Clipmarks | ruralart's 'photography' clips

Photographs of War... or Not?

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 05:46:47 GMT

clipped by: ruralart
clipper's remarks: What a complicated issue.... I can see the military wanting to preserve security and honor the memory of their dead; I can see families not wanting to be traumatized by photos of their loved ones; but I think about all we are still learning from photographs of WWI and WWII... and if there are no photos of the Iraq war, where will that leave historians of the future? Most of the WWI and WWII photographs were taken by military photographers assigned to document the actions. I wonder if there are still military photographers documenting todays "wars"?

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

4,000 U.S. Combat Deaths, and Just a Handful of Images

BAGHDAD — The case of a freelance photographer in Iraq who was barred from covering the Marines after he posted photos on the Internet of several of them dead has underscored what some journalists say is a growing effort by the American military to control graphic images from the war.

If the conflict in Vietnam was notable for open access given to journalists — too much, many critics said, as the war played out nightly in bloody newscasts — the Iraq war may mark an opposite extreme: after five years and more than 4,000 American combat deaths, searches and interviews turned up fewer than a half-dozen graphic photographs of dead American soldiers.

It is a complex issue, with competing claims often difficult to weigh in an age of instant communication around the globe via the Internet, in which such images can add to the immediate grief of families and the anger of comrades still in the field.

Tags: war, iraq, military, death, photography

Smithsonian photo contest winners - fantastic view of the world!

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 18:58:35 GMT

clipped by: ruralart
clipper's remarks: Great photos!

Clip Source: photocontest.smithsonianmag.com

A tribal birth in India
Abhijit Dey (Barrackpore, India)

Photographed August 2007, Purulia, India

Six days after Betka Tudu's birth, female relatives and neighbors in the West Bengal village of Purulia gathered to bless him and "to protect him from harm's way," says Dey. Born into the Santhal tribe, Betka "unknowingly drew his distant kin closer than ever." —Abigail Tucker

Tags: photography

Comprehensive Picture of Milky Way

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:17:57 GMT

clipped by: ruralart

Clip Source: www.spitzer.caltech.edu

Spitzer Captures Stellar Coming of Age in Our Galaxy

More than 800,000 snapshots from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have been stitched together to create a new "coming of age" portrait of stars in our inner Milky Way galaxy.

The image depicts an area of sky 120 degrees wide by two degrees tall. It was unveiled today at the 212th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in St. Louis, Mo.

Because Earth sits inside our dusty, flat, disk-shaped Milky Way, we have an edge-on view of our galactic home. We see the Milky Way as a blurry, narrow band of light that stretches almost completely across the sky. With Spitzer's dust-piercing infrared eyes, astronomers peered 60,000 light-years away into this fuzzy band, called the galactic plane, and saw all the way to the other side of the galaxy.

Tags: mildy way, astronomy, space, photography

Fantastic Nature Photos of Place to Protect

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 17:09:39 GMT

clipped by: ruralart
clipper's remarks: These are great photos, and many more are on the Nature Conservancy site. Definitely worth going to.

Clip Source: support.nature.org

Congratulations to all the finalists in The Nature Conservancy's 2nd Annual digital photo competition. This page represents our 2007 Grand Prize Winner, Finalists and Honorable Mentions for the Best Places We Protect Photo category.

Charles Robertson

Beach City, Texas

Sunset, Amboseli NP, Kenya

Grand Prize Winner

See Full Image

Jeff Zimmerman

Asheville, North Carolina

Black Balsam Knob, Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina, USA.

Great Blue Heron, Great Falls National Park, Maryland, USA.

Sunset, Great Falls National Park, Maryland, Virginia, USA.

Elakala Falls, Blackwater Falls State Park, West Virginia, USA.

Blue Footed Booby, Galapagos Islands

Blue Ridge Mountains

Lake McDonald, Glacier National Park, Montana, USA.

Big Horn Rams, National Bison Range in Moiese, Montana, USA.

Tags: nature, photos, photography, wild, conservation

Camouflage - it works!

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:13:02 GMT

clipped by: ruralart
clipper's remarks: Beautiful photos, interesting history of the study of camouflage in animals, and how this translated into the development of military camouflage.

Clip Source: www.smithsonianmag.com

Hiding in Plain Sight

A veteran photographer shows the extraordinary knack that some animals have for...disappearing

in a new book, Vanishing Act, he defies conventions to show what he calls "animals' incredible ability to vanish in plain sight."

Ever since people thousands of years ago noted the uncanny trickery of animal camouflage, nature watchers have taken pains to understand it. Some animals’ color matches their favored habitat:

vivid splotches or stripes help protect animals such as zebras and giraffes.

Military camouflage, first introduced in World War I, was inspired by research on animal camouflage.)

Mimicry is the shrewdest disguise.

Some camouflage works in concert with particular behaviors.

The modern study of camouflage began shortly after Charles Darwin proposed, in 1858, that new species arise through evolution by natural selection.

Tags: camouflage, nature, war, photography

Nature Conservancy - fabulous photos

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 00:15:52 GMT

clipped by: ruralart
clipper's remarks: The slide show is truly incredible - gorgeous photos. The Nature Conservancy is definitely worth donating to.

Clip Source: www.nature.org

The best of more than 11,000 images.

Shot by leading photographers.

Now at your fingertips.

"Natural Light" gives you access to the most arresting photos from The Nature Conservancy's huge archives. From Tibet to Tanzania, from hissing alligators to quivering zebras, "Natural Light" opens a brilliant window onto our work and the astonishing nature that we at the Conservancy encounter every day.

Tags: nature, nature conservancy, photography, conservation