Contemplative Silhouettes Search for Their Path in Life

Artist Kasia Derwinska creates scenes with contemplative silhouettes trying to find their own paths in life. Each anonymous character is either standing at a distance or walking off in a vast and empty landscape. There are recurring visuals throughout her portfolio that include umbrellas, clouds, and a theme of pensiveness as her characters are stuck at a standstill. Like an artistic metaphor for life through a surreal lens, each frame presents characters with endless options to create their own reality.

Choosing not to refer to herself as a professional photographer, Derwinska says, "I use photography as a tool, like a brush for painting or an instrument to play music." She further explains, "My creations are an attempt to connect the visible with the invisible - feelings, emotions, fears, hopes and doubts about the world we live in. It is my personal journey through this unreal reality."

3D Papercraft Flame

In order to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Diocese de Aveiro, a Portuguese Roman Catholic event, Aveiro University students José Nogueira and Cristina Fernan created a simple poster with a stunning design. One of the event's celebrations consisted of lighting the Aveiro canal with small floating candles, so the designers decided they would create a flame that really stood out.

First, they sketched out all different types of candle flames, finally deciding on one that would have three distinct colors from the inside out. Using yellow, orange and red paper, they then constructed their flame by cutting and folding the paper into geometric shapes. Love how this turned out.

Playful Seniors Wear Organic Materials to Personify Nature

Eyes as Big as Plates is a whimsical series by Finnish photographer Riitta Ikonen and Norwegian photographer Karoline Hjorth that features senior citizens donning organic materials like twigs and grass. Ikonen says that the collaborative project originally began as "a play on characters and protagonists from Norwegian folklore" but has since evolved into a collection of images exploring "mental landscapes" that reflect a return of body to nature with the use of scavenged materials.

There's a lovely sense of humor to the series that places the elderly in natural landscapes. Their organic outfits simultaneously camouflage them into their surroundings and make them stand out as unique individuals. The choice to use seniors to present personifications of nature are also especially interesting and refreshing. There's an aged beauty in both the subjects and their costumes.

Eyes as Big as Plates is currently showing at Recess in Red Hook in Brooklyn through April 26, 2013.

Dazzling Streaks of Light Show Airplane Flight Paths

This series of photographs, entitled Nachtfluge, features the light trails of airplanes as they take off and land across the evening skies. To create each shot, Brooklyn-based photographer Kevin Cooley traveled to various major airports in the United States, including JFK, LAX, and Newark, New Jersey's EWR. Using a large format camera and long exposures of anywhere from four to five minutes each, he waited for planes to pass by and visually documented each individual flight path.

Through this time-intensive study of light and motion, Cooley produced a collection of serene landscapes in which he transforms massive airliners, filled with hundreds of people, into single streaks of soothing, meditative light. Cooley says, "Photography is by nature an exploration of time. The blink of an eye may be frozen by the shutter. Or in the case of this series, many minutes or even hours add up to construct a single image punctuated by the paths of commercial airplanes."

You might not instantly recognize the amount of time and effort that goes into each photograph, but, after watching the video below, viewers will have a better understanding of Cooley's incredible patience! The photographer is a master of unique light. If you like this work, then you will enjoy his other project, entitled Lights Edge, in which single streaks of surreal light shoot across night skies.

Haunting Blend of Major Historical Events with the Present

History buffs will just love this visual blend of past and present by self-taught American photographer Seth Taras. It's easy to forget that, where we now stand, many have stood before us. This project, entitled Know Where You Stand, was created as a reminder of major historical events, including the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the invasion of Normandy in 1944, and the Hindenburg disaster in 1937.

The series was created in collaboration with Ground Zero advertising agency (which recently merged with Wong, Doody, Crandall, Wiener) as a marketing campaign for the History Channel in what they describe as a way to "Motivate people to understand the history of where they live by watching the History Channel." To create each intriguing scene, Taras identified and photographed locations where the many memorable events took place. Using photo manipulation, he blended the past with the present, bringing the old to the surface with the new. In addition to the still photographs, the award-winning campaign also involved television ads, which can be seen below.