From this point forward, this day of the week will be known as Phototastic Thursday on Running Wolf’s Rant. In this brand new section in the photography category you can expect to find some awesome photos that I took at a festival or a gig or that amazing photos that I found online. Prepare to be amazed or at least utter “Wow!” or something similar.
New Year’s Eve feels like it was yesterday, but 2014 is in fact already 9 days old. Millions of people around the globe celebrated New Year’s Eve with amazing fireworks displays and the first batch of Phototastic Thursday photos feature some of them. From top to bottom you can see the fireworks in London (where about 50,000 people took part in “the world’s first multi-sensory fireworks display” featuring peach snow, edible banana confetti and orange-scented bubbles), Dubai (where they were hoping to break the Guinness World Record by setting off more than 400,000 fireworks in a 6 minute display that spanned 100 kilometres down the coast and mainly focused on the Burj Khalifa – the tallest building in the world) and Paris (where hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the Champs Elysees).
This photo was taken by Scott Olson in Chicago and features a frozen Lake Michigan. A polar vortex (a whirlpool of dense air) struck the USA mainland a few days ago and encased most of the country in ice and snow. Sub-zero temperatures brought more than a foot of snow with it and high winds have forced cities in the region to close schools. To be honest I’m glad that it never gets this cold in South Africa during Winter.
This Phototastic photo was taken by Ian Powell (who is from Brighton in the UK) and features a foggy Dubai Skyline. Every year in March dense fog banks descend on the city and wraps it’s skyline, making it appear mysterious – almost like something you’d see in a Star Wars movie. The Burj Khalifa (the same building featured in the Dubai fireworks photo) can be seen in the background in this photo as well.
This rare colour photo of the Nazi rally in Nuremberg, Germany was taken in 1937. The 9th Nazi Party Congress was called the “Rally of Labour” (or Reichsparteitag der Arbeit). This rally celebrated the reduction of unemployment in Germany since the Nazi rise to power.
This rally was particularly notable due to Albert Speer’s Cathedral of light speech and the attendance of Prince Chichibu (a brother of the Emperor of Japan). I’m speaking under correction, but there may have been more than 1 million people at this rally. Can’t believe so many people were duped into supporting Hitler’s propaganda which eventually led them into the Second World War in 1939.
This photo was taken at the Salar de Uyuni salt flat in Bolivia, South America. It’s the world’s largest salt flat, occupying an area of 10,582 square kilometres. It’s located near the crest of the Andes mountain range and is at an elevation of 3,656 metres. It contains between 50% and 70% of the world’s Lithium reserves and many people have started calling it “the biggest mirror on earth” – just check out the photo below and you’ll see what I mean.
Well, there you have it, the first edition of Phototastic Thursday on Running Wolf’s Rant.
Just a note that NONE of these Phototastic photos were taken by me
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Watch this space for regular updates in the Photography category on Running Wolf’s Rant.
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