World's Strangest Monuments

Charge your camera batteries before visiting these monuments: You might need photographic evidence to prove that they’re not just a figment of your jet-lagged mind.

Saint Wenceslas Riding a Dead Horse
Prague

What It Commemorates: Saint Wenceslas, Bohemia’s patron saint.

What Makes It Strange: For almost 100 years—even during the dark days of Communist rule—the grand sculpture of Saint Wenceslas in Prague’s Wenceslas Square has been a source of national pride. But today, even the revered saint isn’t spared from the Czechs’ irreverent senses of humor. Sculptor David Cerny’s parody of the St. Wenceslas statue, hanging in the Lucerna Palace mere yards from the original, is of Wenceslas mounted atop the belly of a dead horse that’s been strung upside down.
Genghis Khan Equestrian Statue
Tsonjin Boldog, Mongolia

What It Commemorates: The infamous founder of the Mongolian Empire, known locally as Chinggis Khaan.

What Makes It Strange: The 131-foot-tall, 250-ton stainless steel statue, unveiled in 2008 and located an hour’s drive from Ulaanbaatar, is the world’s largest equestrian statue. Visitors can take an elevator to the viewing deck on the horse’s head and look out on the expansive Mongolian steppe. Until 20 years ago, Mongolia’s Communist government banned any celebration of the military leader, but in a surge of nationalism, Mongols have slapped his image and name on everything from an airport to a university and bottles of vodka. The statue is part of a planned theme park featuring nomadic lodging and restaurants serving horsemeat.

Duke of Wellington Statue Glasgow

What It Commemorates: Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington and commander of the British forces that defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo.

What Makes It Strange: For the past 20 years, this innocuous statue—erected in 1844 on Glasgow’s Queen Street—has been a magnet for late-night pranksters, who scale the statue and top it with traffic cones. Locals argue that the cones are an integral part of the statue, as well as the city’s identity. The government doesn’t agree. City workers knock off the cones with a high-powered water jet, and police have threatened to prosecute the pranksters. But since the public has ignored these warnings, anyone caught putting cones on the Duke is simply told to move on.

Fengdu Ghost City Fengdu, China

What It Commemorates: This necropolis is modeled after the Chinese version of hell.

What Makes It Strange: During the Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD), two court officials named Yin and Wang moved to Mount Mingshan to obtain enlightenment. Combined, the surnames of this mystical pair sound like “King of Hell” in Chinese, and ever since, locals deemed this a gathering place for spirits. The Ghost City that developed is a complex of Buddhist and Taoist temples adorned with macabre demon statues dismembering humans as they guard the entrance to the netherworld. Landmarks bear frightening names, such as “Last Glance at Home Tower,” “Nothing-to-Be-Done Bridge,” and “Ghost Torturing Pass.” Ironically, the area is literally a ghost city now because of the massive Three Gorges Dam project, completed in 2009, which flooded the town and forced the region’s residents to relocate. Mount Mingshan is now a peninsula that is visited mostly by tourists on Yangtze River cruises.

Calder Mercury Fountain Barcelona

What It Commemorates: The siege of Almadén, one of the largest mercury mines in the world, by Franco’s troops during the Spanish Civil War.

What Makes It Strange: Keep your hands away from this one. Poisonous liquid mercury pours through a series of iron and aluminum troughs, splashes against a metal piece that sets a mobile in motion, and cascades into a circular pool of deadly metal. American sculptor Alexander Calder designed the fountain as an anti-fascist tribute for the Spanish Republican government for the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris (where it was displayed opposite Picasso’s Guernica). Calder eventually donated his fountain to the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona, where it is encased behind glass.

Headington Shark
Headington, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom

What It Commemorates: The dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki.

What Makes It Strange: Officially called Untitled 1986, the 25-foot-tall beast known commonly as the Headington Shark appears to have crashed headfirst through the roof of a quaint British home. House owner Bill Heine commissioned the work as a reaction to nuclear power and as an expression of someone “ripping a hole in their roof out of a sense of impotence and anger and desperation.” Made of metal, polyester resin, and plaster, among other things, the shark was originally viewed as an incongruous eyesore that the city council desperately tried to remove. Today it is accepted as a landmark.

Georgia Guidestones
Elberton, Georgia

What It Commemorates: The monument serves as a set of directions for rebuilding civilization after the apocalypse.

