Glamorous and worrying: Steve McCurry’s magic India moments
Steve McCurry – Holu, a festival that welcomes spring, is celebrated with public spraying of colorful powders. Rajasthan, India, 1996
Photographer Steve McCurry has been traveling to various parts of the globe photographing and capturing different subjects and people. His photography has led him down hidden pathways and streets searching for what he calls the magic moment, which is when color, light, and emotion work together in perfect harmony to create a beautiful picture. His search is usually long and could take him weeks. However, of all the places in the world that McCurry has traveled to and resided in, none fascinates him more than India. According to the artist, India has supplied him with more opportunities and magic moments than he has ever experienced in any part of the globe.
Veiled women in their traditional Islamic attire
Shirin Neshat – Rapture, 1999, gelatin silver print, 108×171.5cm
The Rapture is a projection of black and white video where Iranian artist Shirin Neshat gives a narrative that concerns the differences between Muslim women and men. Neshat has used the video projection to explore the cultural and social role of women in the Islamic World and shot the work in Morocco with a cast that included hundreds of participants.
46 years in the making: Artist creates visual feel of infinity
Doug Wheeler – PSAD Synthetic Desert III, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Photo: David Heald
Over 40 years ago, a leading Light and Space artist called Doug Wheeler imagined an art project that resembled the tranquility you would experience if you travelled to an expansive desert such as the one in Arizona. For a long time, the idea only existed on paper due to the amount of resources it required to get going.
Luckily, a while back, the Guggenheim Museum in New York decided to take up the project and realize the Doug’s dream.
These photos of Burning Man will make you want to go immediately
Victor Habchy at Burning Man, Nevada, US
Victor Habchy is a French photographer and director. He was lucky enough to get a ticket to Burning Man, an annual festival in the middle of the desert of Nevada’s Black Rock Desert in the US. He describes the event as life-changing, spending a full week without electricity, sleeping in a tent in desert heat and dealing with dust storms.
In the words of the artist:
I understood you can’t really get prepared to this simply because you just don’t know it. Then I figured out they were actually no preparation you should follow; all you need is to let it go.
Because never on my life have I experienced more love, more freedom and more self-expression. This place gathers everything that is left from the human dreams and utopia and how, by every individual means, we could work together to build up a better world.
You know what the very first message you hear when it’s you first time at the Burning Man?
“Welcome home”
Colorful artwork in Las Vegas desert
Ugo Rondinone – Seven Magic Mountains Las Vegas, Nevada, 2016
Seven Magic Mountains by Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone sits comfortably in the desert south of Las Vegas in Nevada. The colossal work is made up of seven towering sculptures of stones weighing up to a ton each. The huge limestone boulders are stacked on top of one another. Each tower is made up of three to six stones and each stone has a specific colour with each stack standing as high as 9 to 10.5 meters. Seven Magic Mountains is now one of the largest land-based art installations in the United States in the last 40 years.
Surreal photos of Asia’s longest river after 2 year „pilgrimage“
Zhang Kechun – Buddha in Coal Yard, Ningxia Province, 2011
The Yangtze River, Asia’s longest river, is the main subject of The Yellow River, a series of photographs by Zhang Kechun. The Yangtze is praised as the cradle of Chinese evolution owing to the central function it played in the civilization of ancient China. Paradoxically, the river is also referred to as China’s sorrow, based on the ferociousness of the river during flooding season.
75% of this country might turn into a desert. How is this artist dealing with it?
Daesung Lee – Futuristic Archeology
Daesung Lee’s Futuristic Archeology project deals with the nomadic people of Mongolia. Although Mongolia has seen increasing modernization and urbanization in recent decades, approximately 35% of Mongolians still live a traditional nomadic lifestyle, thus depending on the vast land and their relationship with the land to survive. However, environmental changes have put their way of life in grave danger, as the land is becoming at risk of desertification.
