Photographer Seth Casteel helps demonstrate canine coolness by taking some pretty incredible photos of dogs underwater as part of his Little Friends pet photography series.

photos by Seth Casteel

via Cute Overload

image by Daniel Huffman

Imagine that you’re a wayward adventurer, someone like John Wesley Powell in 1869, and you’re traveling down a mysterious and foreboding river. You know what’d be kind of nice? A map.

Even nicer, especially for us city slickers, would be a simplified map showing the whole river system, tributaries, forks, and all. That way, you know exactly which stop to disembark from your trusty raft.

Fortunately for us, Daniel P. Huffman, a cartographer at University of Wisconsin-Madison, has created a series of such maps. Done in the classic style of transit maps, his maps feature Northern California rivers, New England rivers, Columbia River, Colorado River, and even the mighty Mississippi.

“Abilify / Xanax / Ativan”
drawing by Bryan Lewis Saunders

“10mg Adderall”
drawing by Bryan Lewis Saunders

Bryan Lewis Saunders, a poet and performance artist, created a series of self-portraits while under the influence of various drugs. The resulting drawings are often impressive and sometimes insightful in how particular drugs can affect one’s mind.

Saunders explains further on his website:

After experiencing drastic changes in my environment, I looked for other experiences that might profoundly affect my perception of the self. So I devised another experiment where everyday I took a different drug and drew myself under the influence. Within weeks I became lethargic and suffered mild brain damage. I am still conducting this experiment but over greater lapses of time. I only take drugs that are given to me.

Even more impressive, is that Saunders has been doing a self-portrait of himself every day since March 30th, 1995.

At present I have over 7,900 of them. Like fingerprints, snowflakes and DNA they are all different, no two are the same. For hundreds of years, artists have been putting themselves into representations of the world around them. I am doing the exact opposite. I put the world around me into representations of myself as I find this more true to my Central Nervous System. All Self-Portraits are size 8 1/2″ x 11″ and in hardbound books.

Dinosaurcity interviewed Saunders about his project earlier this week and asked him how he started doing self-portraits while on drugs.

While Brandon and I were hiking one day he asked me, “Whatever happened with that documentary you were going to make with the veterans and the loonies?”

And I told him how everything had happened so fast with the tragedies and how I thought the people would be really interesting to document, but in fact they were all on drugs, suffering in solitude, some too obese to physically leave their apartment, and for many it was all they could do to get out of their recliners 3 times a day. And I told him how when I first moved in, a paraplegic in a wheelchair showed me an encyclopedia of pills and said he could find at least one of every kind of pill in that book in the building and that book was huge!

When Brandon and I got to NY, I unknowingly became very dehydrated and started hallucinating and had a psychotic break and ditched him at a monastery because I thought he was trying to poison me. I took the greyhound straight back to Tennessee where I had an epiphany. I thought not only am I going to draw myself everyday, I’m going to do a different drug everyday, after all there was one of everything in the building…

And that was when I officially started the project.

The entire interview is a pretty fascinating read and an interesting look into the mind of great artist.

via The Daily Dish

photo by Ian Lambot

Before being dismantled in 1993, Kowloon Walled City was believed to contain the highest population density of humans anywhere on the planet. At only 6.5 acres (~0.01 square miles) in size, over 33,000 residents were thought to live within its walls. For comparison, San Francisco’s Moscone Center West, where Apple famously holds its WWDC keynotes every year, is only ~4.5 acres in size.

Kowloon Walled City had a complicated history. It was initially founded as a Chinese military fort during the mid 1600′s. The fort itself was located on Hong Kong Island and was ceded to the British in 1898. After World War II, squatters begin to occupy the fort and build new settlements. After failing to prevent further habitation and construction, both British and Chinese officials turned a blind eye to its existence. Eventually, sanitary conditions and subpar standards of living forced the British and Chinese governments to evict its residents and begin demolishing the city in 1993. Today, Kowloon Walled City Park occupies the original site of the city.

There exists a 1989 German documentary of the Walled City. It’s available on YouTube in 4 parts, see: 1, 2, 3, and 4. Part 1 embedded below:

For an idea of how dense the population of Kowloon Walled City was and how it compares to other cities in the world, Wikipedia has lists featuring the highest population densities in the United States and highest population densities in the world.

Gutenberg, New Jersey is the densest United States town, with 56,000 people per square mile. Marine Division in Mumbai, India is currently the densest human inhabitance on earth, with ~300,000 people per square mile. Kowloon Walled City had a population density of 3.3 million people per square mile! Insane!

