Photographer Captures Tiny Tattoos in the Scenarios That Inspired Them



by wesley bonner
Seattle-based conceptual photographer Austin Tott is known for releasing thought-provoking series that exaggerate reality and heighten our imaginations. His surreal compositions often either spark our memories as creative children, imagining our toys could come to life, or portray dark thoughts and emotions in the most physically evocative ways possible. In his latest series, Tiny Tattoos, Tott highlights miniature wrist tattoos against related backgrounds — the scenes that inspired their conception. The series will make you want to showcase your ink in the same, beautiful way, or maybe even get a tiny tatt of your own. 
Check out his unique photos below.  


























Reposted from Nerve.com


More Interesting Historical Photographs [via David Angsten]


Children rush into a candy store following the end of sweets rationing in 1953.



Dinosaurs are transported on the Hudson River to the 1964 World's Fair.



Frank Sinatra asks Lou Gehrig for an autograph in 1939.



Ham the chimp returns to Earth following his historic 16 minute space flight in 1961.



Italy: Cat-friendly cafe to open in Turin [via Ivonne de Cervantes]


Italy's first cat-friendly cafe is scheduled to open in the city of Turin on Saturday, it's been reported.

The establishment - to be called Miagola Cafe, or Cafe Meow - hopes to give a home to abandoned cats and encourage customers to become more respectful towards animals, says owner Andrea Levine in an interview with La Stampa. "I wanted the cafe to launch with a message: we rescue cats in trouble," she says.

Some experts also believe the sound of a cat's purr and playing with the animals can relieve stress, The Local website reports.

The cafe will also have an area where children can play with the cats, and learn more about animals. Levine adds that she is planning to screen videos with information about adopting animals.

Cat cafes are already very popular in Japan - there are reportedly more than 100 of them in the capital city Tokyo. The trend seems to have spread to China, Taiwan and Australia too.

Reposted from BBC News


Interesting Historical Photographs [via David Angsten]


A lion rides in the sidecar during a performance of The Wall of Death carnival attraction at Revere Beach, Massachusetts in 1929.



An iceberg photographed in 1912 bearing an unmistakable mark of black and red paint.  It is believed that this is the iceberg that sank the Titanic.



Betty White at home with her dog in 1952


Children for sale in Chicago, 1948.  Some parents sold their children due to poverty.


When the dog stays home alone ...

This dog is not allowed on the bed. So his human set up a hidden camera to see what was happening when he was left at home alone. What he was busted on camera doing is hilarious!



Parrot Woman




Parrot photo is actually a woman in body paint; Johannes Stoetter of Italy planned artwork for 4 weeks; Stoetter a world champ in body painting; took 4 hours to paint the woman's body, 1 hour to position her on the stump; most think it's a parrot; swipe for photos.

The awesomeness is the work of artist Johannes Stoetter. Daily Mail says he had planned this shoot for 4 weeks to perfect every detail and spent over 4 hours applying the bodypaint on the model. 


Animal Selfies





MUSIC GOING TO THE DOGS? [via Nina Reznick}

When owners of a home received noise complaints from the neighbors they were confused since they weren’t at home when the noise occurred, so they set up a nanny cam and this is what they discovered.



How to react to a phone going off during your solo.

A default Nokia ringtone goes off during Lukas Kmit's classical performance at an Orthodox Jewish Synagogue in Presov, Slovakia. Instead of being irritated, he responds to the disruption by doing something remarkably classy.  



Farewell to the Yangtze River Dolphin [via Nina Reznick]

AFP / Getty
A rare Yangtze River Dolphin, in an aquarium in Beijing, in 2002.

The Yangtze River dolphin, one of the world's rarest mammals, is no more, a victim of China's breakneck economic growth and competition for food with one of the world's most common large mammals — human beings.

