Jodhpur - India's Blue City

Image Credit Flickr User Johntrathome

Travellers journeying through the desolate landscape of the unforgiving Thar desert in the Indian state of Rajasthan would know when they had reached their destination.  The sky would fall to the ground and everything would become a single color – blue.  Jodhpur would lie before them, opening up like a blue treasure in the desert.

Image Credit Flickr User ciamabue

The Photomanipulations of Robbert van der Steeg

Robbert van der Steeg is (above) a Dutch National who lives in Kenya and works for an NGO (Non-Governmental Organisation) in Somalia when security allows him. However, his interest in photo manipulation is what drew our attention to him. Often working with his wife as his subject, he has created a series of visually stunning images – thanks to his skill as both a photographer and IT user.

Paint

The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness.

Andre Malrauz, 1901-76

Eternal Clock

More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.

Woody Allen, 1935-

Rejuvenation

There's nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809 - 1894)

Escher Hands

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Puzzled

There are no extra pieces in the universe. Everyone is here because he or she has a place to fill, and every piece must fit itself into the big jigsaw puzzle.

Deepak Chopra, 1947-

Chessboard

A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.

Emo Philips, 1956-

Polaroid

Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.

Lily Tomlin, 1939-

When the moon breaks down

Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.

Leonardo da Vinci, 1452 - 1519

Embraced by words..

Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. They are engines of change, windows on the world, lighthouses erected in the sea of time.

Barbara W. Tuchman, 1912 - 1989

Please visit Robbert van der Steeg's photostream on Flickr for a lot more visually stimulating photomanipulations.

Expressions of London

At the last count there were people from 160 countries in London, the city state the world can call home.  Collectively they speak 300 languages and a quarter of the population was born outside the UK.  Here are some of the expressions of London, all caught on camera by photographer Steve Punter.  Please visit his Flickr photostream where you will find literally thousands of stunning photographs. You can also visit his website. From here, we will let the pictures do the talking.

Birth of an Avatar

I seriously doubt I will ever be this good with Photoshop but this just shows you what can be done when you put your mind to it. 

Like many people, Peter Ammentorp saw Avatar andimmediately wanted to see what he would look like if he was a Na'vi, the sapient humanoid indigenous inhabitants of the fictional moon Pandora in the movie.

Out came the laptop and a little while later he had been transformed from a human to one of the Na'vi - a true avatar if ever there was one.  I know that there are many online applications out there in which you can upload your own photograph and with a few clicks you have your own avater (even though mine, when I tried it, made me look like I was suffering from some deadly disease).

It is much, much better if you have the skill to go in to Photoshop and make your own.  So, hats off to Mr Ammentorp and a thank you as well, for uploading his process on to Vimeo.  He makes it look so easy I might even have a go again myself.  On second thoughts...