The images of the Walled City and its seemingly random and haphazard construction remind me of the haunting photos of Battleship Island, which we’ve previously written about.

via Arch Daily

If geeks and gadgets are something that excite you, then you should come out to gdgt live in San Francisco at the SFDC Galleria on Friday, November 12th. gdgt will be bringing along 49 consumer electronics and tech companies and you’ll be able to see and play with some of their latest gear.

If you’re not familiar with gdgt’s live events, here’s video from gdgt live in Seattle earlier this summer.

Further details and RSVP are on Facebook. The event is free, all-ages, and open to the public and all guests will have a chance to win some cool gear. Everything goes down starting at 7pm!

Blue Bottle? Ritual Roasters? Four Barrel? Sightglass? Just the mere mention of these names can cause hearts to flutter, blood to boil, and even a case of the shakes (all of which can probably be attributed to a severe case of caffeine addiction).

Killing My Lobster, a San Francisco based sketch comedy group, takes a interesting and hilarious look at the great Coffee Wars of San Francisco in a way that would make Ken Burns proud.

As for me, I prefer the Blue Bottle, even though Leonard Hollis (“the oldest and most crotchety living San Franciscan”) claims it “costs more than the goddamn crack!”

via 7×7 Magazine

Here is an amazing video compilation, featuring 17 minutes of footage from around San Francisco, taken just a few days after the 1906 earthquake and fire.

Earlier this year, we posted some great footage from a streetcar traveling down Market Street in San Francisco before the 1906 earthquake.

via Spots Unknown

photo by Adam Lindsley

Adam Lindsley, who’s behind the blog This is Pizza was recently eating at Marcello Pizzeria & Ristorante in Vancouver, British Columbia. While there, he noticed a particularly unique wood burning pizza oven — shaped like a human head!

photo by Michael Gakuran

Hashima Island sits just over 9 miles off the western coast of Japan. Also known as “Gunkanjim,” or “Battleship Island,” it is nicknamed for its unique shape and architecture.

Battleship Island is an English translation of the Japanese nickname for Hashima Island, Gunkanjima (gunkan meaning battleship, jima being the rendaku form of shima, meaning island). The island’s nickname came from its apparent resemblance to the Japanese battleship Tosa due to its high seawalls. It also is known as the Ghost Island.

Originally constructed for the purpose of mining coal, it was last inhabited in 1974. Since then, the island has been a favorite destination for urban explorers due to its difficulty of access, abandoned buildings and ruins, and the illegality of landing on the island.

Lured by the appeal of exploring a forbidden and abandoned city, Michael Gakuran risked his camera gear, arrest, and even his life to secretly visit Hashima Island. His amazing story starts off like a good spy novel:

It seemed like an impossible feat, and certainly not one I could undertake by myself. Even if I could get to the island, navigating it safely and in a timely manner would be tremendously difficult. It was my good fortune then, to meet Ikumi. Concept Designer by day; Urban Explorer by night.

It was that such meeting that led to me sitting in a dimly-lit car at 4.30am off the coast of Nagasaki. Munching on some adzuki bread in the passenger seat, I carefully eyed the figures of the local fisherman outside as they lit up their cigarettes.

photo by Michael Gakuran

His photographs from Battleship Island conjure up haunting scenes that are reminiscent of the abandoned cities and towns from the Chernobyl disaster.

photo by Michael Gakuran

Since being abandoned nearly 26 years ago, trespassing on the island had been prohibited. Fortunately, if you’re interested in checking out Battleship Island, you’re now in luck! In 2009, limited access to the island was permitted for sightseeing groups wishing to explore parts of the ruins in a safe manner.

photos by Dave Schumaker

The High Line is a novel park that opened in Manhattan’s West Side last summer. What makes the High line so interesting? It was built on an elevated railway that originally opened in 1934 and was in use until 1980.

After sitting in disrepair for almost 20 years and eventually slated for removal, local residents banded together in 1999 and proposed that the elevated railway be turned into a park. Construction began in 2006 and the first section of the park opened in June of 2009. It’s a brilliant example of reclaiming unused urban property and turning it into something that benefits a community.

When the High Line is completed in 2011, it will span nearly 1.5 miles in length and feature many plants native to the New York City region. This design video shows what the park will look like when fully complete.

Interestingly enough, the High Line has inspired further consideration for reclaiming urban landscapes across the country.

In San Francisco, an architecture group has proposed that the soon-to-be-replaced eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge be converted into a mixed use development.

illustrations by Matt Crane

Matt Crane, a designer, illustrator and musician from Utah, created a fantastic series of Sesame Street meets Street Fighter mashups.

Cookie Monster as E. Honda? The next time Cookie Monster wants a cookie, you best give him the whole freaking jar!

