The site will have one wonder image to represent each category. You can help by voting  for the image you would choose to represent ANIMALS, COSMIC WONDERS, NATURAL WONDERS and HUMAN INGENUITY.

Instructions

Below you will find a set of pictures of each category. Clicking on an image will make it larger; to return to voting, hold down the control key and the w key. To vote, please click on the white circle next to the photo title and click the Vote button below.

If you really like an image and would like to vote more than once, please do! Click here to vote again.

Thanking you ahead for your participation.

Lightning bugs are able to light up come using bioluminescence, which is created when a pigment and chemical react and is most often seen in sea creatures.

Hiramatsu spent nearly four years between 2008 and 2011 photographing these tiny creatures in Okayama Prefecture, Japan.

Fireflies over a meandering stream as dusk falls

Fireflies can be found on every continent except Antarctica.

According to firefly.org, fireflies emit light mostly to attract mates, although they also communicate for other reasons as well, such as to defend territory and warn predators away. In some firefly species, only one sex lights up. In most, however, both sexes glow; often the male will fly, while females will wait in trees, shrubs and grasses to spot an attractive male. If she finds one, she’ll signal it with a flash of her own.

They can be found on every continent except Antarctica.
From: Daily Mail online    via Gary Whitney.  Thanks.

Those are the questions the videos in this post brought up for me.  I hope you share my surprise and amusement at the expanse of the human repertoire represented here.

Because I had to satisfy my own curiosity,  I’m sharing  brief descriptions with links for anyone interested in seeing or learning  more about how and what you are seeing.

BEATBOXING

Beatboxing is the art of producing drum beats, rhythm and musical sounds using one’s mouth, lips, tongue and voice.  It can also involve singing and the simulation of horns, strings and other musical instruments.

HIKAKIN is a Japanese beatboxer.  Be sure to give it at least 30 seconds.

Here is a 7 year old boy, Nana Kyei, from Ghana, beatboxing via Wine and Bowties

MOUNTAIN BIKE STREET TRIALS

Mountain bike trials are a discipline of mountain biking in which the rider attempts to pass through an obstacle course without putting their foot to the ground.

This video features Danny MacAskill  the best known practioner of street trials which are a freestyle and non-competitive version of mountain-bike trials. Thanks to his breathtaking skill and subsequent interest on youtube, MacAskill has become a professional street trial rider.  You’ll soon know why.  MacAskill was born and raised in Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye, Scotland.

Thanks again to Wine and Bowties.

SILHOUETTE PERFORMANCE

By ATTRACTION BLACK LIGHT THEATER

Thanks to Patricia Selk
This is the story of Exodus from the Bible.

HALLELUJAH CHORUS, ALASKA STYLE

Fifth graders at Kuinerrarmiut Elitnaurviat School in Quinhagak,Alaska, a Yupik village of 550 people located on the Bering Sea coast in Southwest Alaska, decided to make a class project to present at a Christmas program for the entire village.  It’s well past the holiday, but if you haven’t seen it, it’sl fun.

Thanks to Kathleen.

TIME LAPSE PHOTOGRAPHY AND MOVING ART

Louie Schwartzberg is an award-winning cinematographer, director and producer whose notable career spans more than three decades providing stunning imagery for feature films, television shows, documentaries and commercials.  He has a channel on youtube, Moving Art.

If you don’t have time to see the whole thing, at least stay through the hummingbird twirling as it chases a bug….or the fish leaping up the water fall….or

Thanks to Jane and Merry.

3-D FACADE MAPPING

This extraordinary example of facade mapping was projected in Berlin, Germany as an ad for LG Optimus One cell phones on September 29, 2011.  The sounds you hear in the background are people watching from the street.

Facade mapping is a kind of 3-D animation projected against the side of a building, and initially, at least, “mapped” to perfectly match the buildings surface, allowing the animators to play with the building, both as a subject and as a surface for projecting other images.

Thanks to Kathleen.

High speed photography involves both artistry and technological wizardry.

A standard photographic flash lasts around a thousandth of a second (a millisecond). But high speed photography creates a flash of light around a microsecond (a millionth of a second). This allows the photographer to freeze time at a precise moment.  Check out the delicate beauty these ingenious artists  have created.

High speed photographer Jim Kramer uses food coloring, water, and dishwater soap to help thicken the water, and captures the moment a drop of liquid explodes into a multicolored splash in these incredible images.

