightless birds sported the typical tuxedo-like suit, one paraded around with yellow feathers and cream-colored feet.

Adams, who frequently documents landscapes and wildlife around the world, is believed to be the first photographer to capture images of the rare penguin, which he spotted while unloading food and safety equipment. “We all went crazy when we realised. We dropped all the safety equipment and grabbed our cameras,” the Belgian photographer says. “We were so lucky the bird landed right where we were. Our view wasn’t blocked by a sea of massive animals. Normally it’s almost impossible to move on this beach because of them all.”

The atypical coloring is due to leucism, a condition that results in the loss of melanin, which turns the black feathers and feet into a lighter hue. In 2013, researchers learned that penguins’ yellow pigment is not derived from food but rather is chemically distinct from the other compounds that color their plumes. The bright feathers are used to attract mates.

See Adams’ shots from his Atlantic expedition, in addition to more that span a wide array of locations like Greenland, the Galapagos Islands, and the Philippine Sea, on his site and Instagram. (via PetaPixel)