Saving the World

Iceland

The Afro

I'm with Stupid

Dancing on Water

New Delhi Family

Snug

I Love NY

Cool!

Swimming with the Fishes

Cat's Eyes

Wooden skyscraper near Archangelsk , Russia

Those crazy Russians ...

Beautiful

High Cliffs Surrounding Echus Chasma on Mars

What created this great cliff on Mars? Did giant waterfalls once plummet through its grooves? With a four-kilometer drop, this high cliff surrounding Echus Chasma, near an impressive impact crater, was carved by either water or lava. A leading hypothesis is that Echus Chasma, at 100-kilometers long and 10-kilometers wide, was once one of the largest water sources on Mars. If true, water once held in Echus Chasma likely ran over the Martian surface to carve the impressive Kasei Valles, which extends over 3,000 kilometers to the north. Even if initially carved by water, lava appears to have later flowed in the valley, leaving an extraordinarily smooth floor. Echus Chasma lies north of tremendous Valles Marineris, the largest canyon in the Solar System. The above image was taken by the robotic Mars Express spacecraft currently orbiting Mars. Source: Astronomy Picture of the Day

Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, July 12, 2008

I was out at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, yesterday, with my daughters. The exhibition started on Friday and will close tomorrow at 6PM, at Nathan Phillips Square -- promising to stay open even if it rains. As usual, there was a mix of art -- from drawing, painting & photography, to jewelry, fibre and ceramics. I tend to give more credence to the former -- it feeling more like real art to me, rather than the functional stuff. Real art is useless. It's to be appreciated despite the lack of function.

Regardless, I wandered around and took in most of the exhibitors. The following are the ones that appealed to me.

Steve Jacobs Photography -- Jacobs' subjects are what appeals to me. It's something I'm interested in doing myself. He explores the abandoned artefacts of human habitation. It's almost archeological, his photography.

Joanna Strong -- Strong paints, among other things, rubber band balls. I'm not entirely sure what's fascinating about rubber band balls, but the paintings looked cool -- and they were all done in oils.

Jérôme Bourque -- is a French photographer who shoots some really weird subjects. I like how he juxtapose different elements in his photography. Totally cool, and jarring.

Jorgen Lauritzen -- Lauritzen is a painter that likes industrial subjects. He doesn't have a website, and I couldn't find any other examples of his work, other than the above. I remember seeing the above painting (or something quite similar) -- but I don't remember much more of his art. Dude, get a website, not just LinkedIn.

Tammy Hoy's Forgotten Spaces -- I'm starting to see a pattern in my photography preference here ... I seem to like rust, dilapidation and industrial wastelands. Hoy's photography is just that. Things left behind by people, and slowly being returned to nature. I find such photography cool for some reason.

Robert Dyke's Rust & Relics -- Dyke and Hoy must know each other. They photograph similar subjects. And yet again, I enjoy seeing human remnants being reclaimed by nature.

Catherine Hibbits -- Hibbits works with glass, and while it's not a medium I care much for, she did have a couple of glass art pieces I liked. She had a couple of vases out, with silhouettes of walking figures on them. I liked those.

Russell Brohier -- Brohier is a fine art photographer ... whatever that is. The stuff of his that I enjoyed, was again the rusted, abandoned human spaces. Maybe it's just me, but this seemed to be the subject for a lot of photographers at the exhibit. I wonder if it's a reflection of a broader undercurrent running through society. After all, aren't artists supposed to be reflecting back to society what society seems in capable of articulating?

Rebecca Codack -- Codack is a painter, capturing on canvas, what she finds in nature. I was especially taken by her flowers.

Robert Farmer -- Farmer likes hot dogs. He had a hot dog nailed to a cross; and a hot dog featured in his take of the last supper. OK, I'll admit it ... it was the last supper that I loved.

Eric Cator -- Cator is a photographer and artist. He paints, sketches and takes photos. I really liked his paintings of people standing around. The one with the guy holding the boom mike to the fire hydrant appealed to me for some bizarre reason.

Sara Golish -- Golish had some really stunning paints in the fantasy genre. She had a mermaid, fairy, nymph, earth goddess ... some really amazing pieces. She rendered them with oils, and the figures just came to life. She is very skilled at life art.

