landscapes

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Craft

Delicate Slivers of Air-Dry Clay Form Breezy, Idyllic Landscapes by Alisa Lariushkina

All images © Alisa Lariushkina, shared with permission

One can almost feel the breeze as it swishes through grasslands and ripples streams in the swirling textures of artist Alisa Lariushkina’s bucolic landscapes. Based in Vilnius, the artist draws inspiration from earlier works or from photographs that people share with her. Composed from delicate slivers of air-dry clay, she assembles pieces that subtly shift in size and hue to reflect the sun at different times of day, meadows and flowers that sway in the wind, and the atmosphere of distant mountains. You can follow Lariushkina’s work on Instagram.

Photography

The 2022 Landscape Photographer of the Year Contest Captures Stunning Environments Around the U.K.

“The Sacred Garden,” Gray Eaton. All images @ the artists, courtesy of the Landscape Photographer of the Year, shared with permission

From hazy lochs and grand mountainous vistas to water-side pedestrian paths, the 2022 Landscape Photographer of the Year contest highlights the vast splendor of Britain’s environments. Winners of this year’s competition encompass both the natural and human-made, showcasing a steam-engulfed train roaring across the Fellowman Crosses Ribblehead viaduct or a glimmering celestial sky above the limestone arch of Durdle Door.

The contest joins Network Rail for a traveling exhibition that will migrate across the U.K., starting with Paddington Station on October 31. Peruse the winning images on the competition’s site and by picking up a copy of this year’s book.

“The Fellsman Crosses Ribblehead Viaduct,” Matthew James Turner

“Durdle Door Night Lights,” Callum White

“Brecon in Winter,” Will Davies, overall winner

“Rough and Tumble,” Lloyd Lane

“Dirgelwch Penmon / Myster,” Llion Griffiths

“Regency Wharf,” Damien Walmsley

“Wild Elgol,” Fiona Campbell

“Ascension,” Demi Oral

“Gannets Overhead,” Thomas Easterbrook

Art

Olafur Eliasson’s Circular Mirror Installation Embeds Viewers in the Sun-Baked Qatari Landscape

“سفر الظلال في بحر النهار (Shadows travelling on the sea of the day)” (2022), steel, fiberglass, and glass mirrors, 4.53 x 10.51 x 10.51 meters, ø 8.2 meters, ø 8.2 meters, installation view at Northern Heritage sites, Doha, Qatar. Photo by Iwan Baan, courtesy of the artist, neugerriemschneider, Berlin, and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los Angeles, shared with permission

Looking up also means looking down and sideways in the latest installation by artist Olafur Eliasson (previously). Opened this week at the Northern Heritage sites near Doha, Qatar, a cluster of large mirrors and rings made of steel and fiberglass stand on the dry desert landscape amongst shrubs and the remnants of animals that have passed through. Towering meters above the sandy terrain, “Shadows travelling on the sea of the day” allows visitors to wander underneath the glass surfaces and peer upwards at their reflections and that of the landscape, shrouding each figure in an endless swath of dusty earth.

“It is a kind of reality check of your connectedness to the ground,” Eliasson says in a statement about the project. “You are at once standing firmly on the sand and hanging, head down, from a ground that is far above you. You will probably switch back and forth between a first-person perspective and a destabilising, third-person point of view of yourself.”

The remote installation also groups the mirrors so that they reflect their semicircular support structures in addition to those nearby, “creating a sea of interconnections,'” the artist says. “Reflection becomes virtual composition, changing as you move. What you perceive—an entanglement of landscape, sprawling sculptural elements, and visitors—seems hyperreal while still completely grounded.” This connection serves as an urgent visual metaphor for humanity’s need to grasp its relationship to the earth as it confronts the climate crisis and attempts to find new paths for coexisting with the natural world.

