Photography

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Photography

Spectacular Winners of the 2021 Drone Photography Contest Capture a Bird's-Eye View of the World

Following last year’s competition eclipsed by this serendipitous shot of a shark swimming in a heart-shaped school of fish, the 2021 Drone Photography Awards brings together a slew of aerial images framing the myriad patterns, textures, and colors found around the world. Norwegian photographer Terje Kolaas captured the winning composition, which joins a flock of thousands of pink-footed geese as they make their way to Svalbard. The shot is particularly interesting because the winged creatures are early on their journey to the snow-covered arctic region, a premature arrival that’s likely sparked by the changing climate.

Hosted by the Siena Awards Festival, the 2021 competition garnered hundreds of thousands of submissions from photographers working across 102 countries, an immense and diverse collection that was culled down to a few dozen winners. An exhibition titled Above Us Only Sky will showcase the finalists from October 23 to December 5 as part of the annual event.

 

Photography Science

A Spectacularly Colorful Shot of an Oak Leaf Tops Nikon's 2021 Photomicrography Competition

Unless they were under a microscope, it would be difficult to see the shimmery barbs of a louse claw or cracks running through a single piece of table salt. The winning entries of the 47th annual Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition unveil these otherwise imperceptible features, showing the unique textures, colors, and shapes in stunning detail. We’ve chosen some of our favorite images below—these include the crystal-like webbing of a slime mold captured by Allison Pollack (previously), the first-prize winning glimpse of an oak leaf by Jason Kirk, and the kaleidoscopic head of a tick revealed by doctors Tong Zhang and Paul Stoodley—and you can find more from this year’s competition on the contest’s site and Instagram.

 

Photography

Eerie Photos Frame the Dense Fog Shrouding Waves as They Swell Along the Los Angeles Coast

Through a thick blanket of morning mist, Raf Maes documents the serene waves that surge along the coastline near Venice, Los Angeles. The moody, eerie images capture the powerful energy of the ocean as it ripples across the frame in a single, long line. “I love the juxtaposition between the roughness of the ever-changing sea and the calming effect it has on me. Somehow I manage to translate that calmness also in my images, while the subject is pretty wild,” he says.

Along with his photography practice, Maes is the co-founder of the accessory brand KOMONO and currently lives in Antwerp. You can find more of his landscape and dreamy interior shots, which he recently finished compiling for a forthcoming book, on Instagram. (via This Isn’t Happiness)

 

Documentary Photography Science

A Short Film Dives into the 15-Year Process Behind the Documentary 'Fantastic Fungi'

We shared footage of the mesmerizing mycelium networks pulsing underneath our feet back in 2019 to mark the opening of Louie Schwartzberg’s Fantastic Fungi, and now the dedicated director takes viewers behind the scenes to show his painstaking process. Filmed throughout a 15-year period in his home studio, Schwartzberg’s timelapses zero in on myriad spores as they burst open, sprawl in every direction, and morph in color and texture. They’re a compelling visual representation of time and nature’s cyclical processes, which he explores in a new short film produced by WIRED.

Most of the challenges in capturing the footage center around predicting where an organism will grow to keep it within the shot and understanding the frame rates of different lifeforms. Schwartzberg explains:

For example, a mosquito on your arm, having a little drop of blood, takes a look at that hand coming towards it in ultra slow motion and has plenty of time to take off because its metabolic rate, its lifespan, is way shorter than our lifespan. And our lifespan is way shorter than a Redwood tree’s lifespan. This reality of real-time human point of view is not the only point of view, and that’s really the beauty of cameras and time-lapse cinematography. It’s actually a time machine.

Watch the full making-of above—note that it does include a clip of a mouse decomposing near the end—and find Fantastic Fungi on Netflix. (via The Kids Should See This)

 

Photography

Origins: Striking Photos Document the Sights of Contemporary Conservation Efforts

Spanning the icy downpours of the Norwegian archipelago Svalbard to the intimate portraits of the people of Papua New Guinea, the profound photographs that comprise an exhibition at Hilton Asmus Contemporary in Chicago are a perceptive consideration of the issues at the center of today’s conservation efforts. Titled Origins, the show brings together the work of artists and marine biologists Cristina Mittermeier and Paul Nicklen, who pair their creative practices with their work at the nonprofit Sea Legacy.

Co-founded by the duo in 2014, the organization is dedicated to preserving the oceans, using “their inspiring imagery to convert apathy into action and to drive powerful conservation wins across the globe,” a statement reads. A testament to the landscapes and ecologies worth preserving, the stunning photos document global crises and the tender, joyful moments of people around the world, and their subjects range from a Lisu woman in China’s Yunnan Province carrying her pet duck to the crumbling icebergs of Antarctica.

Origins is up through October 2 both virtually and in-person at the Bridgeport gallery. You can find more from Mittermeier and Nicklen on Instagram.

 

Photography Science

Macro Photos Frame an Ant-Mimicking Jumping Spider that Radiates an Iridescent Sheen

The diverse taxonomic order of spiders is brimming with strange biological phenomena: black widows have been known to cannibalize their mates, tarantulas are covered in barbed urticating hairs that they fling in defense similar to porcupines, and others have evolved to mimic the shape and pheromones of an ant to avoid predators.

On a recent trip to a wooded area in Santa Claus, Indiana, photographer Kevin Wiener uncovered one of the latter species, the tutelina similis, and snapped a few macro shots of the 6-millimeter creature. Each of the striking photos catches the arthropod’s iridescent exoskeleton in a manner that highlights its rainbow luster and reveals its ant-like appearance. Similar gleaming color schemes are widespread in the world of insects, including on the microscopic scales that cover butterflies.

The radiant jumping spider is part of Wiener’s vast archive of insect images, which he shares on Instagram and in his online group called All Bugs Go to Kevin. He launched the resource in the spring of 2019 as a way to offer insight into the micro-world of insects, and it now boasts more than 42,000 members, including scientists, macro photographers, and other arthropod enthusiasts.

 

Currently based in Evansville, Indiana, Wiener fuses his background in both wedding photography and pest management into a practice that highlights striking and bizarre organisms. “I try to photograph my subjects in a way that gives the appearance of a personality which makes them appear less scary and helps those with fears to see them differently. I want to showcase the beauty of arthropods and show people the things they don’t see with the naked eye,” he tells Colossal. “Basically, if it’s little and moving, it’s probably gonna have a photoshoot.”

In addition to uncovering the diverse world of insects, Wiener also teaches an Indiana Master Naturalist course and has presented to the Entomological Society of America as part of a symposium. You can follow his work that falls at the intersection of science and photography on Instagram and Twitter.