Enjoy this 'smoke art' by Sharlene Shappart from Kansas, USA
"Smoking egg" (ultrafeel's title)
She dances with veils
Gooey Galaxy
Curved
Publication of Sharlene Shappart's art needs her permission.
See more of her 'smoke-egg-water' photography art here: Sharlene Shappart
Israel army drill.
Photographers take pictures of Israeli elite infantry soldiers armed with Israeli made Tavor rifles during urban warfare training in June 2009 in the IDF's Urban Warfare Training Center in Tzeelim, southern Israel. The training area simulates an Arab town.
Menahem Kahana was born in Ashkelon, Israel in 1958. He studied photography at the Hadassah College in Jerusalem. Since 1987, Menahem works as an AFP photographer in Jerusalem. Menahem won numerous awards and prizes. Kahana also exhibits in the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv.
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Kahana is famous for documenting the closed and often secretive world of an orthodox Jewish community known as the 'Heredi'.
His photo to the left, |
Showering with the amazing RAIN SKY E is showering with all the senses.
For the first time, water, mist, light and fragrance complement each other in scenarios which relate to the moods in nature.
Everything happens simply, just enjoy it and don't think of anything. That's all taken care of by the electronic control panel, which automatically evokes the rain curtain, head and body spray, mist projectors, coloured lights and fragrances according to the chosen sequence. Anyone standing behind the bright rain curtain during the scenarios will soon feel the effect – a unique feeling of well-being.
Duschen mit dem RAIN SKY E ist Duschen mit allen Sinnen.
Erstmals ergänzen sich Wasser, Nebel, Licht und Duft zu Szenarien, die Stimmungen in der Natur nachempfunden sind. Alles geschieht einfach, nur genießen, an nichts denken. Das übernimmt das elektronische Steuerpaneel, das Regenvorhang, Kopf- und Körperbrause, Nebeldüse, Farblicht und Düfte entsprechend der jeweiligen Choreografie automatisch anwählt.
Wer während der Szenarien hinter dem leuchtenden Regenvorhang steht, spürt schon bald die Wirkung – ein einmaliges Wohlgefühl.
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Like a spring in the open countryside.
The water falls in a broad torrent. Only with WATER SHEET it is always at the right temperature and intensity. The ritual begins with the conscious filling of the bathtub. The architectural design of WATER SHEET is universal, fitting in with every high quality bathroom ambience, and can be combined with all the other BALANCE MODULES and fittings. Wie eine Quelle in freier Natur. Das architektonische Design von WATER SHEET fügt sich universell in jedes hochwertige Badambiente ein und lässt sich mit allen anderen BALANCE MODULES und Armaturenserien kombinieren. |
Is this the most sensational photo of a lightning ever?
'Storm in the lake'
Lightning is an atmospheric discharge of electricity, which occurs during thunderstorms or sometimes during dust storms or volcanic eruptions. In the atmospheric electrical discharge, a leader of a bolt of lightning can travel at speeds of 60,000 m/s, and can reach temperatures approaching 30,000 °C (54,000 °F), hot enough to fuse silica sand into petrified lightning.
More of Thierry Galeuchet's photography can be enjoyed here:
| 500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art
This fantastic art animation video was nominated as "Most Creative Video" at the 2007 YouTube Awards. Music: Bach's Sarabande from Suite for Solo Cello No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007 performed by Yo-Yo Ma. The artists of the female portraits: – Leonardo da Vinci |
– Hans Memling
– Sir Joshua Reynolds
– Pierre Gobert
– Caspar Netscher
– Pierre Mignard
– Jean-Marc Nattier
– Fyodor Rokotov
– Peter Paul Rubens
– Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Le Brun
– El Greco
– Franz Xaver Winterhalter
– Alexei Vasilievich Tyranov
– Vladimir Lukich Borovikovsky
– Alexey Gavrilovich Venetsianov
– Antoine-Jean Gros
– Joseph Karl Stieler
– Orest Adamovich Kiprensky
– Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
– Edouard Manet
– Henri Fantin-Latour
– Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
– William Clark Wontner
– William-Adolphe Bouguereau
– Lêon François Comerre
– Lord Frederick Leighton
– Eugene de Blaas
– Lêon François Comerre
– Pierre Auguste Renoir
– Frank Duveneck
– Mary Cassatt
– Julian Alden Weir
– Paul Cesar Helleu
– Anders Zorn
– Alphonse Maria Mucha
– John Everett Millais
– Paul Gauguin
– Henri Matisse
– Francis Picabia
– Gustav Klimt
– Louis Welden Hawkins
– Rene Magritte
– Salvador Dali
– Kazimir Malevich
– Knud Merrild
– Amedeo Modigliani
– Pablo Picasso
Very interesting to see how the paintings get more and more abstract as time progresses. One wonders how painters will portray women in the future!
