Photography

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Art Photography

Loose Threads Dangle from Bizarrely Expressive Portraits Sewn by Yoon Ji Seon

“Rag face #21004” (2021), sewing on fabric and photography, 112 x 73 centimeters. All images © Yoon Ji Seon, courtesy of CRAIC AM, shared with permission

The cheeky, uncanny works that comprise Yoon Ji Seon’s ongoing Rag Face series bring the knotted, twisting, and generally convoluted entanglements of a subject’s psyche to the forefront. Her photographic portraits are printed on roughly cut pieces of canvases and then overlaid with rows of tight stitches and loose strings that drip from an eye or loop across a face. Adding color and depth, the threads “can be seen or felt like internal conflicts, external stimuli, umbilical cord, blood vessels, sagging skin, hair, or time as a point of each viewer,” the artist says.

Zany and outlandish in expression, the portraits are a playful mix of confusion and jest that Yoon derives from traditional Korean comedies, called madangnori. Those performances consider “the suffering and reality of the people through humor and satire while arousing the excitement of onlookers,” she says, explaining further:

I think what I’m doing these days is to make (an) ‘image’ of these comedies. What I want to pursue through my work is ‘humor’ in the end, but this humor does not bloom in happiness. During intense, painful, and chaotic lives, humor can be like a comma, to relax and recharge.

Because the sewn works are unique on either side, they produce mirrored images that are a distorted version of their counterpart, bolstering the strange, surreal affect of each piece.

The Rag Face series now spans decades of the Daejeon City, South Korea-based artist’s practice, and you can browse dozens of those pieces on her site. (via Lustik)

“Rag face #16020” (2016), sewing on fabric and photography, 141 x 97 centimeters

“Rag face #21003” (2021), sewing on fabric and photography, 94 x 68 centimeters

“Rag face #21004” (2021), sewing on fabric and photography, 112 x 73 centimeters

“Rag face #16015” (2016), sewing on fabric and photography, 47 x 26 centimeters

“Rag face #17010” (2017), sewing on fabric and photography, 128 x 97 centimeters

“Rag face #19003” (2019), sewing on fabric and photography, 146 x 119 centimeters

“Rag face #21002” (2021), sewing on fabric and photography, 170 x 118 centimeters

“Rag face #17010” (2017), sewing on fabric and photography, 128 x 97 centimeters

Art Photography

Infrared Light Enhances Versailles, Provence, and the Beaches of Normandy with Dreamy Shades of Pink

All images © Paolo Pettigiani, shared with permission

Previously having captured the Dolomites and New York City’s Central Park in a candy-colored glow, photographer Paolo Pettigiani now adds urban and rural France to his ongoing collection of infrared images. The magical series documents the rolling lavender fields of Provence in watermelon hues and Versailles’s landscaped terraces or the Gothic abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel in bright, saturated tones. Pettigiani shoots each location with a full-spectrum camera that unveils otherwise invisible wavelengths and enhances the trees, grasses, and stone surfaces that reflect infrared light with varying shades of pink.

See more from the France Infraland series on Pettigiani’s Behance and Instagram, and shop prints of the surreal landscapes on Lumas.

Photography

'Beneath the Bird Feeder' Documents the Spectacular Wildlife Visiting a Wintertime Food Source

A northern cardinal. All images licensed from Carla Rhodes

During the winter months of late 2020 into early 2021, photographer Carla Rhodes cared for a birdfeeder that hung outside of her home in the Catskills of New York. The suspended food source garnered attention from myriad cold-weather adventurers, including a brilliant northern cardinal, numerous pairs of mourning doves, and furry little field mice, who visited the area amongst the snow and frigid temperatures.

Thanks to a camera stationed nearby, Rhodes documented the curious cast of wildlife who wandered into her yard, an endeavor that culminated in the striking photographic project Beneath the Bird Feeder. Comprised of dozens of images primarily shot in low light, the series frames the unique features of the unaware animals, capturing the pearlescent wings of a tufted titmouse or the beady eye of North America’s only venomous mammal, the short-tailed shrew.

Explore more from the collection and find an array of conservation-focused images on Rhodes’s site and Instagram.

A tufted titmouse

Mourning doves

A black-capped chickadee

An eastern gray squirrel

An American red squirrel

A deer mouse

A northern short-tailed shrew

A northern cardinal

A dark-eyed junco

Photography Science

78,846 Photos of the Sun Are Stitched Together into a Mesmerizing Timelapse of Its Movements

Using data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, filmmaker Seán Doran composed an entrancing timelpase of the sun’s glowing coronal loops during a month-long period. The video project compiles 78,846 ångström-171 photographs from August 2014 that show the bright, curved structures, which are made of hot plasma, as they burst upward. Colorized in gold in the timelapse, the arced loops often form a bridge between dark sunspots, or places where powerful magnetic fields breach the surface and flow into the massive star’s atmosphere.

For similarly stunning glimpses at astronomical happenings, head to Doran’s YouTube, which features footage of Earth’s orbit, Comet Neowise, and the rugged topography of the Red Planet. (via PetaPixel)

Photography

A Hazy Stream Drifts Across a Spring Landscape in an Enchanting Series of Long-Exposure Photos

All images © Jennifer Esseiva, shared with permission

Back in spring, Swiss photographer Jennifer Esseiva visited the remote forests of Vallorbe, Switzerland, as the trees and rugged, wooded terrain emerged from their winter stupor. There she captured the lush mosses and foliage that cloaked the area in a thick blanket of greenery and the recently thawed stream flowing through its midst. Now compiled in an enchanting series aptly titled Fairyland, the ethereal, long-exposure photos depict the trickling body of water as a hazy fog that clings to the landscape.

Esseiva plans to revisit the dreamy location this winter after snowfall, so keep an eye on her site and Instagram for updates. (via Moss and Fog)

Photography Science

A Striking Short Film Documents the Otherworldly Organisms Living Just Beneath the Water's Surface

With the aid of multiple microscopes, filmmaker and photographer Jan van IJken (previously) unveils the otherwise imperceptible maneuvers and bodily transformations of plankton. He focuses on a diverse array of underwater organisms, which all fall under the same taxonomy because of their inability to swim against the tides and are crucial to life on Earth, providing half of all oxygen through photosynthesis. Set against black backdrops, the marine drifters appear otherworldly in shape and color, and the filmmaker documents water flea eggs visible through translucent membranes, the spiked fringe of cyanobacteria, and the minuscule movements of various creatures as they wriggle across the screen.

Planktonium is accompanied by an audio composition by Norwegian artist Jana Winderen, which features sounds that are generally too difficult for humans to hear unaided, including the gurgles of water deep below the surface or the crackling insides of ice cubes. In addition to the truncated film shown above—find the full 15-minute version on Vimeo—van Ijken also released a photo series of the strange creatures, which are available in prints as part of a limited-edition boxset on his site.

Waterfleas carrying eggs

Copepod with diatoms attached

Echinoderm larva

Gloeotrichia – Cyanobacteria