SUNRISE OVER LONDON’S TOWER BRIDGE
Photograph by Jason Pope
In this stunning photograph by amateur photographer Jason Pope, we
see a beautiful sunrise over the Tower Bridge in London, England.
According to the Daily Mail, the photo was taken at 7am from the sixth floor office of the Northern and Shell building on Lower Thames street.
The equipment used? An inexpensive Panasonic point and shoot camera.
Pope, a 35-year-old IT engineer said he shared his capture with some
colleagues in the office and someone eventually posted it to Reddit where it promptly became the number one post for a brief period.
Tower Bridge (built 1886–1894) is a combined bascule and suspension
bridge in London, over the River Thames. It is close to the Tower of
London, from which it takes its name. It has become an iconic symbol of
London. The bridge’s present colour scheme dates from 1977, when it was
painted red, white and blue for the Queen Elizabeth II’s silver jubilee.
Originally it was painted a mid greenish-blue colour. Tower Bridge is
sometimes mistakenly referred to as London Bridge, which is the next
bridge upstream.
CHICAGO FROM AFAR
In this stunning capture by Robert Elves
we get a different view of the city of Chicago. I was personally
surprised to see so much greenery! With one of the most incredible
skylines in the world, this distant view of Chicago is reminiscent of
another Picture of the Day that featured the Chicago skyline as seen from Indiana.
THE POWER OF AN ORANGE
Photograph by Caleb Charland
In this awesome photograph by Caleb Charland,
we see an LED located inside sliced wedges of an orange. The cool part
is that the LED is powered by the orange itself. As Caleb explains:
“Recently one Sunday I spent the day at the kitchen table
playing with oranges, copper wires and galvanized nails. My hope was
that I could make this on going project work with a single piece of
fruit. I tried cutting it into slices and wedges but that ever present
voice in my head reminded me the SIMPLER IS BETTER. It only seemed
logical to use the orange’s natural wedges as the cells for the battery.
The wedges are held up-right with an armature of small wooden skewers.
The LED is nestled with in the bounds of the orange wedges. I’m still
amazed this worked…though it did require 14 hours of exposure.”
TITANIC’S ENGINES UNDERWATER
COPYRIGHT© 2012 RMS TITANIC, INC; Produced by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
This is one of the many incredible images highlighted in National Geographic’s feature story entitled, “Unseen Titanic“. The story first appeared in the April edition of National Geographic magazine and is now available online.
In this underwater photo we see two of Titanic’s engines lying
exposed in a gaping cross section of the stern. They are draped in
“rusticles”—orange stalactites created by iron-eating bacteria. It’s
remarkable to imagine these massive structures, four stories tall, once
powering the largest moving man-made object on Earth.
THE WHITE WHALE
An extremely rare white humpback whale was spotted recently near
Norway. Welsh maritime engineer Dan Fisher made the startling discovery
off the coast of Norway in August. According to the Daily Mail (where you can find more photos), Fisher has dubbed him Willow the White Whale.
Website Life’s Little Mysteries
states: this is only the second known adult white humpback whale on the
planet. The first is Migaloo, a humpback who’s made numerous cameos off
Australia’s east coast. The whale’s name means “white fella” in
Aboriginal, and he’s usually spotted as he makes his annual migration to
Antarctic waters during the southern spring.
While Migaloo is thought to be affected by albinism, a genetic
condition that stifles melanin pigmentation, it’s possible his Norwegian
counterpart is not albino, but leucistic. Leucism can affect pigments
other than melanin and it doesn’t result in the pink eyes characteristic
of albinism.
NUGGET POINT LIGHTHOUSE, NEW ZEALAND
Photograph by Scott Robertson
In this stunning photograph by Scott Robertson we see the Nugget Point Lighthouse perched atop a cliff. The photograph was posted to National Geographic’s Travel 365 series, a daily photo journal of incredible places around the world.
Nugget Point Lighthouse is located in the Otago region of South Island, New Zealand. It is owned and operated by
Maritime New Zealand.
The light was built in 1870 and was originally fuelled by oil. In 1949
the oil lamp was replaced with an electric one powered by a local diesel
generator. This was subsequently replaced by a connection to the mains
grid although the original lens for the light is still in place and used
to this day. The light was fully automated in 1989 and is now managed
from a control room in Wellington.
VINTAGE NEW YORK, 1935
In this historic gem we see the Manhattan skyline from the Fulton
Street Dock (which I believe is Pier 17 or close nearby). The photograph
was taken by Bernice Abbot on November 26, 1935. This is one of the
hundreds of black and white photographs by Berenice Abbott (1898-1991)
from her Changing New York series, Abbot’s grand project to document New York City for the Federal Art Project (FAP) in 1935.
The FAP was a Depression-era government program for unemployed
artists and workers in related fields such as advertising, graphic
design, illustration, photofinishing, and publishing. A changing staff
of more than a dozen participated as darkroom printers, field
assistants, researchers and clerks on this and other photographic
efforts. Abbott’s efforts resulted in a book in 1939, in advance of the
World’s Fair in Flushing Meadow NY.
SNOWMOBILING THE NORWAY-SWEDEN BORDER
In this incredible photograph by haqbar on Reddit,
we see a rider preparing to snowmobile across a section of the
Norway-Sweden border. The 1,200 pixel tall image is reminiscent of the
popular ‘wait for it‘ pic. The photo above was taken in February and the location is about an hour drive from Trysil, Norway.
As for the Norway-Sweden border,
it is a 1,630 km long (1,010 miles) land border and the longest for
either country. Most of the border follows the drainage divide in the
Scandinavian Mountains. The northernmost border point is Treriksröset
(Swedish) or Treriksrøysa (Norwegian), which is also a border to Finland
[Source].
This forms what is known as a tripoint, where three countries meet. I even did a post on famous tripoints around the world back in May