zhuangzi - Tumblr blog

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Sea Turtle flying underwater in Kona Hi

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“Light in the darkness” by Mats Forsberg.

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Pioneers of classic style surfing in South Korea. Filmed in Busan and Jeju Island.

Surfers. Park Seongjun(박성준), Kim Bongchul(김봉철), Che Seungyeon(채승연), Hong Jungpyo(홍정표), Yea Suhwan(예수환)

Photographed by Kim Kyujeong(김규정)

Filmed and Edited by Kim Seongeun(김성은)

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In Hawaiian culture, surfing has always been more than a sport. So important was it that prayers and chants for good waves connected the art of he’e nalu (wave riding) to Native Hawaiians’ spiritual world. While surfing may have been imbued with spiritual power for Hawaiians, it also became the source of a kind of political power at a time when America’s military occupation threatened the existence of Hawaiian culture...Hawaiians have never passively accepted American military occupation, and as long as the occupation continues, the po’ina nalu [(surf zone)] will always be a zone of resistance.

Dina Gilio-Whitaker, Surfing as Sovereignty: How Native Hawaiians Resisted Colonialism

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photographer michael muller turned his childhood fascination with sharks into a career photographing the animals around the galapagos islands, south africa, fiji, and gudalupe island. to that end, michael developed his own underwater lighting rig that, as he explains, sets his underwater photos apart from all others.

“our lighting is one of a kind. about six years ago i created and was granted four patents on today’s most powerful underwater strobe system. each strobe creates 1200 watts of power and i use up to 7 at a time. they are the exact same lights i use in the studio shooting [his renowned] commercial work.”

“my vision was to bring a great white into the studio and shoot it with edge lights and top light, etc. realizing that i couldn’t bring the sharks into the studio, i decided that i would have to bring the studio to them.” 

he also notes that when shooting the feared great white, they “are far more scared and skeptical of us, and with good reason. we are killing 100,000,000 sharks a year at this point. i have never even been close to being threatened by a shark. …and i don’t use any cages, metal suits or protection.”

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hammer time. schools of scalloped hammerhead sharks photographed in the galapagos by (click pic) alexander safanov, montgomery gilchrist, eric h cheng, norbert wu, franco banfi, todd aki, chris newbert and larry gatz.  

scalloped hammerhead populations have declined by over 95 percent in the past thirty years, largely due to the shark fin trade. this summer, scalloped hammerheads became the first species of shark to be protected by the u.s. endangered species act, one of the world’s strongest wildlife conservation laws. 

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The Silent Jungle: Process

Our final from fall semester was pretty open ended, but it had to be mostly from observation, so I created a set from materials from the ReStore (a “store” where you can get various free items that other people have donated) and parts of plants from around campus.

Another factor of the assignment was that we had to choose two art books: one that inspired us stylistically, and one that inspired us subject-matter-wise. I chose to combine Jeffrey Catherine Jones’ dynamic compositions, muted color palette, and loose, painterly application, with the fantastical, larger than life environments from The Art of Dreamworks Animation.

It wasn’t a fully polished set because of time constraints, so I mostly used it for composition, texture, and lighting. After creating it, I took several photos of it from different angles and composited them in Photoshop to make three different panoramic compositions for my paintings.

I definitely learned a lot throughout the whole project, and I’d like to try oils next!

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Shame

An animatic I created for a final, inspired by my experience growing up as one of three Asian kids in my community. My family was probably the only Hmong family in the county. I’d like to fully animate it one day and start a series to tell more stories about this experience.

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Kauai, United States | by Elise Colley

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Lucjan Wędrychowski

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SamAlive | Country road

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(vía 仏像紹介BOT en Twitter: “金剛峯寺深沙大将像：和歌山県にある高野山真言宗総本山。重源が安置したといわれる。伝奇小説『西遊記』の基となった唐代の僧・玄奘三蔵が天竺から持ち帰った「般若経」の守護神として祀られる。沙悟浄のモデルでもある。快慶による制作。 https://t.co/KJVoGgxXg7”)

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http://olgaknows.vsco.co/

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photo by Brent Bielmann

Kanoa Igarashi

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