Wonderful thing about the net is being able to track down the people that take the pictures that make you stop and stare.

I found this image as part of a photo essay on the stray dogs of Moscow, some of which have managed to wrap their minds around the Moscow subway system after years of growing up in the city and keeping out of the weather. They’re beautiful shots and when I find such an choice of subject matter it always makes we curious to see what other stuff they shoot.

With that in mind I went looking through online folios for Maxim Marmur and found a really amazing collection of images of Russia’s heavy industry and the people involved in it. The photos are a window into a world that you know has to exist somewhere but you can’t really imagine. For the most part the photos I’ve seen of refineries, gas plants and smelters are commissioned photos taken to sit as big glossy glamour shots between the chapters in annual reports. They usually show blue skies, manicured business men in yellow hats shaking hands and smiling in front of polished steel piping and machinery that looks like it just just came out of the bubble wrap.

Needless to say Marmur’s images are a little bit more raw. More than anything they actually show the forces at work to create these materials and a they show a bit of the violence of the process. I really like the picture of the bored-looking woman at the computer and it looks like there’s a portrait of Medvedev in the office which makes me think that some things in Russia haven’t really changed for 60 or 70 years.

The Financial Times article that originally published the stray dog photos has been consigned to their archives but some of that story is re-told on Inksie and Marmur’s personal portfolio provides a number of other stunning images of Russia and abroad.

Love these macro shots by German Photographer Mierswa Kluska for the Berlin Philharmonic.

They’re taken inside some of the instruments that the orchestra uses. The headline image here is the guts of a cello but when you add the lighting and faint light rays and shadows it could be the inside of a ballroom. The project was up up on Behance for more than a year before it was featured at which point it received a flood of attention and re-posts across the internet. It’s not hard to see why; there’s a really nice convergence of concept and execution with these shots because I can imagine an idea like this not having nearly as much impact without the photographic eye of someone like Kluska. It’s also very rare to see macro photography being used in advertising as a way of creating a bit of intrigue to make people stop and wonder what is they’re seeing and look to the copy and the logo to get their bearings.

Like much of the advertising work that I re-post here there’s also an element of bravery on the part of the client in order to run with print ads that don’t feature concert halls, elegant musicians or celebrity conductors.

There’s a great interview with the art director for the project on Ben Felton’s blog and Kluska’s personal folio site.

Gabriel Dawe is a Mexican/Canadian/Yankee visual artist that turns thread into something that looks like light.

In case it’s not clear what you’re looking at these installations are made from thousands of different coloured threads.  Dawe’s works are astoundingly detailed; they can take up to 140 hours to complete as they’re painstakingly woven by hand in-situ for their exhibition.

I love stuff like this because it produces a clear-cut optical illusion and because it demonstrates what can be done with a good idea and ton of patience. The meritocratic side of me says that even if you don’t appreciate the result you have to marvel at the effort.

Dawe’s web portfolio is http://www.gabrieldawe.com/

Some images from Cradle Mountain National Park in Central Tasmania.

Dove Lake panorama. Click for higher res.

Brilliant song, brilliant montage. I think my favourite shot is probably Al Capone and all his attendants in The Untouchables at the 3:27 mark.

In what I assume must have been a marathon effort artist Aaron Hobson has combed through a few million Google Street View stills to pick out those that most resemble calendar landscapes.

It highlights something about photography that really separates it from other mediums and that’s the role that chance plays. Look through the Pullitzer recipients for photography and many of those names belong to people who just happened to be there when everything came together at just the right time. They aren’t always press photojournalists or career photographers- sometimes they’re just chance witnesses to something powerful or compelling- proving Chase Jarvis’ theorem that “the best camera is the one you have with you”.

The same applies to the men and women hired to drive the panoramic cameras mounted on Google’s army of Street View vans. If you spend that much time out there in the wide world, constantly shooting, chances are you’ll come across some scenes of real beauty and some wonderful moments where everything just comes together. Hard to know whether the moments captured below make up for the hundreds of hours spent painstakingly recording, meter for meter, every suburban street in Melbourne for example but they are impressive.

You can see these shots at a proper size on Hobson’s portfolio.

Had the chance last year to visit the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) just outside of Hobart and I have to say that everything about that place is phenomenal.

To start with you have the architecture- the museum is built underneath a brewery on its own little archipelago sticking out into the Derwent river and you start your tour by going 3 floors down a spiral staircase wrapped around a glass lift shaft. The gallery space is pretty much excavated straight from the rock with sandstone walls going up more than ten meters with metal catwalks and platforms and glass dividers. It’s pretty much a Bond villain’s lair. Some of the exhibitions seemed haphazardly tucked into the ceiling cavity, others force you into a narrow maze or around pools of inky water.

On top of that you have the way in which the information about the artworks is provided- instead of little cards with dates and artist statements you’re given a WiFi connected iPod that detects where you are and feeds you ‘context’ for the artworks around you. They’re handily seperated into sections like ‘gonzo’, ‘ideas’ and ‘artwank’ with audio interviews, odd pieces of trivia and the occasional song ditty recorded by one of the guys from TISM. One of the artworks didn’t have any information related to but it just had a few lines from the owner of the gallery complaining about the price of the artwork.

The exhibits themselves are all fascinating in one way or another. There’s a machine which simulates the human digestive system, there’s a morbidly obese Porsche, there’s a genuine Egyptian Mummy from Ptolemaic dynasty about 100BC and also a wall of about 100 plaster vaginas. Something for everyone really. I think the most amazing thing on offer is an incredibly elaborate 3D zoetrope device built within a gigantic bronze head. It’s difficult to describe, it took me a fair amount of time before I could even work out what it was I was looking at. Perhaps the most prominent exhibit is an artwork called Bit.Fall by German artist Julius Popp which takes words from currently trending google searches and ‘prints’ them with water droplets as they fall to the floor.

Maybe the most amazing thing about the gallery is the man who who built it. MONA is the private art collection of David Walsh- a local Tasmanian who made himself a millionaire by extracting smart money from casinos and online gambling sites. Together with fellow Tasmanian Zelkjo Ranogajec, Walsh spent his early life card counting at blackjack and beating casinos before going on to devise mathematical systems for finding favourable odds through online sports betting. To get an idea of how successful their operation was Ranogajec’s holdings worldwide are estimated to be worth more than 3 billion dollars.

With a backstory like that MONA starts to make sense because it’s such an eclectic mix of artworks and mediums and styles all thrown together with a really irrevereant tone. There’s no place for works which are renowned just for being renowned or simply used as a yardstick for good taste. It has none of the self-consciousness which seems to weigh down any institutions that depend on public funds but fear public opinion. It’s a very different sort of place. With a really nice bar.

Some images from a trip to the Grampians in western Victoria late last year.

The first three were taken on a misty climb up Mt Difficult and the last three were taken at sunset around Mt Stapylton.

Panorama shot of Taipan wall from just below the summit of Mt Stapylton. Click to embiggen.

Some amazing sculptures from Canadian artist Guy Laramee

The detail on these sculptures is exceptional but it’s the way he’s paired the landscapes with the book sets that’s really clever. Especially the title image above which uses the center book to create a staircase leading to the shrine. Added to that is the fact that Laramee works in a bunch of other medium and disciplines so this sort of precise sculptural work isn’t normally what he does. Individual talent can be sort of obscene sometimes. You can find more of his work and a trippy little backstory to this series on his portfolio site.