“ There are currently about 1,500 known species in the world that are endangered - Joel presents 68 of them in his book, ranging from wolves to wolverines, pitcher plant to pineapple cactus; all exquisitely photographed. ”

RARE: Portraits of America's Endangered Species

“ This summer, Glacier Park Magazine editor Chris Peterson undertook a photographic project to take photos of Montana's Glacier National Park over 100 consecutive days, starting on May 1, 2009, for a traveling photo show in 2010 to commemorate Glacier's Centennial. He used a mix of film and digital cameras, including an 8 by 10 field camera, a Kodak Pocket Vest camera, circa 1909, and a Speed Graphic, among others. His idea was to use the cameras that would have been used over the course of the Park's 100 years. ”

100 days in Glacier National Park on The Big Picture, only 24 pictures

100 days in Glacier National Park on the Park's Magazine, all the pictures but smaller

“ I acquired Vivian's negatives while at a furniture and antique auction. From what I know, the auction house acquired her belongings from her storage locker that was sold off due to delinquent payments. I purchased her negatives and rolls of film from this auction. I didn't know what “street photography” was then. ”

Vivian Maier - Her Discovered Work

“ To a geologist, glaciers are among the most exciting features on Earth. Though they seem to creep along at impossibly slow speeds, in geologic time glaciers are relatively fast, powerful landscape artists that can carve out valleys and fjords in just a few thousand years. Glaciers also provide an environmental record by trapping air bubbles in ice that reveal atmospheric conditions in the past. And because they are very sensitive to climate, growing and advancing when it's cold and shrinking and retreating when its warm, they can be used as proxies for regional temperatures. ”

Stunning Views of Glaciers From Space

“ While the exact nature of the initial formation of lightning remains a subject of debate, what is known is that lightning strikes are caused by electrical imbalances present in the clouds. Those imbalances correct themselves suddenly, with an often spectacular light show - which I've tried to show here, with a handful of recent photographs of lightning from around the world. ”

Lightning

“ MIKE BRODIE IS A 22-YEAR OLD SELF-TAUGHT PHOTOGRAPHER, who lives his life riding the rails and photographing the sub-culture of people he knows or comes in contact with. He's been doing this since 2003, and calls himself “The Polaroid Kidd”. Brodie is at home with his tribe of train hopping wanderers. ”

Itinerant photographer Mike Brodie

“ In April, one hundred St Louisians stepped up to the line and threw their dart at the giant map of St Louis City. They then had a month to visit the block where their dart landed and make a photograph. Now the results are in. ”

dArt St Louis The Gallery

“ Photographer Jason Hawkes returns to The Big Picture once more, this time venturing away from London. Recently, Hawkes has been carrying his Nikon D3 aboard helicopters around the world, hanging out the doorway and capturing landscapes - most somehow affected by humans - below. Today, he has shared with us 26 more of his favorite photos from above France, Las Vegas, Hong Kong, the UK and more - with links to Google maps where available.”

• Human landscapes from above
• Jason Hawkes

“ Nature transformed through industry is a predominant theme in my work. I set course to intersect with a contemporary view of the great ages of man; from stone, to minerals, oil, transportation, silicon, and so on. To make these ideas visible I search for subjects that are rich in detail and scale yet open in their meaning. Recycling yards, mine tailings, quarries and refineries are all places that are outside of our normal experience, yet we partake of their output on a daily basis. ”

Edward Burtynsky

Welcome to the Artificial Owl, a site dedicated to provide on a daily basis a selection of the most fascinating abandoned man-made creations.

“ During January, Guardian readers posted hundreds of brilliant photos of garden birds on our Flickr group to coincide with the RSPB's annual Big Garden Birdwatch. After whittling them down to a shortlist of 10, Johnmullin's superb shot of greenfinches in flight was voted for by you as the winner. ”

Top 10 photos from the 2009 Big Garden Birdwatch

“ The Panoramic Photograph Collection (1851-1991) contains approximately four thousand images featuring American cityscapes, landscapes, and group portraits. These panoramas offer an overview of the nation, its enterprises and its interests, with a focus on the start of the twentieth century when the panoramic photo format was at the height of its popularity. ”

Panoramic Photographs 1851 - 1991

Photography, numbers, environment and nuclear proliferation :

Wildlife Photographer of the Year

The annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition finds the very best wildlife images taken by the world's top professional and amateur photographers.

Inside the mind of an autistic savant

Autistic savant Daniel Tammet shot to fame when he set a European record for the number of digits of pi he recited from memory (22,514). For afters, he learned Icelandic in a week. But unlike many savants, he's able to tell us how he does it.