All the original paintings that have been used in Philip Scott Johnson's animation can be found on:
Maysstuff.com/womenid.htm – philip scott johnson women in art animation
There is no need to bother about the past.
As you become aware, the first thing to disappear from your mind is the past, and the past is one third of the mind. It is the very base of the mind, the foundation. Once it disappears, then the whole building starts collapsing.
The 2nd to go is tomorrow.
When there is no yesterday, you cannot conceive of the tomorrow. The tomorrow is nothing but a projection of yesterday. You would like to live the joys of yesterday again tomorrow and you would like to avoid the miseries of yesterday. That's what your tomorrow is. If yesterday is gone, tomorrow is finished; soon it will disappear.
And when yesterdays are gone and tomorrows are gone, where is today?
It exists between the two. If both the banks have disappeared, the river itself will disappear.
If both the banks have disappeared, the bridge will disappear. Chunk by chunk in three pieces, time dissolves: First the past, then the future, and finally the present. Then you are left with no time, a state of timelessness. And this, Buddha calls nirvana.
To experience timelessness is to experience deathlessness.
To experience timelessness is to experience that which really is. It is neither past nor present nor future; it simply is. It cannot be confined into any compartment, into any category; it cannot be categorized. You simply experience each moment with tremendous peace and silence and joy.
And each moment becomes so fragrant, so alive!
Each moment becomes such a benediction that it is impossible to imagine it, it is impossible to describe it. One has to know it to know it; there is no other way. Nobody can explain it to you. It is not expressible, it is not explainable. It is the greatest mystery.
When time disappears, mind disappears – what is left?
That which is left, that vastness…that's your real being – in Buddha's words, your non-being, your no-self.
(Osho)
God bless CNN and America; they try so hard, and they try it again and again – nevertheless correct geography constantly seems to escape them…
Switzerland is a small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways, and is all stuck over with large brown hotels built on the cuckoo clock style of architecture.(Ernest Hemingway)
What if life were nothing else than a huge cosmic dream?
There is nothing like you and I. What are you seeing? You are seeing a part of the mind only. You are not seeing a person. Just as you see a wall in dream, you see another wall here. It stands in the same relation to the cosmic mind as the dream wall in relation to the waking mind.
This world is a cosmic dream. When you wake up you will not see the world. Just as you do not see the dream-world now.
(Swami Krishnananda)
What then is the dreamer? Is s/he also just part of the dream?
The dreamer and the dream are one.
Yet the dreamer is not the dream.
The dream changes – the dreamer does not.
Leo Hartong in his book Awakening to the dream about the illusory nature of reality:
In our dreams we may encounter age-old mountains, oceans, stars, and planets. There may be people and animals, cities and forests. We may experience days or even years passing by. To the dreamer, it is all very real. The dreamer may run from an erupting volcano, and the accompanying fear can be so intense that it jolts him awake, at which point he is no longer concerned with what happened to the volcano or the other objects and characters that just moments ago populated his universe.
From the perspective of the waking state, the dream may have lasted only a few seconds. Where was the time, the space, and the objects that filled it? We can say it was inside the dreamer, but it's equally true to say that the dreamer was inside the dream.
This common experience clearly shows how apparently solid realities such as the world of objects, space, and time could well be illusory in nature.
And here, Leo Hartong states that we can actually wake up:
As you can wake up in your dream, and suddenly realise that you have just been dreaming, you can wake up in your life, and suddenly see that it is all just one great, sometimes fascinating, sometimes shocking dream!