Rob Croxford -- Croxford had some of his urban series on display ... and I found out by visiting his site, that 10% of the proceeds from the series are being donated to the David Suzuki Foundation -- which is pretty cool.

Vanessa Rieger -- Rieger has a thing about the neighbourhood watch program. She's made buttons, t-shirts and yes, even art. Her art is cool.

José Enríquez -- Enríquez is an Ecuadorian who produces really colourful art, leaning towards the fantastic. I especially like his use of bells in his art.

Mathew Borrett -- Borrett has created some very detailed pieces of work. His work draws you in to study the details, but hides the secrets.

Afrofest, Toronto

I went to Afrofest yesterday, with my daughters. The food was great and spicy! The music was wonderful. Afterwards, we went to see Wall-E.

Muon? Who ordered that?

Church of Scientology

Standard Model of Fundamental Particles and Interactions

A summary of everything leptons and quarks (fermions); photons and gluons (bosons); baryons, antibaryons and mesons.

Bottled Water

A Fever of Stingrays

This stunning image was taken off the coast of Mexico, and is of a fever of migrating golden cow-nosed stingrays. See more here.

Snails on my bike ride

We had some rain today, and after getting home from St. Jacobs, I went on a bike ride. It was amazing. The area I usually ride through is parkland that is slowly being reclaimed by the wild. The smell was amazing. The air was sweet with the smell of flowers. There were birds everywhere singing. And snails were everywhere, clinging on plants to get away from the wet in the undergrowth. Check out more photos of snails on Webshots.

St. Jacobs

This morning we drove to St. Jacobs, a little tourist town, not far from Guelph and Waterloo. It's a great place to spend a day, do some shopping ... and the best, have lunch.


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Strawberry Picking

Yesterday, we went strawberry picking up on Woodbine & 19th Ave. It was my first time. It was also the first weekend for strawberry picking at the farm. We loaded up three buckets in no time. Now we're stuffing ourselves with strawberries. See the other photos on Webshots.

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Mars is alive!

A well-defined dust devil crosses in front of the camera in this animation of a series of images acquired by NASA's Mars Rover Spirit in May, 2005. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/USGS)


Several dust devils cross a plain in this animation of a series of images acquired by NASA's Mars Rover Spirit in May, 2005. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/USGS)

Source: The Boston Globe

Can you imagine what it must have been like to be them?

A 1956 photograph by Joe Scherschel, taken in Texarkana, Tex., shows an almost Norman Rockwell-esque young black couple, leaning on a car hood with their schoolbooks. The horizon is a line of menacing white protesters.

Photo: Joe Scherschel, via High Museum of Art.

Father's Day at the Leslie Spit

I got taken out on Father's Day to the Leslie Spit. If you were in Toronto over the weekend, you must know of the weather we've been having. It started out beautiful, then the sky darkened as clouds rolled across the lake and erupted over the city. It was quite a show. Torrential downpours. Loud thunderclaps. And a wicked light show. The rain soaked us too, but my daughters and I braved the storm as we walked back to the car. We were out walking for about three hours, stopping to take pictures along the way. It was amazing! Check out the rest of the photos uploaded on one of my nature galleries on Webshots. And thank you ladies, for a wonderful day!

Earth from Mars

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera would make a great backyard telescope for viewing Mars, and we can also use it at Mars to view other planets. This is an image of Earth and the moon, acquired on October 3, 2007, by the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

At the time the image was taken, Earth was 142 million kilometers (88 million miles) from Mars, giving the HiRISE image a scale of 142 kilometers (88 miles) per pixel, an Earth diameter of about 90 pixels and a moon diameter of 24 pixels. The phase angle is 98 degrees, which means that less than half of the disk of the Earth and the disk of the moon have direct illumination. We could image Earth and moon at full disk illumination only when they are on the opposite side of the sun from Mars, but then the range would be much greater and the image would show less detail.

May-June China Trip

May 2008, China Trip

Here are some pics I took from my last trip to China. Most of the shots come from Hangzhou, where I stayed at the Hangzhou Xihu State Guesthouse -- and visited the Xixi Wetland National Park and Lingyin Temple. The slideshow above doesn't show all the photos. You'll have to follow the link to Webshots to see the rest of them.