Photo File: Matthew Brandt “Lakes and Reservoirs”

Matthew Brandt lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. For his Lakes and Reservoirs series, Brandt first photographs a body of water and then after developing soaks each image in the lake or reservoir water the photograph pictures.

See more of Matthew Brandt’s work here

See more of the Lakes and Reservoirs series here

“Wilma Lake CA 1″, C-print soaked in Wilma Lake water, 16″ x 20″, 2008

“Lake Casitas CA 3″, C-print soaked in Lake Casitas water, 30″ x 40″, 2008

“Shasta Lake CA 4″, C-print soaked in Shasta Lake water, 30″ x 40″, 2009

Artist Shout Out: George Boorujy

“Fugue” – ink on paper, 38″ x 50″

“Lincoln” – ink on paper, 38″ x 33″

According to an interview with George Boorujy:

I want people to look at the world around them and see the things they overlooked before. To “re-see” them. By presenting something very common – so common that it’s lost any power as an image – in a new way you can try to get people to see it again. And maybe see it truly.

For example the portrait of the deer. Deer have become, and maybe always were, such a ubiquitous symbol to use in art. Especially lately in “hipster” art (I think as a sort of shorthand for white-trash cred. But what the hell do I know…). I was trying to depict a deer in an unconventional, human and confrontational way. Same goes with the Abe Lincoln portrait. Lincoln has become such an icon and a symbol that it’s hard to remember that he was human. I wanted to present him as what he was – a human animal.

I’m trying to reach anyone I can – anyone who looks at the work. In general I hate art created for artists or those in the art “know”. It’s so elitist and self-referential for that matter, that it immediately leaves me cold. Even if it is smart. That attitude of, “are you cool enough or schooled enough to even know what this is about?”, really puts up a wall between artists and the public and leads to things like every non-artist beginning a comment or insight they may have with, “I don’t know anything about art but…” “This wall also keeps people from learning more about art and leads to the dismissive “my kid could do that” school of thought.

“Religion (La Paz)” – ink on paper, 36″ x 50″

“Ponghorn II” – ink on paper, 38″ x 50″

“Moraine” – ink on paper, 38″ x 50″

See more at Boorujy’s site

Watch: “The Mountain” – Time Lapse Video of the Milky Way

via the filmmaker Terje Sorgjerd:

This was filmed April 4th – 11th 2011. I had the pleasure of visiting El Teide. Spain´s highest mountain (3,715m/12,188ft) is one of the best places in the world to photograph the stars and is also the location of Teide Observatories, considered to be one of the world´s best observatories.

The goal was to capture the beautiful Milky Way galaxy along with one of the most amazing mountains I know El Teide. I have to say this was one of the most exhausting trips I have done. There was a lot of hiking at high altitudes and probably less than 10 hours of sleep in total for the whole week. Having been here 10-11 times before I had a long list of must-see locations I wanted to capture for this movie, but I am still not 100% used to carrying around so much gear required for time-lapse movies.

A large sandstorm hit the Sahara Desert on the April 9th and at approx 3am in the night the sandstorm hit me, making it nearly impossible to see the sky with my own eyes.

Interestingly enough my camera was set for a 5 hour sequence of the milky way during this time and I was sure my whole scene was ruined. To my surprise, my camera had managed to capture the sandstorm which was backlit by Grand Canary Island making it look like golden clouds. The Milky Way was shining through the clouds, making the stars sparkle in an interesting way. So if you ever wondered how the Milky Way would look through a Sahara sandstorm, look at 00:32.

Photo Flash: Great Migrations

After wintering as far from the Falklands as South Africa, black-browed albatrosses form a colony of their own, and birds of a breeding pair groom each other’s neck feathers. A pair’s single chick may not survive. (National Geographic/Frans Lanting)

Via Boston.com’s Big Picture:

Move as millions, survive as one. That is the subtitle to the new seven-part television series from National Geographic called Great Migrations. Animals great and small are on the move around the world, chasing resources in dangerous journeys that might take mere hours or span generations. To capture the images and video for the series, they spent two and a half years in the field, traveling 420,000 miles across 20 countries and all seven continents.

See 28 other photos from Great Migrations here

Photo Flash: Massive Fish Kill

According to Yahoo News (published September 14, 2010):

What you see above isn’t a rural gravel road. It’s a Louisiana waterway, its surface completely covered with dead sea life – a mishmash of species of fish, crabs, stingray and eel. New Orleans CBS affiliate WWL-TV reports that even a whale was found dead in the area, a stretch of coastal Louisiana hit hard this summer by oil from BP’s busted Gulf well.

Fish kills are fairly common along the Gulf Coast, particularly during the summer in the area near the mouth of the Mississippi, the site of this kill. The area is rife with dead zones — stretches where sudden oxygen depletion can cause widespread death. But those kills tend to be limited to a single species of fish, rather than the broad sort of die-off involved in this kill.

And therein lies the concern of Gulf residents, who suspect this may be yet another side effect of the catastrophic BP oil spill.

Read more here