28 February 2014
Photographer Imagines Everyday Objects As A World Populated By Tiny Characters
Like Bettina Güber’s playful and imaginative series featuring toy figures and stationery, Argentinian photographer Manuel Archain creates wonderful everyday scenes using tiny characters.
In his photos, everyday objects double as a world populated by tiny people. Women go swimming in a pot and a slice of bread turns into a traffic junction, while a kitchen counter becomes a pedestrian pathway for busy commuters.
Check out his photos below.
[via Fubiz, images via Manuel Archain]
Infographic: The Most Visited Countries In The World
If you thought that the US was the most visited country in world, think again. It turns out that France is actually the most popular destination.
Created by Move Hub, the infographic ‘The Most Popular Countries In The World’, lists out 20 of the most visited countries by tourists.
To find out if your country made the list, please view the infographic below:
Click to view enlarged version
Click to view enlarged version
[via Move Hub]
A Beautiful Hot Spring In The US With Neon, Rainbow Hues
via A.M. Ruttle
Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park has got to be the most beautiful hot spring in the United States.
From an aerial view, the hot spring, which measures 370 feet in diameter is shaped like the sun, except rendered in neon rainbow hues.
The strange and beautiful phenomenon is demystified by a representative of Yellowstone who explains, “The vivid rings of rusty reds and vibrant yellows and greens that encircle it are caused by colonies of pigmented thermophiles — microbes that live within specific extreme temperature ranges at hot springs.”
Scroll down for the images.
via Alluring Perspective
via Clément Bardot
via Dario Bosi
via Piriya Wongkongkathep
via Simon Chandler
via WM Llamas
[via Cat In Water]
How Rituals Unleash Your Creativity
Follow Kameron Bayne
What is the first thing you do in the morning? The last thing you do at night? Your first action when taking on a new project? Your impulse when receiving good (or bad) news?
If you asked those questions to many highly productive creatives, they’ll have immediate answers. Not because they are micro-obsessive about their schedules, but because over time they’ve developed predictable rituals around key areas of their life and work. (I’m currently reading a fantastic book about the daily rituals of many great artists and writers.) Over time, they’ve learned that the messiness of creative work requires a supportive structure, lest everything devolve into chaos. According to Orson Welles, “The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.” Rituals provide necessary limitation on your focus, time, and energy so that you can delve deeply into the disorder of creative problem solving.
Rituals are important for several reasons. First, they provide solid ground when facing the uncertainty of your daily work. A ritual is like a bucket you can fill over and over again rather than trying to decide which bucket you should use. A good, solid set of rituals provide context for your work so that you can spend the majority of your energy focusing on the problems you’re trying to solve.
The enemy of art is the absence of limitations. – Orson Welles
Second, rituals help you forge healthy habits. When you return to the same ritual over and over, you are reinforcing the kinds of behavior you want to see manifested in your life and work, which creates a kind of infrastructure or supporting scaffolding for your creative process. Be mindless about the non-essentials so you can be mindful about the essentials.
Finally, ritual helps you achieve flow in your work. Just like your body adapts to a regular bedtime and a predictable sleep ritual, your mind will also learn to settle into regular rhythms and rituals related to your work. If you always focus on specific activities at certain times of the day, or if you dedicate blocks of time and energy for your ritual, you are far more likely to settle into a state of immersion in your work.
Here are a few rituals that have served me well over time:
- The first thing I do when I wake in the morning (at 6:15a) is prep coffee in my French Press and spend an hour reading, thinking, and writing. It’s become such a ritual that it’s now a habit. Most of my best ideas for my work come out of this time. I couldn’t function without it.
- I listen to the same music over and over when I’m writing. In fact, I wrote all of The Accidental Creative and most of Die Empty listening to Ambient Music Therapy’s Deep Mediation Experience (I subsequently switched to listening mostly to a Philip Glass channel on RDIO, which is now my go-to.) When that album kicked on, my brain knew it was time to start writing.
- When I’ve signed my last few book deals (including the one I signed this week) I eat a packet of Ramen noodles for lunch. Why? Because I remember a time in my life when having $100 in my bank account at the end of the month meant I felt flush with cash. I always want to remind myself to stay lean, focused, and hungry, and this ritual roots me in a place thankfulness and gratitude. (Then… I go celebrate with my family!)
These are just a few of the sorts of rituals I’ve found helpful in my life and work. They ground me in what’s important, ensure that I have time and energy for what I care about, and help me create space in the margins of my (very) busy life.
What are your rituals? I’m sure that you probably have some. Please share them below. (I’d love to steal them!)
Top image from Imgembed.
This is a cross-post from The Accidental Creative.
Todd Henry is the author of Die Empty: Unleash Your Best Work Everydayand The Accidental Creative . You can find him at ToddHenry.com or @toddhenry on Twitter.
Designer Creates A Tiny 8x20 Foot House On Wheels To Live A Debt-Free Life
Web designer Alek Lisefski wanted to live “a simpler, more conscious, debt-free life” and did not want to have to pay high rents for a home—his solution is the “Tiny Project”, where he would build a micro-house on wheels that measures just 8x20 foot.
Having designed and built every inch of this unique home on his own, he has recently towed this mobile house from Iowa to its current location in Sebastopol, California.
While it is indeed tiny in size, a peek into this micro-house shows that it has everything Lisefski, his girlfriend and his dog needs to be comfortable—a living/working area, a miniscule kitchen and a loft bedroom.
Find out more about his ambitious micro-living plans on the Tiny Project’s website—would you like to live in a house as compact as this one?
[via Apartment Therapy]
Photographer Captures Intimate Black-And-White Portraits Of His Children At Home
French photographer Alain LaBoile has a beautiful photo series titled ‘La Famille’ in which he captures raw, candid shots of his six children at home.
LaBoile has been documenting their childhood daily from their home in Girond in southwest France since 2004. His incredibly intimate black-and-white portraits show his children at play, in deep slumber, taking baths and exploring their natural surroundings.
With their magical carefree vibe, the nostalgic images are a testament to the innocence and freedom of youth, and reflect “a life on the edge of the world, where intemporality and the universality of childhood meet.”
View LaBoile’s photos below and head over to his website for more.
[via Featureshoot, images via Alain LaBoile]
Designer Dresses Up The Red Bull Can In The Uniforms Of Superheroes
Designer Diego Fonseca has created a concept redesign for energy drink brand Red Bull, where he dressed up its can in the strikingly colorful uniforms of various superheroes.
The “Red Bull Superheroes Project” features beloved crime-fighters like Superman, Batman and The Flash—according to Fonseca, it depicts “a playful union between the Austrian energy drink and the Justice League universe”.
View more images from the project below—or check out more of the designer’s work on his website.
[via The Dieline]
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