Find more from Eliasson on his site and Instagram. (via designboom)

Photography

Aerial Photos Highlight the Rugged, Textured Topographies of the American Badlands

All images © Tobias Hägg, shared with permission

Awash in pale blue light or the glimmers of dusk and dawn, the dry, eroded terrains of the American West appear as otherworldly vistas in the works of Stockholm-based photographer Tobias Hägg (previously). Captured in spring of this year, the aerial images peer down on or out across the vast, rugged landscapes known as badlands. These regions are replete with geological formations and terrain diversity, and Hägg spotlights such shifts in elevation and soil by documenting the rippling, ravine crevices and buttes that overlook the area. Light and shadow dramatize the images and accentuate the textures and depth of the extraordinarily craggy topographies.

Prints of Hägg’s images are available in his shop, and you can find more from photographer, including new a forthcoming book comprising a decade’s worth of work, on Behance and Instagram.

Photography

A Rare Glimpse of Comet Leonard’s Last Moments Wins the Astronomy Photographer of the Year Contest

“Disconnection Event” © Gerald Rhemann, Tivoli Southern Sky Guest Farm, Khomas, Namibia, December 25, 2021. All images © Astronomy Photographer of the Year, shared with permission

The brilliant Comet Leonard put on a mesmerizing performance late last year when it streaked across the sky on Christmas Day. Expelled from the solar system shortly after, the celestial matter captivated photographers around the world during its brief stint of visibility, including Gerald Rhemann who captured the illuminated body as its gas tail disconnected from its nucleus and was swept away by solar wind. The incredibly rare and brief event also garnered Rhemann the top prize in this year’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year contest.

Hosted by the Royal Observatory Greenwich, the 14th-annual competition received more than 3,000 entries from 67 countries. This year’s collection includes a glowing, avian-like aurora over Murmansk Oblast and the International Space Station as it flies over the Apollo 11 moon-landing site—the latter was taken by Andrew McCarthy, whose galactic photos have been featured multiple times on Colossal.

Explore all of the winning images on the contest’s site, and if you’re in London, stop by the National Maritime Museum to see the photos in person through August 13, 2023.

“Winged Aurora” © Alexander Stepanenko, Murmansk, Murmansk Oblast, Russia, January 15, 2022

“Stabbing Into the Stars” © Zihui Hu, Nyingchi, Tibet, China, December 24, 2021

“Back to the Spaceship” © Mihail Minkov, Buzludzha, Balkan Mountains, Stara Zagora Province, Bulgaria, August 12, 2021

“The Night Highway” © Filip Hrebenda, Stokksnes Peninsula, Iceland, April 11, 2021

“Moon: Big Mosaic” © Andrea Vanoni, Porto Mantovano, Lombardy, Italy, January 19, 2021

“The International Space Station Transiting Tranquility Base” © Andrew McCarthy, Florence, Arizona, USA, January 19, 2022

“In the Embrace of a Green Lady” © Filip Hrebenda, Hvalnes, Iceland, April 10, 2021

Photography

From a Volcanic Fissure to a Waterlily Harvest, the 2022 Drone Photo Awards Captures Earth’s Stunning Sights from Above

“Big Bang” by Armand Sarlangue. All images courtesy of Siena Awards Festival, shared with permission

The annual Drone Photo Awards announced its 2022 winners earlier this month, releasing a remarkable collection of images that frame the world’s most alluring landscapes from a rarely-seen view. This year’s contest garnered submissions from 2,624 participants hailing from 116 countries, and the aerial photos capture a vast array of life on Earth, including a caravan of camel shadows crossing the Arabian Desert, a waterlily harvest in West Bengal, and the veiny trails of lava emerging from a fissure near Iceland’s Fagradalsfjall volcano.

Hosted by the Siena Awards Festival, the competition showcases its winning images in a recurring exhibition called Above Us Only Sky, which will run from October 1 to November 20 in the Italian city. Until then, see some of our favorites below and explore the full collection on the awards’ site.

“Waterlily Harvesting” by Shibasish Saha

“Duotian” by Ningtai Yu

“Fertility” by Christian Trustrup

“Shadows of the Desert” by Bastian Brüsecke

“Aftermath of La Palma’s Volcano Eruption” by Enrico Pescantini

“Wings of the White Cliffs” by Alexey Kharitonov

“Blue” by Fernando O’farrill

“Fading Faith” by Fabian Balint

“Rooftops of Kartoffelraekkerne Neighborhood” by Serhiy Vovk