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Brooklyn-based photographer Beth Fladung photographs transient spaces and its residents in her series Motel.

It’s been four days since the tornado blazed through Moore, Okla. And while the initial shock may be abating for some, the hardest part lies ahead for people who live there. Residents of subdivisions like Heatherwood, located about a mile east of Moore, are facing piles of rubble where their houses once stood. The question on their minds — after “Why?” — is “Now what?”

Photographer Katie Hayes Luke has been on assignment for NPR this week and gathered a few portraits of people in that neighborhood.

“I’d never seen destruction like that before,” she says, “so walking into a wasteland at first was kind of overwhelming. … They all seemed kind of dazed.”

Faces And Places The Tornado Left Behind

Photo Credit: Katie Hayes Luke for NPR

Holler is known among her siblings as the one who likes “old stuff.” She has a big collection of vintage clothing — some of which belonged to her maternal grandmother, who was a seamstress. She’s also the one who safeguards the family photos.

And it was during a photography class — while working on a self-portrait assignment — when she had the idea to combine the photos and the wardrobe. Holler found a snapshot she liked, picked an outfit from the same era, made a self-portrait — and, with the magic of Photoshop, went time-traveling to visit the woman who made the clothes: her grandmother Ruby.

Throwback Thursday: A Time-Traveling Photographer

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Bootsy Holler

P.S. I know it’s technically Friday, but I was a bit busy yesterday and this post is too good to not share! -Emily

‘Lunch Lady’ author Jarrett Krosoczka hosted an art class at Walker Jones Education Campus in Washington, D.C. Krosoczka and his students spent the afternoon dreaming up and drawing their very own superheroes.

‘Lunch Lady’ Author Helps Students Draw Their Own Heroes

Part of The Backseat Book Club series.

Video Credits:
Produced By: Theo Balcomb, Ben de la Cruz, Justine Kenin, Becky Lettenberger, Michele Norris and John Poole. 
Senior Supervising Producer: Keith Jenkins

April showers bring May flowers. But in this case, the blossoms are too small for even a bumblebee to see.

Engineers at Harvard University have figured out a way to make microscopic sculptures of roses, tulips and violets, each smaller than a strand of hair.

To get a sense of just how small these flower sculptures are, grab a penny and flip it on its back. Right in the middle of the Lincoln Memorial, you’ll see a faint impression of Abraham Lincoln. These roses would make a perfect corsage for the president’s jacket lapel.

Growing the gardens is similar to making crystals with a Magic Rockkit.

The flowers sprout up spontaneously when a glass plate is dipped into a beaker filled with silicon and minerals (specifically, barium chloride). Then Wim Noorduin at Harvard coaxes the salts to spiral and swirl into smooth, curvaceous shapes, like vases, leaves and petals.

‘Nanogardens’ Sprout Up On The Surface Of A Penny

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Wim Noorduin/Harvard University

photojojo:

How to Use Photography to Help Survivors of Natural Disasters

Operation Photo Rescue is a league of photographers and graphic designers who help survivors of natural disasters recover irreplaceable family photos.

When a town is hard hit by a natural disaster, OPR gets together and holds copy runs, sessions where people from the public can bring photos in to be salvaged. Kind of an amazing way to help survivors emotionally heal!

p.s. If you’re looking for other ways to help survivors of the tornado in Oklahoma, you can also donate to the Red Cross.

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Los Angeles gets a lot of praise for its sunsets, but it’s time our moonrises got a little credit too.

Los Angeles photographer Dan Marker-Moore took out his camera one night and made a short and sweet timelapse of a huge, orange moon rising over the downtown skyline.

He also made this awesome composite image:

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architizer:

Astounding Tilt-Shift Perspectives of World Monuments!

Anyone who’s traveled to popular touristic sites knows the feeling of being caught in the crossfire of countless camera lenses—the annoyed (and annoying) jockeying to capture the perfect shot…which in most cases looks exactly like everyone else’s. When we stumbled across Richard Silver’s photographs of iconic monuments, we were shocked—caught in the same tourist hustle, Silver manages to give us a new perspective on famous landmarks we didn’t think possible. Read more!

How to take the “monumental” out of the worlds monuments. Super cool.

-Jody, BL Show-

For nearly two decades, professional surfers have been flocking to Teahupoo, a small village on the southwest coast of Tahiti. The location seems obscure, but according to some, the waves there are legendary.

“It holds one of the most powerful and perfectly artistic waves in the world,” writes Tahiti-based photographer Ben Thouard.

For a few years, he has been photographing an annual surfing contest that convenes there in August — and this year will be no exception. In anticipation, he has already started publishing photos to Surfer Mag.

For Thouard, the ocean came first, then photography. Born and raised in the south of France, he remembers spending every holiday and weekend on a sailboat with his father. His first encounter with waves was on a body board at age 8. After that, he says, “I could not stop thinking about waves … I love the feeling of water moving and rolling. It’s a different world underwater.”

Teahupoo: A Surfer’s Mecca, A Photographer’s Muse

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Ben Thouard

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PSA: Help victims of the tornadoes in Oklahoma by donating $10 to the Red Cross. Text REDCROSS to 90999, or visit redcross.org.