"We can say that the animal is functionally extinct," says August Pfluger, head of the Zurich-based Baiji.org Foundation, which in December co-sponsored a six-week, 2,000-mile (3,500-km) survey of the Yangtze without finding a single remaining member of the critically endangered species. The dolphin, one of only four exclusively freshwater species in the world, may have the unhappy distinction of being the first aquatic mammal to go extinct in more than half a century — and the first large mammal driven into oblivion by environmental degradation.

Nicknamed the "goddess of the Yangtze," and long considered auspicious by fishermen, the pale-colored, human-sized dolphins have always been rare: a 1997 survey recorded only 14 left in the river. (A captive dolphin died of old age in a Chinese zoo in 2002). But Pfluger says human pressure pushed the baiji past the tipping point. "The main reason is overfishing. The Chinese still use unsustainable fishing methods like dynamite. There's still a lot of illegal fishing, so the dolphins were competing with humans for food."

According to Wang Ding, a researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Hydrobiology and a leading expert on the baiji, damming on the river and noise from heavy boat traffic may have disoriented the dolphins, which are mostly blind and search for food in the sandy shallows using sonar. The confused and starving animals may then have wandered into boat propellers. Heavy dredging in shipping channels could also have made it harder for the animals to locate each other and hunt for increasingly scarce fish. "Dredging is a very serious problem," Wang says. "It destroys spawning grounds of fish. There are also too many boats. The baiji depend on their sonar ability to survive."

As top-level predators, dolphins like the baiji are an "indicator species" — bellwethers of the general health of an ecosystem. Their disappearance bodes ill for the Yangtze, which supports more than 400 million people, roughly 6% of the world's total population. Wang says the Yangtze is relatively unpolluted. But untrammeled commerce and massive hydrological projects like the Three Gorges Dam have dramatically altered the river's landscape. With as many as 60 boats per km of river in some areas, the Yangtze already looks less like a river than a highway during rush hour. "Baiji are at the top of the food chain just like human beings," Wang says. "If the river can't support baiji, someday it won't support humans either."

Indeed, baiji aren't the only animal facing extinction. Wang says the finless porpoise, another large cetacean native to the river, has also seen its population plummet because of shipping and hydrological engineering. When Wang surveyed the river in the early 1990s, he found about 1,200 of the porpoises; 15 years later, there were fewer than half that number left. But Wang says it may not be too late to save the species. Galvanized in part by the baiji's disappearance, Chinese scientists are taking aggressive steps to rescue the finless porpoise, including breeding the animals in a lake preserve. In fact, Wang believes it may not even be too late for the baiji: there may be a handful of baiji dolphins left in some isolated backwater of the Yangtze. If they can be located and captured, he says, breeding might yet save their species. Pfluger, however, is not so optimistic. "Maybe one or two are left," he says. "But they don't have any chance to survive."


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Underwater Pyramid Found Near Portugal Has Portuguese Navy Investigating [via Nina Reznick]






Portuguese news reported the discovery of a very large under water pyramid first discovered by Diocleciano Silva between the islands of São Miguel and Terceira in the Azores of Portugal. According to claims, the structure is said to be perfectly squared and oriented by the cardinal points. Current estimates obtained using GPS digital technology put the height at 60 meters with a base of 8000 square meters. The Portuguese Hydrographic Institute of the Navy currently has the job of analyzing the data to determine whether or not the structure is man-made.

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Northern Lights from the UK: Norfolk, Essex and Scotland skies glow with Aurora Borealis [via Nina Reznick]


The astronomical phenomenon was spotted as far south as Essex


Northern lights were spotted over parts of the UK on Thursday night.

Also known as Aurora Borealis, the lights have been visible as far south as Essex, where it is unusual for the spectacle to be seen, according to BBC News.

They have also been spotted in Norfolk on the west coast, and in South Wales.

AuroraWatch UK, a group run by the Space Physicists at Lancaster University which posts alerts on Twitter when the Northern Lights are visible in Britain, tweeted that there were “many” sightings in Scotland and northern England at around 9pm.

The ethereal light displays are caused by collisions between electrically charged particles from the sun that enter into the earth’s atmosphere. 


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