From bees hunting for a mate to a giant sea star procreating, these incredible images are some of the winners in the prestigious wildlife photography competition.
We spoke to three photographers, who tell the stories behind their award-winning images at this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year photographic competition, and why biodiversity and climate change are top of the agenda. Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London.
Acadia National Park is a stunning national treasure on the coast of Maine in the USA. This “insider’s” vacation guide covers all of the best places to see and the towns and villages in the Acadia Region from Bar Harbor on Mount Desert Island to Winter Harbor on the Schoodic Peninsula. Wherever you choose, the views are spectacular and nature abounds. No wonder this is one of the most visited parks in the United States and in all of North America.
Bar Harbor, a small seaside resort on the northeastern side of Mount Desert Island, has a unique symbiotic relationship with Acadia National Park. Together, they are like conjoined twins, both born of the same mother – and she is the land and ocean combined.
Historical roots are at play here, a special blend of salty air and the classic Down East character that is recognized and loved by millions. Together, these “conjoined twins” offer an unforgettable Maine vacation.
5.4K UltraHD aerial footage of my drone flights at the Angel Falls in Canaima National Park (UNESCO World Heritage site in Gran Sabana region of Bolivar State in Venezuela). Filmed in 2022.
Video timeline: ▶️ Drone – Angel Falls 2022 0:00 ▶️ Salto Angel 1:15 ▶️ Canaima National Park Venezuela 2:30
Angel Falls, Spanish Salto Ángel, also called Salto Churún Merú, waterfall in the Guiana Highlands in Bolívar state, southeastern Venezuela, on the Churún River, a tributary of the Caroní, 160 miles (260 km) southeast of Ciudad Bolívar. The highest waterfall in the world, the cataract drops 3,212 feet (979 metres) and is 500 feet (150 metres) wide at the base. It leaps from a flat-topped plateau, Auyán-Tepuí (“Devils Mountain”), barely making contact with the sheer face. The falls are located in Canaima National Park, and, because of the dense jungle surrounding the falls, they are best seen from the air.
The falls, first sighted by outsiders in the 1930s, were named for James Angel, an American adventurer who crash-landed his plane on a nearby mesa in 1937. In late 2009 Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chávez declared that the falls should be referred to as Kerepakupai Merú, an indigenous name.
Why is Winslow Homer a household name in the USA? And what makes his art so important? Follow Homer’s journey, at a time of great upheaval in American history, from magazine illustrator to sought-after artist in oil and watercolour.
Winslow Homer: Force of Nature Ground Floor Galleries Until 8 January 2023
Musée d’Orsay, (French: “Orsay Museum”) national museum of fine and applied arts in Paris that features work mainly from France between 1848 and 1914. Its collection includes painting, sculpture, photography, and decorative arts and boasts such iconic works as Gustave Courbet’s The Artist’s Studio (1854–55), Édouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863; Luncheon on the Grass), and Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (1876; Bal du moulin de la Galette).
The Musée d’Orsay is housed in the former Gare d’Orsay, a railway station and hotel that was designed by Victor Laloux and located on the Left Bank of the Seine River opposite the Tuileries Gardens. At the time of its completion in 1900, the building featured an ornate Beaux Arts façade, while its interior boasted metal construction, passenger elevators, and electric rails.
Because of changes in railway technology, however, the station soon became outdated and was largely vacant by the 1970s. Talks to transform the builing into an art museum began early in the decade and were finalized in 1977 through the initiative of Pres. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. With government funds, the building was restored and remodeled in the early 1980s by ACT architecture group.
The interior was designed by Gaetana Aulenti, who created a complex layout of galleries that occupied three main levels surrounding the atrium beneath the building’s iconic iron-and-glass barrel vault. On the ground floor, formerly the building’s train platforms, extensive stone structures broke up the cavernous space and created a central nave for the sculpture collection and gallery spaces for painting and decorative arts.
Cities in Europe, particularly the Netherlands, are known for their amazing bicycle infrastructure. Can a city in the top one percent of all bike cities in the United States compete with the best in Europe? And how much better are these top US bike cities when compared to the worst in the US?
