Sweet! :)The Nu Project’s Nude Photos Tell The Truth About Women’s Bodies
The Nu Project is a no-glamor honest look at beauty and image in our world.
Female nudity isn’t hard to come by in the media, but the bodies we see usually represent a fairly limited scope of sizes and shapes. The Nu Project, a collection of nude photographs shot by Minneapolis photographer Matt Blum, seeks to add some variety to the mix. Blum started The Nu Project in 2005 but said it really took off when his wife, Katy Kessler, became the project’s editor. Blum sees the photos as filling a void. “When I started shooting nudes there was no project like it,” he told The Huffington Post in an email. The things that I had seen either used models with typical model bodies or average people who were made to look extremely unimpressive. I figured there was a way to treat women (of any size/shape) like models and photograph them beautifully, respectfully without a lot of sexual under or overtones. The women photographed are all volunteers, and most of the pictures are taken in the subjects’ homes — where they feel most comfortable. The Nu Project’s website showcases six galleries of nudes, three shot in North America, three in South America. Although Blum told HuffPost that he feels that they have a “good variety of people involved,” he and Kessler acknowledge on The Nu Project website that they’d love for the subjects to be more diverse. “The hardest part for us is that the project is 100 percent volunteer, so I do not see the women until I show up at their door,” Blum writes on the website. “We’re doing our best to encourage all types of women, but we need volunteers of all backgrounds and walks of life to make the project more complete.” Blum said he ultimately hopes that these images inspire the women who see them to feel better about their own bodies. “It’s been really exciting to hear people react to the images,” he told HuffPost. “We get a lot of feedback from women (especially) who have struggled to see themselves as beautiful, and this project has helped them on that path.”
This is so cute I’m screaming
Amazing.
“What Happens When You Photoshop an Overweight Cat Into Art”
In the world of fractals, the Mandelbrot Set is a stunning geometrical shape that results when you take a particular equation and apply it to a number, and then to the result, and then to each subsequent result after, ad infinitum. But what happens when you go from two dimensions to three? You get a “Mandelbulb.” And if you want to see how such a shape evolves over time, check out this stunning computer animation of a Mandelbulb modeling the movement of 250,000,000 particles. — description by Scientific American
I was touched by Thilde Jensen’s stunning photo essay about human canaries— people who’ve suddenly grown ultra sensitive to common synthetic chemicals. Normal life becomes impossible and they are forced to live isolated lives.
“The urban life I had previously navigated with ease became a toxic war zone… This life often carries a long trail of loss. Marriages fall apart, friends and family pull away.”
Carlos Celdran says: Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to Manila’s most gorgeous gallery and art space: 1335Mabini in Tesoro Building, Ermita. I shall be in charge of their performance art programming and I’m now accepting performance art proposals. celdrantours@hotmail.com
Theology & Science shaking hands under the sign of The Holy Spirit.
JH Darlington by Rhead Louis (undated) (by peacay)
Gorgeous Photographs of People Reading Around the World via Flavorwire
You may know American photojournalist Steve McCurry for his famous photograph “Afghan Girl” — as well you should — but he’s no one trick pony. This week, Underground NYPL tipped us off to a gorgeous photo series of people reading around the world that McCurry recently posted on his blog, and we were completely blown away. Spanning the globe from Canada to Kashmir and augmented with choice quotes about the joy of reading from a few famous names, including McCurry himself, the series is a phenomenal ode to the universality and wonder of literature in any language. Click through to see some of our favorite photographs, and then head over to hisblog to check out even more shots — they’re all truly fantastic.
What a beautiful & emotional animated short film — The Butterfly Dragon (by UNSW)
Garbage released a new album + No Doubt is releasing a new album in a couple months. Anne Rice announced the return of Lestat and Neil Gaiman announced his return to The Sandman.
Still on my wishlist: a Tarzan film that captures the spirit of the original Burroughs novel.
Philippine stamp circa 1900-1901, under the first Republic of the Philippines— the revolutionary government in Malolos under Aguinaldo. The sun face and stars in a triangle was designed by Aguinaldo in homage to the first Philippine flag of 1898. The letters of the KKK were used in honor of the Katipunan— officially disbanded in 1897, but Katipuneros still considered themselves such, even long afterwards.
More info and more pictures.
