Highlight: Mark Mawson

The Telegraph site has published a gallery with pictures taken by British photographer Mark Mawson. He made those surreal abstract pictures by throwing blobs of paint inside a tank of water and photographing whatever forms the paint took in the few seconds before it reached the bottom.

Mark Mawson has worked for some newspapers in London, such as The Times, Sunday Times and Daily Mail for 5 years before changing to magazine and advertising work.

He moved to Sydney, Australia about 10 years ago, and has done several fashion and celebrity shots. One of his most famous series is the Underwater one, from which I've selected two pictures. There are many more on his site, so be sure to visit it.

Among his influences are photographers Gregory Crewdson and Erwin Olaf, and he says he aims at being "respected as a photographer & artist by my peers, to be able to continue shooting until very old age without retiring." [1]

Mawson also said that he loves "the whole process of creating a picture, from conception of the idea, to finding a location, to lighting, directing the subject and capturing the final shot."

Here are two pictures of his Aqueous series and then two of his Underwater.

Check his site for more amazing pictures.

Highlight: Northern Lights From Space

The Telegraph has published a gallery with pictures of the Northern Lights taken in the last few years from the ISS and several space shuttles. They are extremely beautiful. Follow the link to view the gallery.

The Northern Lights, or Auroras are caused by the emissions of protons above 80km (50 miles) in the atmosphere, "from ionized nitrogen atoms regaining an electron, and oxygen and nitrogen atoms returning from an excited state to ground state.

They are ionized or excited by the collision of solar wind particles being funneled down and accelerated along the Earth's magnetic field lines; excitation energy is lost by the emission of a photon of light, or by collision with another atom or molecule.

Source: Wikipedia