In an area where expansive views can quickly overwhelm, Dovecote by Atelier Andy Carson is settled comfortably within the landscape. Comprised of The Headland and The Range, the award winning Airbnb pulls the surrounds into balance with its materiality and interior design.
Video timeline: 00:00 – The Local Project’s Print Publication 00:21 – Introduction to Dovecote 01:00 – Andy Carson – The Architect 01:29 – A Detailed Brief 02:17 – Finding Longevity in The Material Selection 02:54 – The Inspiration for The Headland 03:34 – A Walkthrough The Headland 04:13 – The Original Use for The Courtyard 04:32 – Approaching The Views 05:03 – The Inspiration for The Range 05:52 – Celebrating The Western View 06:20 – Immersion In The Landscape 07:04 – The Architects Favourite Aspects 07:31 – Subscribe to The Local Project’s Print Publication
Positioned alone in the South Coast town of Gerringong, Dovecote is butted by lush rolling hills that slope down towards the shoreline. A house tour of the award winning Airbnb reveals that it embodies a detailed design brief which stipulated a contemporary main house – The Headland – visually countered by a simpler construction, The Range. A built reaction to place,
Dovecote is designed to thrive in a harsh coastal climate. The material palette is tailored to robust functionality – metal cladding maintains its structural integrity under salty ocean spray and allows the award winning Airbnb to visually recede into the shadows of the hills. In The Range, copper louvres to the western side enable residents to control access to natural light and views of the farmland.
Decks are placed to the north and south so that on any given day, visitors to the award winning Airbnb can use the architecture of The Range as a windbreak or utilise passive solar power. Through the concealment, introduction and reintroduction of striking vistas, Dovecote preserves the special qualities of its site. Atelier Andy Carson expertly controls the influence of the natural surrounds, ensuring that the award winning Airbnb is as liveable as it is showstopping.
The goal of The Biggest Ideas in the Universe is to bridge the gap between popular-science treatments of modern physics and true expert knowledge. This is the real stuff — equations and all — presented in a way that presumes no prior knowledge other than high-school algebra. Readers will come up to speed about exactly what professional physicists are talking about, with an emphasis on established knowledge rather than speculation.
Volume One, Space, Time, and Motion, covers the domain of classical physics, from Newton to Einstein. We get introduced to Spherical Cow Philosophy, in which complications are stripped away to reveal the essence of a system, and the Laplacian Paradigm, in which the laws of physics take us from initial conditions into the future by marching through time. We learn the basic ideas of calculus, where we can calculate rates of change and how much of a quantity has accumulated. We think about the nature of space and time, separately and together. Finally we are introduced to the mysteries of non-Riemannian geometry and Einstein’s theory of curved spacetime, culminating into a dive into black holes.
Milton Avery is considered one of North America’s greatest 20th-century painters. Milton Avery: American Colourist is the first comprehensive exhibition of the artist’s work in Europe.
It brings together a selection of around 70 of his most celebrated paintings featuring landscapes, portraits, scenes of city life and studies of the human form. Take a tour of the exhibition with curator Edith Devaney, advisor to the Milton Avery Trust Waqas Wajahat, and Avery’s grandson and artist Sean Cavanaugh.
Mongolia, a nation bordered by China and Russia, is known for vast, rugged expanses and nomadic culture. Its capital, Ulaanbaatar, centers around Chinggis Khaan (Genghis Khan) Square, named for the notorious founder of the 13th- and 14th-century Mongol Empire.
This year, I decided to take one of the hardest but exciting decisions I’ve ever made, exploring Mongolia for 18 days. I didn’t know what to expect, all I had with me is prior months of exploring this country through Google Earth and then transforming this exploration into real life.
The spots I was interested in exploring were so remote and very hard to reach even with the car, considering there’re no roads. 90% of the travel agencies did not approve to take me to the spots, considering how remote they are, until one of them told me, I will hire for you a very experienced driver, and you will direct him where I’m interested to go, but this expedition has to be private since no one would be willing to do that with me. I accepted the offer.
What I experienced and witnessed you will see in this film. It was one of the hardest challenge I’ve ever made but never regret doing it, I became a better person after this spirtual exploration expedition.