Using a timer to track the path of falling drops, a flash is set off at the exact split second of impact and captures the shot.

Alan Sailer likes to shoot bullets through inanimate objects, then capture the resulting carnage at the moment of impact.

Using an air rifle, he has set up a system that lets him take a photograph at the exact moment the bullet pierces the object.  Knowing that the pellets shot by these rifles can reach speeds of up to 656 feet (200 meters) per second, an elaborate triggering system was needed. When the pellet is shot, it goes through a laser beam which itself triggers a 17,000 volts flash and the photography is taken during a microsecond (or 1 millionth of a second.)

play dough

The liquid sculpture of Martin Waugh is amazingly intricate.

“Sometimes I have a very specific goal, like, “create a splash in the shape of a
martini glass,” and I design a method for doing that. Other times, I might think, “I
wonder what happens if I increase the viscosity of the drop’s liquid?” Then I set out
experimenting. In both cases, serendipity is a rich source of new ideas and effects.

I can spend several days getting things ready to take a shot. I may have to build
equipment or electronics, and work to get the lighting the way I want it. Then the
liquids will get uppity and require taming. This process can burn a few thousand
shots. Then, I have everything cornered right where I want it, and I can get
dozens of shots that are keepers. Those I choose from.”

From an interview posted on:   liquid-imagination.com

Martin Waugh kindly shares his techniques on his blog, and he also sells prints of his work.

Here’s a video where he discusses how he works.

Heinz Maier started photography only about a year ago, but his high-speed water drop photos are stunning.

Here are more photos using high speed techniques.

by Wayne Fulton

By Muhammad Ahmed

by Corrie White

by Corrie White

Corrie White

Corrie White

Flower by fotoopa

by Fotoopa

Now feast your eyes on these images by Marcus Reugels.

As if the above aren’t unique enough, Reugels devised a different approach, using the vibration from a speaker to jostle liquids.   To create this work he stretches a black balloon over a bass reflex tube which sits over a speaker. He adds a spoonful of water to the middle of the balloon, drops in some coloring, cranks some techno basslines through the speakers.

Finally, here is a sampling from his refractions series. Single droplets of water with images refracted within them – apparently focus and lighting are the tricky parts.

The world on a string

The Moon

Evil clown

Big World in a Little Drop

Finally, if you want to sit back and enjoy a slideshow with music and high speed images posted by Corrie White, here you go:

Thanks to Merry for getting me started on this.

Thanks to huffingtonpost.com for post about Jim Kramer.

Thanks to www.demilked.com for images from Heinz Maier and weburbanist for images and quotes.

Thanks to Hadro at  feedonthis.blogspot.com for images and info about Alan Sailer.

Thanks to  artsintherightplace  for images by Marcus Reugels.

Fifteen-year-old photographer Marlin Shank was fortunate enough to capture

several images of a rare albino ruby-throated hummingbird while in a park in

By R D Watson

Poor skunk with no stripes

Even ladybugs

 Not all albinos are pure white.

Ooops

Thanks Tim Little for getting me started on albinos, and

Lifeinthefastlane

dumpaday and

oddee

Emotional Outlet

Overachiever

Bored of education

Light rock and lead balloon

Biotechnology

nightbulb

Athletes foot

Eggregation

Headshots

Under the weather

Delmotion

Food coloring

Light reading

Off the wall

Scourge

Shannon Calvert also shares his artistic sensibilities with nature photos.

Here’s another chance to wander through the images on hireimagination.

The image below is by Banksy, probably the most well-known street artist/graffiti criminal.

The following are by Julian Beever, 3-D artist.

For more 3-D street art by Julian Beever go to mind-bending 3-d art on my site ,  or the artist’s site.

For more Banksy go to:  graffiti with a chuckle or the artist’s site.

Many thanks to Gary Whitney.

Below, revenge for above?

By Gotinha

Below, more joy to rub off.

O.K.  So here are a couple images with no people, but humans are a crucial ingredient.  Then there are a couple shots of kids too cute to leave out.

Many thanks to DayFunny and to OrangeDonkey.

jan anderson

Thanks to:  Theberry.com and Friends of Irony

Thanks to German photographer Hans Silvester we can witness the dazzling artistry of the Surma and Mursi people of the Omo Valley in southern Ethiopia as they perform their ancient tradition of temporary body decoration on themselves and each other a few times each day.

Here’s a link to Hans Silvester’s book about people of the Omo Valley at Amazon.

Thanks to Claire Elizabeth.