What Makes It Strange: Designed and commissioned by an anonymous group, the Georgia Guidestones consist of five 16-foot-tall granite slabs, arranged in a star-shaped pattern, that function as a compass, calendar, and clock (drawing comparisons to England’s Stonehenge). Some local Christians deem the creations the “Ten Commandments of the Antichrist” for their unsettling nature. (One guide reads, “Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.”) The stones have their fans though, including covens of witches and Yoko Ono.

Memento Park
Budapest

What It Commemorates: Hungary’s Communist past.

What Makes It Strange: Most Eastern European countries ceremoniously destroyed Soviet-era relics once they gave occupying forces the boot. However, rather than demolish all vestiges of a painful past, the city of Budapest removed 42 statues from prominent locations and placed them in a suburban park. Statues of Lenin, Marx, and Engels are all displayed, along with the Boots, a 1-to-1 replica of the remainder of a 27-foot-tall Stalin statue that an angry crowd tore down in 1956.

Underwater Gallery
Grenada


What It Commemorates: Reef ecosystems.

What Makes It Strange: This series of sculptures in the clear, shallow waters off the coast of Grenada has one highly unusual characteristic: it is accessible only to divers (though it can also be viewed through glass-bottomed boats). Sculptor Jason de Caires Taylor created the works, a series of human figures in various groupings and settings, as the world’s first underwater sculpture park, which also serves as an artificial reef to promote conservation awareness.

By Lyndsey Matthews
Source: Yahoo Travel

Photographs of Carcar



I went on a photowalk with Zenia and Laurie to the south of Cebu last Sunday. This was the first time I had the chance to use the new things I bought on Ebay. I was so excited that I forgot to adjust my camera settings.



I set the camera with the wrong shutter speed. This mistake ended up blurring most of my shots. I was had to use manual focus in this photowalk since I was using a legacy lens in my camera. I will have to charge those blurred photos to experience. Here are some of the photos I took. 


Exploring Black & White Photography


It's been a long time since I posted anything to this blog. A lot of things have happened in the last few months that I haven't had time to post anything on my blog. I 'm back now, and I've been busy with my hobby.

I attended a photo tour of the province last week. I've had the opportunity to practice street photography. When I was shooting the images, I had a lot of good ideas, but I wasn't able to catch anything on my camera. I'm just going to have to charge that to experience.

Interior CCBA09 - Penthouse Interior Project


A few months ago, we were hired to design the interior of a penthouse. The first problem we had was that the penthouse was initially started by a different contractor. Even though it was minimal, we were constrained by the initial layout of the interior.
 
Our first approach to the design solution was to find a way to tailor our design to the existing layout. We also wanted to achieve a design that would stand out from the rest of the building. The penthouse was to be used for private or special activities.

Reviving My Love for Photography

Lately, I have been trying to revive my interest in photography. I used to love photography back in high school, my dad taught me how to use his old film SLR cam back then. I used to take a lot of pictures of different subjects. When my dad bought his first digital camera, I also stopped my hobby of taking pictures with the SLR camera.

My fascination with photography stopped since film photography was expensive back then. It was the SLR camera that made me love photography back then. There's just a lot of difference between the point and the shoot and the SLR. Apart from the difference in the results, there is a different feeling in the handling of an SLR camera

When Zenia bought her Holga camera she asked me to go with her on a photo excursion with our office mate. While we toured around the rural areas I watched my office mates taking shots with their DSLRs. They took photos of different subjects and scenery with their DSLR. I, on the other hand, took some pictures with my cellphone camera. After our photo excursions, I noticed my shots were not as sharp as the ones my friends took with their DSLR.

 I was frustrated with the results since I might not be going back to that place for a very long time. I then recalled that my dad still had his old SLR cameras. I borrowed it from him and tested it out and found out it was still working perfectly. Although these were old film SLR camera the quality of the shots were good. Even though I had to spend on film and developing it, this would still be much cheaper than buying a DSLR camera.

Eventually, I will buy myself a DSLR camera this December. As for now I will exploit my dad's SLR cameras and learn the ropes before investing in a DSLR. I still have to convince myself that this is not just a phase, that I would find time for this hobby and continue with this it for a long time.

Here are a couple of the shots I took with my film SLR.

