rileyuk.co.uk

WWII Ghosts is a site which has photoshopped images from WWII onto modern photographs. It's amazingly well done!

Some of those are very impressive and poignant. Cheers for the link!

The WWII images generally make me feel rather lucky never to have lived through major conflict. I was reading a photo book about the blitz and it was amazingly destructive!

Mike wrote:I was reading a photo book about the blitz and it was amazingly destructive!

It was also unnervingly random, no laser-guided bombs precisely targetting factories... just sling the lot out the plane when you reckon you're in the right spot.

The photos are indeed poignant, matching them up perfectly with the up to date views has enhanced them no end.

This is a brilliant article by Oktrends. 'Don't be ugly by accident'. They have assembled lots of user pictures from facebook and other social networking sites and paired with other pictures to prompt people to make snap decisions on who is the most attractive of the two. They have come up with some interesting finds such as which camera brand attracts the prettiest people and who has the most sex.

So Panasonic cameras have it, followed by Leica, then Cannon and Pentax. Oh and Kodak easyshare camera owners - shame on you!

mr_e wrote:

Mike wrote:I was reading a photo book about the blitz and it was amazingly destructive!

It was also unnervingly random, no laser-guided bombs precisely targetting factories... just sling the lot out the plane when you reckon you're in the right spot.

The photos are indeed poignant, matching them up perfectly with the up to date views has enhanced them no end.

That was the technology of the age though, by in large.

The big bombers (Lancasters, B-51s, etc) did have a bomb aimer but it was pretty much a case of attempting to work out how the plane's air-speed and the target's distance would be affected by the current weather conditions...a pretty much inaccurate science for anyone, especially when lying down in the nose of the aircraft someone else was piloting!

Also sadly both us and the Axis air forces got carpet bombing sorties on major cities, but then this didn't really end until the Vietnam war!

Detroit in ruins, a Guardian slideshow (links to an article as well). Dramatic illustration of the urban decline that's affecting some of the old manufacturing cities across America.

Those are some amazing photographs! It is amazing to see that the books within the public libraries have so little value they have been left in-situ. It's almost like the cost of moving them is more than the value of the book! Dramatic to say the least.

Some of the shots are very Mary Celeste (especially the ones with furniture etc. still there), like everyone just walked out and let nature do its thing. Apparently that was the case with the police station, they moved temporarily and never went back. I went and read the whole of the article that accompanies it (no-one salvaged the huge art deco chandeliers!).

Are there any similar sites in Manchester anyone's aware of?

Really fantastic suff, and yes, there are similar places in the UK. Some people make a hobby of exploring and recording them.

I hope they use protection - some of those places might be a bit dangerous!

I'd like to think they have something similar to the UK urban exploration forums. Not least because some of it may technically be trespassing and they'd need to know their legal rights.

An interesting blog post on the use / effect of negative space on Photography.

There are a wide variety of good photographs to demonstrate their point.

Was trying to go for that in one or two of my Mull photos, didn't quite work out though!

World Press Photo Winners 2010 (via the BBC) - some stunning shots there, needless to say.

The photograph of the girl who had here nose and ears 'removed' as part of a justice campaign is totally barbarous. Amazingly haunting.

Mike wrote:An interesting blog post on the use / effect of negative space on Photography.

I have been amending a presentation image of Culcheth for the RIBA 2011 awards. As I was nearly finished I noticed this effect which is a building definfined by negative space. I thought it was quite a beautiful image so I have uploaded it here for your enjoyment.