Check out his gallery for more Sesame Street characters.

via Capcomunity

Photos by Dave Schumaker

Galco’s Soda Pop Stop in Los Angeles is a converted grocery store dedicated to selling soda. From root beer to cucumber soda, they stock over 450 different types of soda and pretty much have all the bases covered. Interestingly enough, nearly every soda that you will find here does not contain high-fructose corn syrup!

Galco’s has been selling various types of soda since 1995.

The passion for soda began when John F. Nese was a child. His father’s best friend owned a soda pop bottling plant where John loved to visit in the 1950′s. At that time, he also spent his summers at Happy Camp. It was here that he would dream of how he could hook the natural, bubbling spring water, add syrup and siphon it to his elementary school’s drinking fountains. In 1995 John began increasing his assortment of sodas not only out of love, but also as a protest to some of the larger soda companies that were not offering him the same prices as his larger competitors. He figured why not support other small businesses such as his own?

CHOW interviewed John Nese, the owner of Galco’s, last year for their Obsessives video series.

I stopped by Galco’s while in Southern California last weekend and snapped some photos.

photo by Nathan Sawaya

Nathan Sawaya is an artist in New York City who creates detailed and intricate sculptures using LEGO blocks. His bio explains:

Today, Sawaya has more than 1.5 million colored bricks in his New York art studio. His work is obsessively and painstakingly crafted and is both beautiful and playful. Sawaya’s ability to transform LEGO bricks into something new, his devotion to scale and color perfection, the way he conceptualizes the action of the subject matter, enables him to elevate an ordinary toy to the status of fine art.

According to journalist Scott Jones, “Sawaya is a surrealist mash-up of forms and artists. Imagine Frank Lloyd Wright crossed with Ray Harryhausen, or Auguste Rodin crossed with Shigeru Miyamoto, and you start to get a sense of where Sawaya is coming from.”

His first solo exhibit is on display at the Agora Gallery in New York City until April 13th. To see more examples of Nathan’s LEGO work, check out the gallery on his webpage.

via designboom

In the early 1980′s, WITI TV 6, a television station based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, created a series of amusing and over the top promo videos for their local news program. It’s like a real life version of Anchorman meets the A-Team.

They also created a series of equally amusing and bizarre spots for some of their individual anchors.

via Jon Ursenbach

While traveling through Barcelona last year, some friends and I stumbled across a “funny shorts night” in a small bar. One of the films playing that evening left me in awe.

Ten Thousand Pictures of You, written by UK actor and director Robin King, is a three minute long movie that was shot entirely using stop motion photography to capture live actors (a process called pixilation). Robin explained the process behind making the video:

The whole film took about a year: roughly three months each for development, prep, shoot and post – although due to the nature of the film, part of the post bled into the shoot.

[...]

I used a Canon Eos 350D Digital SLR to shoot, and took roughly 26,000 photos overall.

You can see more of Robin’s videos on his Vimeo page.

Bearded Robocop

Bearded Hellboy

Bearded Batman

Vanja Mrgan, a Croatian illustrator, has been working on a series of drawings that feature bearded super heroes. You can see more of Vanja’s work in his gallery.

via Beard Revue

In November 2007, Christoph Rehage set foot from Beijing, China with a goal of walking to Berlin, Germany, a distance of over 4,500 miles. He created a short video called “The Longest Way 1.0“, documenting his journey over the course of a year and featuring self portrait photographs he took each day on his trip that shows his hair and beard getting longer.

As Christoph states in the opening of his video, “The initial plan was to walk from Beijing to Germany. I started in the fall of 2007. After one year of mountains and blazing hot deserts I realized… I had grown a mighty long beard.”

After walking for an entire year, Christoph was only able to complete 2,900 miles of his journey, ending in Ürümqi, China. No matter, Christoph Rehage is an inspiration to people like myself, who lack the ability to embark on year long adventures. Or the ability to grow proper facial hair.

Music is L’Aventurier by The Kingpins.

Recently, Air New Zealand released a new flight safety video for their Boeing 737′s called “The Bare Essentials of Safety”, that features some of their employees giving demonstrations in the nude. However, their bodies are covered in paint that look like air crew uniforms. As if their Kiwi accents weren’t enough to make us love them.

via Los Angeles Times

Andrew Disney, a writer and director from Los Angeles, is making the first feature length, live action film to be shot entirely with a DSLR. Production on the film, named “Searching for Sonny“, will begin this summer and will be shot using a Canon 5D Mark II with a special adapter for Nikon lenses.

To stoke interest in the upcoming film, they’ve released a teaser video.

When three bumbling twentysomethings come back for their high school reunion, they are sucked into a small town murder mystery that is oddly similar to a stage play from high school that none of them can seem to remember.