Switching to Free Programs

Lately a lot of offices here in the Philippines have switched to open source programs to save on the cost of buying original programs. I did my research on some alternative open source software to their commercial counter part and found out that there are a lot of pretty good and efficient open source counterparts.

Here are some of the list of programs that I am currently using and their commercial counter parts.

Open Source: Blender
Commercial Counterpart: 3D Max

Open Source: DoubleCad
Commercial Counterpart: Autocad

Open Source: Gimpshop, Gimp
Commercial Counterpart: Adobe Photoshop

Open Source: Open Office
Commercial Counterpart: Microsoft Office

Open Source: Gantt Project, Open Project
Commercial Counterpart: MS Project

Open Source: Google Sketchup
Commercial Counterpart: 3D Max

There are a lot more open source programs available and I'm still trying out some of them. I'll post some updates after I finish testing them.

Check: www.osalt.com for more information on open source programs.

Greatest Music Artists of the 20th Century

My interest in art has exposed me in a lot of different forms of art. As a young boy I went to school were art and music was part of our curriculum. This was a big influence in my passion for art and music. 

I was fond of sketching and painting. Music on the other hand wasn't my strong point. I had a hard time learning how to play the violin.
Even though I loved listening to music, I did not have any talent to play any instrument. I didn't have the patience to learn how to play an instrument. 

As I became older my interest in music also grew. My choices of music became diverse. I never concentrated on a particular genre. I learned to appreciate music and not limit myself with one genre. 

Lately I began to appreciate more some music which had stand the test of time. The artists who made these songs were truly exceptional in the art of music. These are the artist who for lasted several generations. 

Here is my list of the 10 Greatest Music Artist which has influenced the music industry. I didn't arrange them accordingly because I think each one of the are equally  great. Each one has achieved incredible status in their own time and genre.
  • John Winston Lennon October 9, 1940December 8,1980 was an English rock musician, singer, and songwriter who gained worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles. Lennon along with Paul McCartney formed one of the most influential and successful songwriting partnerships and "wrote some of the most popular music in rock and roll history". Lennon revealed a rebellious nature and biting wit in his music, on film, in books, and at press conferences and interviews. He was controversial through his work as a peace activist and artist. Read More

  • Robert "Bob" Nesta Marley February 6, 1945May 11, 1981 was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the lead singer, songwriter and guitarist for the ska, rocksteady and reggae bands: The Wailers (1964 – 1974) and Bob Marley & the Wailers (1974 – 1981). Marley remains the most widely known and revered performer of reggae music, and is credited for helping spread Jamaican music to the worldwide audience. Read More
  • Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara) (5 September 194624 November 1991) was a British singer-songwriter, pianist, guitarist and co-founder of the rock band Queen (inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001). As a performer, he was known for his vocal prowess and flamboyant performances. As a songwriter, he composed many international hits, including "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Killer Queen", "Somebody to Love", "Don't Stop Me Now", "We Are the Champions" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love". Read More
  • Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra (December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became a successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, being the idol of the "bobby soxers". His professional career had stalled by the 1950s, but it was reborn in 1954 after he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Read More

  • James Marshall Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. After initial success in Europe, he achieved fame in the United States following his 1967 performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. Later, Hendrix headlined the iconic 1969 Woodstock Festival and the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. Read More
  • Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977; middle name sometimes written Aron)a was an American singer, actor, and musician. A cultural icon, he is commonly known simply as "Elvis", and is also sometimes referred to as "The King of Rock 'n' Roll" or "The King".

    In 1954, Presley began his career as one of the first performers of rockabilly, an uptempo fusion of country and rhythm and blues with a strong back beat. His novel versions of existing songs, mixing "black" and "white" sounds, made him popular—and controversial as did his uninhibited stage and television performances. He recorded songs in the rock and roll genre, with tracks like "Hound Dog" and "Jailhouse Rock" later embodying the style. Presley had a versatile voice and had unusually wide success encompassing other genres, including gospel, blues, ballads and pop. To date, he has been inducted into four music halls of fame. Read More

  • Michael Joseph Jackson (born August 29, 1958) is an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. The seventh child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene at the age of 11 as a member of The Jackson 5 and began a solo career in 1971 while still a member of the group. Referred to as the "King of Pop" in subsequent years, five of his solo studio albums have become some of the world's best-selling records: Off the Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), Bad (1987), Dangerous (1991) and HIStory (1995). Read More