Chuang Tzu's Butterfly metaphor:
Once upon a time, I, Chuang Tzu, dreamt I was a butterfly, flitting around and enjoying myself.
I had no idea I was Chuang Tzu. Then suddenly I woke up and was Chuang Tzu again.
But I could not tell, had I been Chuang Tzu dreaming I was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I was now Chuang Tzu?
Osho on being a dreamer or a becoming a witness:
Either you can fall asleep and become a doer; then you are a worldly man, a dreamer, a victim of illusions – or you can become a witness and yet go on living in the world.
What does the ancient Indian scripture 'Ashtavakra Gita' say about life as a dream?
I sit in my own radiance,
And I have no fear.Walking,
Dreaming,
Sleeping,
What are they to me?What is far or near,
Outside or inside,
Gross or subtle?I sit in my own splendor.
Michael over at Awakeningtothedream.com brings us this parable:
In a dream, a man switches on a light that appears to illuminate a room. He looks around the room, then switches off the light…and all is dark again.
He wakes up.
What happened?
Maybe the answer lies herein: (or it will actually increase your confusion…)
If you say "life is a dream", then you assert.
If you say "life is not a dream", then you deny.
If you say "life is real", then you assert.
If you say "life is not real", then you deny.…Beyond assertion and denial – what is life?
Maybe life is just both – Anna over at Awakeningtothedream.com elegantly merges reality with dream:
Perhaps life IS
BOTH
Dream and Real,
Not separated from each other,
Arising spontaneously, naturally
Penetrating within each other,
Bordered by a subtle border,
Or perhaps already merging, blending
Within one another as One…
What do you feel about this? Is life really just a dream? And you the great cosmic dreamer…?
| Has checking your Facebook account become your daily, or even hourly, habit and quick fix?
Beware, you could end up like this man in the video to the left by Maxime Luère. It's the story of a man told through the world's most used social network's interface. Actually a pretty unimpressive life which ends unpretentiously – with a simple log out! Usually, Facebook-addiction starts with a simple exploration of your friends on the site and suddenly you are logging on dozens of times a day to check if any of your friends have made updates to their profile, have posted new videos or articles or changed their relationship status. |
Life in Facebook: as addictive as cocaine?
A study conducted by Oxygen Media and Lightspeed Research (link) found 33% of women ages 18 to 34 check facebook first thing in the morning, even before brushing their teeth or going to the bathroom. More and more internet users are pathetically guilty of this. It's almost as if facebook has become a snooze button, easing us from slumber with amusing status updates before we have to face to real world. After all, of the 1'605 adults surveyed on their social media habits, 39% are self-described "Facebook addicts." But wait, it gets worse…: 57% percent of women in the 18 to 34 age range say they talk to people online more than they have face-to-face conversations. But while women supposedly have owned up to their Facebook addiction (remember, the first step is admitting you have a problem) another interesting question is, what first thing do men do in the morning…? |
| Breathtaking water drop videos – enjoy!
What a beautiful slow-motion video of a red drop of water falling into clear water. It's hypnotic! |
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Mindboggling action: Water drops are being filmed with a rate of 2'000 frames per second. High speed photography can change our perception of the world. Supposedly, no special water or additives have been used. Another explanation of this phenomena. |
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Carnival
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And now relish these wonderful liquid sculpture drop art photos by Martin Waugh.
Martin's free-flowing photography combines art and science to capture nature's infinite beauty. His photos evoke images from rolling, rhythmic oceans to drops of water falling upon a lake. |
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Exploding bowler
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The technique. Martin Waugh claims to use fairly typical high-speed photography techniques which make it possible to capture the smooth and effortless curves of liquids. By varying the size, speed and position of drops, as well as the surface tension, color, and viscosity, the artist manages to take us on a journey to a never seen before wonderland bound only by our imagination. |
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Blue wall
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Martin received a B.S. degree in Physics from Lewis and Clark College in Oregon. He lives in Portland, USA. His work can be found in museums, corporate and private art collections. More liquid sculpture drop art photography on Martin Waugh's site: |
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