We’ve written about the amazing video capability of the Canon 5D Mark II before, used in filming a Nine Inch Nails concert and also used by Vincent Laforet in the filming of Reverie.

via Engadget

Periodic tables are a great way to organize things. We have periodic tables for awesomements, videos, typefaces, food, and even chemical elements (who knew?). This organizational system, pioneered by Dimitri Mendeleev in the late 1800′s, has proven quite useful at categorizing information.

Michael Vasilev has decided to offer an updated version of the periodic table of elements by creating a fantastic periodic table of video game controllers.

As I browse through these controller configurations from video consoles of the past, I can’t help but find that muscle memory starts taking over my hands and they begin to assume poses for controllers from Atari, Nintendo, Sega, and all the other game systems that attempted to steal my childhood from me!

via Gizmodo

image by Michael Vasilev

Last month, the Burj Dubai – a skyscraper under construction in the United Arab Emirates, topped out at 2,684 feet. This makes it the tallest man-made structure ever built. Construction on the skyscraper began in 2004 and is expected to be completed later this year at a total cost of $4.1 billion dollars. When finished, the Burj Dubai will have 160 floors!

In May of 2008, an Englishman and Frenchman snuck into the unfinished building and were arrested while attempting to BASE jump from the structure. Unbeknownst to authorities at the time, the same Frenchman had already completed a successful BASE jump from the building with another partner! Current TV has a great interview with the jumpers, as well as fantastic footage from their jump.

You can check out the Burj Dubai on Google Maps. Also, Gizmodo had a good photo gallery featuring pictures of the Burj that were taken by a reader last year.

via Current

graphic modified from Burj Dubai website

Let’s face it. Between the constant threat of zombie attacks, ninja felines, and MacHEADS taking over your city, who has the time to practice fending off potentially evil invaders? Not to mention, who can even predict what sort of danger awaits us around the next corner?

Fortunately, UK based artist, Olly Moss has stepped up to the challenge of saving humanity. He has created this handy series of targets for you to practice your aim on. Between Darth Vader and a Goomba, he pretty much has you covered. Check it out and start practicing your aim today.

via LikeCOOL

image by Olly Moss

This Saturday, November 22nd, fellow guest blogger Todd Lappin of Telstar Logistics, will be leading a free, public walking photo tour on Treasure Island that is being organized by the website Photojojo.

A man-made island originally built to host a 1939 World’s Fair, Treasure Island was once home to fantastic (but ephemeral) architecture, gala displays, and the (in)famous Gayway — a bawdy playland for World’s Fair visitors. Treasure Island was also intended to serve as an airport. With the outbreak of World War II, the US Navy took over the island, and it remained in Navy hands until the base was closed in 1994. Elements of all this history survive to this day, but Treasure Island’s abandoned state also makes the island feel spooky — like a post-Apocalyptic ghost town floating in the middle of San Francisco Bay.

After this photo safari, we’ll meet up at a bar back in the city to share photos, have a few drinks and give away prizes.

If you’re interested in this weekend’s photo safari, more information is available on the Facebook or Upcoming event pages.

For those who missed us last time, we’ve also put together a short video of the event.

The Tenderloin District in San Francisco is one of the city’s most diverse, yet grimiest neighborhoods. However, there are still some special jewels to be found deep within the Tenderloin. One of them is located at Cohen Alley – The Tenderloin National Forest.

The Tenderloin National Forest began as an idea by Darryl Smith, the founder of The Luggage Store Gallery, in 1989 and work transforming the alley started in 2005.

Now, the alley way is home to a small garden, beautiful murals and is protected by a gate.

The Tenderloin National Forest is open to visitors if the gate is open (nearly every time I’ve walked by, it’s been closed). However, it is open to the public from Noon to 5pm on the 15th of every month.

The San Francisco Chronicle recently had an article about the alley as well.

More photos from the Tenderloin National Forest can be found in this set of photos I posted on flickr.

photos by Dave Schumaker

On Saturday, November 8th, I’m helping to organize the first San Francisco photo safari for Photojojo, a great photography website headquartered here in the city and run by some good friends. We’ll be departing from the corner of Market Street & Brady Street at 3:30pm and going on a tour of the murals and graffiti around Valencia Street.

Heather Champ, the community manager at Flickr will be leading this particular safari for us. Afterward, we’ll meet up at a nearby bar where we’ll share photos in a slide show and give away prizes.

And since the election will finally be over, you’ll definitely be in need of a breather from your computer. So grab your nearest camera (all types accepted) and come join us! You can get more information via the Facebook event page.

photos by Dave Schumaker