  • Madonna (born Madonna Louise Ciccone on August 16, 1958) is an American recording artist, dancer, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan and raised in Rochester Hills, Michigan, Madonna moved to New York City in 1977, for a career in modern dance. After performing as member of the pop musical groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her self-titled debut album in 1983, and then produced three consecutive number-one studio albums on the Billboard 200 in the 1980s and four more since year 2000. Read More

  • The Bee Gees were a singing trio of brothers — Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. They were born on the Isle of Man to English parents, lived in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, England, United Kingdom and during their childhood years moved to Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, where they began their musical careers. Their worldwide success came when they returned to the United Kingdom and signed with producer Robert Stigwood. Read More

  • The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in 1962 in London when multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones and pianist Ian Stewart were joined by vocalist Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards. Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early lineup. Stewart, deemed unsuitable as a teen idol, was removed from the official lineup in 1963 but continued to work with the band as road manager and keyboardist until his death in 1985. Read More

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org

Google Sketchup Tutorials


 A couple of years ago, my office mate introduced me to a 3D software developed by Google. I was surprised by its versatility but was dismayed about the fact it didn't support some lighting plugins back then. 

I practiced on some of the online tutorials back then. I found the program to be very user friendly. It only takes a couple of days for someone who has no background in 3d modeling to learn this program. I never realized the true potential of the program until I saw most of my former classmates using the program in their renderings. 

Lately, I started using Sketchup again. Its been a while since I last used the program. I needed to practice it again. I'm relearning the things I've learned back then and discovered some new things along the way.

If you are interested in learning 3D modeling but don't have the patience to go to school. I suggest you learn this program through online tutorials. It's easy to use and a great tool to help you with your designs. Here are a couple of links to some tutorials in Sketchup:

Four Unique Cave Houses

In the past prehistoric man used caves as shelter. They were dependent on these natural shelters before they knew how to build their own shelter. Nowadays we no longer live in caves, we build cozy houses with all the basic amenities needed to make life better.

It is surprising to know that even in this day and age there are still those who choose to live in a cave. Unlike the prehistoric cave used by our ancestors, these cave houses have all the amenities of any modern home.
 

Utah Cave House

Missouri Cave House. To know more about the Missouri Cave house visit their website at http://www.caveland.us/

Cuevas del Pino estate by UMMO Estudio 

Cave House loess plateau cave house Designed By Chinese Architects Hypersity

Foodscape - Miniature Landscape Photography made Edible Materials

I've been working on sample renderings on landscape designs for the past few weeks. Our marketing at LazyAnimation asked me to make sample renderings. He told me that he had potential clients that are interested in landscape renderings. The clients wanted to see if we were capable of creating landscape renderings. 



I began looking for some reference pictures of some gardens and landscapes on the net. I didn't have any idea what type of landscape I would model so I made some random searches on landscaping. I saw a lot of beautiful Japanese gardens which I tried to imitate. 


My next sample rendering assignment was for a park. I searched for some aerial photos of parks on google and found pictures of a surreal landscape. I opened the link and found a couple of interesting landscape pictures.


When I enlarged the pictures I was surprised to find out that the photos were made of food. The trees photo that looked like a thick forest of stout trees were actually made of broccoli. These stunning pieces of art were made by artist/ photographer Carl Warner. His photography skills made some wonderful foodscapes.

Visit http://www.carlwarner.com/ for more Foodscape photos.

Inspiration for Designers Block

It's been a while since I posted it to this blog. I've been busy with a few things recently, and I've just come back from a long Christmas holiday.


Since I got back from my holiday, I was faced with a lot of deadlines in the workplace. I had to work twice as hard to meet the deadlines in the office. What worried me most was the deadline for one of our residential projects. We only had a week left, and my brother and I still haven't had a design proposal.

I've had a hard time coming up with a design. No matter how hard I try I can't come up with a concept. So I searched the net for inspiration. I found a website with a lot of incredible designs that started to work again. This was one of the best websites to feature many good architectural designs.

They feature a lot of architects and designers who showcase their designs. Trendir is the magazine's website and brand. It has many useful sources for trends in architecture. What I really liked about their site is that they have a user-friendly design. Architectural Record is another website I frequently visit. Thanks to these two websites, I was able to come up with a design concept to present.