Greening the Ghetto

Your goal has to be to get the greenest solutions to the poorest people.

A chain reaction of proliferation

The interlocking web of influence and espionage behind the proliferation of nuclear technology

“ This site intends to survey all of the signs in New York City from 14th Street to 42nd Street. Of course, this is not possible, since there would be tens of thousands of signs within this area. The 29 crosstown streets are each 10 to 11 blocks long (1st Ave. to 11th or 12th Aves.). This gives some 300 blocks, each containing, say, 100 signs of one type or another. This would total 30,000. Even if we eliminated the repetitive traffic signs (actually, each one is different, in setting if not otherwise), the remainder would probably be over 20,000 ... ”

I'm Italian so I couldn't resist..I don't know any of the foods written on the sign...maybe Frank is not Italian? Just kidding, I actually like this web site quite a lot.

NEW YORK CITY SIGNS -- 14TH TO 42ND STREET

On designflavr:

Beautiful High Speed Water Photography

“ Small World is regarded as the leading forum for showcasing the beauty and complexity of life as seen through the light microscope. ”

Small World

“ The images ... were taken at the turn of the Millennium, when NASA's scientists had a brilliant idea: to scan through 400,000 images taken by the Landsat 7 satellite and display only the most the most beautiful. A handful of the best were painstakingly chosen and then displayed at the Library of Congress in 2000.”

30 Most Incredible Abstract Satellite Images of Earth

“ To an observer in space, humanity's footprints on the surface of the Earth are large and varied. They include the regular patterns of irrigated cropland, straight lines of roads and railways running across continents, reservoirs on river systems, and the cement rectangles of ports and seawalls along coastlines. But what about humanity's signature footprint - cities? By day, cities viewed from space can blend into the countryside, or appear as gray smudges, depending on the style of development and size of the urban area.”

Cities at night: the view from space

Fragile Earth, views of a changing world:

Fragile Earth

I have seen these pictures before somewhere, maybe on the BBC:

Pieter Hugo Photography

A selection of the best images from the first four years of the Travel Photographer of the Year competition:

Travel photographer of the year

A photoblog by Ryan Keberly:

The Snowsuit Effort

Faces of Metropolitan Detroit.

“ An annual contest for the best microphotographs of living (or once living) things.”

Microphotographs of Living Things

“ Macro shots of various insects or bugs. All the shots are taken in my garden. ”

Insects macros

The Smithsonian's online exhibition of satellite imagery:

Earth from space

Via Ace Jet 170:

• Science & Society - picture library
• Ken Garland

“ In 1952, Thomas Eisner, a graduate student at Harvard, drove around North America for two months with a fellow student, Edward O. Wilson, to see the country and its insects. For the past half century, Dr. Eisner, now an emeritus professor at Cornell, continued his travels in the fields of entomology, evolutionary biology, chemical ecology and conservation. Some of his best-known research was on the explosive chemical outburst of the bombardier beetle, which he and his colleagues analyzed and photographed.”

Eye-Catching Images of Nature

“ We have compiled a collection of thousands of the most important photographs of the last 150 years; pictures of our struggles, trials, and triumphs. We can only fully understand our history by gazing into the eyes of the people that made that history.”

Picture History

“ The institution of photography in Ceylon was first established in the mid 1840's and was practiced quite extensively towards the end of the 19th Century. During that period there were dozens of local and foreign artist who took up the challenge to record the daily events which took place in the beautiful and mysterious island of Ceylon in the form of a photographic image.”

Images of Ceylon

Nothomyrmecia macrops - Dinosaur Ant - South Australia

Beautiful pictures of insects on myrmecos (and also links to other similar web sites).

“ My heart feels heavy as I present these portraits of the poorest of the poor of India. My father documented these portraits, not for the Internet, not for the money or artistic effort, but with a sense of history in his mind. “In a few years, it will be hard for us to believe that we lived amongst people like these” he once wrote to me. The subjects in this series are mostly uneducated, poor, and never been in front of a camera.”

Never been photographed

Underwater Image Competition 2006
link to a shortlist of ten entries per each of the five categories

SERPENT's permanent gallery of images split into regions: image gallery

Beautiful Earth images:

• Blue Marble explained
• Blue Marble, next generation
• Visible Earth
• Earth Observatory

A web site dedicated to clouds:

I have added some more pics of Shanghai in the photo archive.

I took a few pics of two serpent eagles flying over the house. I have published one in the usual place in the menu column, the other it's here: