PlanetOddity.com » People Oddity

The Perfect 1960′s American Town

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 23:16:13 +0000

An typical American town from the 1960′s, untouched like it has frozen in time. How is that even possible? Well, at first glance this looks like a real town with all the Chevys parked around, the cinema, the toy stores and all the dining places. It’s like entering a movie scene, but where are the people?

You will maybe be disappointed when you hear that this is a miniature town built by Michael Paul Smith. He has called this little kingdom Elgin Park, and it’s a mental combination of memory and fiction brought to life by this great artist.

The photos he takes of his little town look freakishly real. He has even brought some rain to one of the scenes, and with the lights and all it just looks like reality. This is a proof that camera or photos can lie.

Photos of Elgin Park has been launched in a book that you can buy on Amazon. Speaking of miniature models, take a look at the world’s smallest aquarium with baby fish swimming around.

Puzzlewood – Tolkien’s Major Inspiration For LOTR

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 22:07:31 +0000

Puzzlewood is an ancient woodland site in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, England. It has become a popular location for filming, and as you may know, J.R.R. Tolkien has used this woodland as inspiration for Lord of the Rings.

Only he has called it Middle-Earth. This place is so magical that you would really think there are elves, wizards and hobbits there. When it comes to geology, Puzzlewood is full of scowles, and it has an amazing cave system.

It also include ancient trees and a confusing maze of paths. The owner of this woodland laid down a mile of pathways to provide access to the woods, but today it’s a tourist attraction.

Though Tolkien never used Puzzlewood as a movie locations, other BBC TV shows have, like Merlin, “The Labyrinth of Gedref” and “The Nightmare Begins”. Not far away you can find Hobbit-looking homes in Wales.

Via Flickr.

People Before And After Exercises

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:59:15 +0000

If you work out now and then, you know that you look completely crazy after a spinning or jogging class. Your sweaty, your hair is all over the place, your cheeks are red, and you look awful, but most people does after exercising hard. French photographer Sacha Goldberger has asked random joggers in a park near Paris to pose for him after sprinting around.

He then photographer the same people in his studio one week later in their finest clothes. He made them pose the same way as they did in the park with the same kind of lighting so the photos would be the perfect “Before and After”.

It is very interesting to see the results. Some of the models look so different that you wouldn’t believe it’s the same person without all the fancy clothes and make-up. Well, that’s what make-up and styling do, right?

Now, who is ready for some jogging? And while you contemplate, you would take a look at these before and after pictures of drug addicts.

Expressive Portraits Of Homeless People

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 15:38:33 +0000

How hard can life affect us, and can it be read on our faces? Photographer Lee Jeffries has shown that it’s possible by taking very expressive portraits of people. But not just any kind of people; all of his models are homeless men, women and children that he has met in Europe and the United States.

And we all known that they have had a tough life which shows in their faces. Jeffries was a sports photographer, but he changes his interest when he met a homeless girl in the streets of London.

Before taking a photo of the homeless people he sits down and talks to them, because he wants to know their story. His perception complete changes, and these people become the subject of his art.

You can see the people are tired and dirty with a completely unhealthy look. The old ones has many wrinkles; it’s like each of them are telling their own story of the hard life as a homeless.

Another photographer has captured how homeless people are living under the roads of Las Vegas in huge flood tunnels.

Anti-Nazi Photomontages

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 18:23:50 +0000

Before Photoshop even existed German citizen, John Heartfield born Helmut Herzfeld, made photomontages. Already from the 1930′s Nazism was getting bigger and bigger. People didn’t care, they chose to ignore it, but that was not the case with Heartfield. He just wanted to criticize the regime by making hilarious but artistic photo montages.

He had experienced the horrors of World War I, and even then he protested against it. In one photo you can see how he is making Hitler’s moustache look evil, with horns. It was to symbolise the bad side of Nazism that was far away from democracy.

On another picture Hitler is ready to kill a chicken, but as we know he was a vegetarian, but not eating meat doesn’t prevent him from killing it. Not surprisingly Heartfield escaped from Germany to Czechoslovakia ion 1933 when Hitler came to power.

If he had stayed he would have been caught without a doubt and placed in a concentration camp. Other amazing photo montages that was made with no Photoshop.

Via Flickr.

Small Things Get Really Big

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 20:45:46 +0000

Spanish artist Romulo Celdran wanted to make small things look bigger, a lot bigger. He turns everyday objects like gloves, sponges and match sticks, and turns them into oversized items that are overwhelming. He has taken a lot of photos where himself is sitting next to the things.

This of course makes him look so tiny you would think he lives in a world with giant people.

The project is called “Zoom and Macro”, and the concept is to “give the object new dimensions, strengthening its presence and inviting us to explore it, discovering hidden spaces and unnoticed nooks”.

I think he succeeded in every way, and we can’t wait for more art works from this talented artist. What else to say than that the results are stunning.

Another art work that is as stunning is this oversized portrait of Muhammad Ali made to honor him.

Via scene360.

Where Children Sleep

Mon, 04 Jul 2011 21:48:07 +0000

Photographer James Mollison has traveled around the world to see how children are living and where they sleep. The results are shocking because most of them are too poor to have a real bedroom, and the differences between the children are enormous. This can be a wake-up call for everybody.

Lamine is 12 and lives in Senegal. He is sleeping in a room with several other boys, and the beds are so simple that they use bricks for legs. He works on the school farm, where they learn how to dig, harvest maize, etc. In his spare time he loves playing football.

Tzvika is 9 and lives in Beitar Illit, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank. He shares his room with his siblings. Televisions and newspapers are banned as well as sports, so Tzivka likes to play religious computer games, and wants to become a rabbi.

Jamie is 9 and lives with his family in a penthouse on 5th Avenue, New York. He wants to be a lawyer like his father so he goes to a prestigious school. Besides that he takes judo and swimming classes.

Indira is 7 and lives with her family in Nepal. In their house there’s only one single room where the children shares a big mattress. She wakes up early in the morning and works six hours a day. She also goes to school but dreams about being a dancer when she gets older.

Kaya is 4, lives with her parents in a small apartment in Tokyo, Japan. Her bedroom is full of clothes and dolls. She has 30 dresses and coats, 30 pairs of shoes and a bunch of wigs. Kaya wants to be a cartoonist when she grows up.

Douha is 10 and lives with her huge family in a Palestinian refugee camp in Hebron, West Bank. Her brother killed himself and 23 civilians in a suicide attack against the Israelis in 1996. Douha wants to be a paediatrician.

Jasmine is 4, lives in Kentucky, USA, with her parents and three brothers. She has entered more than 100 beauty pageant competitions. In her spare time she does rehearsals with her personal trainer. Jazzy dreams of being a rock star when she grows up.

This homeless boy and his family is living on a mattress in a field in Rome, Italy. The family came all the way from Romania, but when they arrived in Rome, they camped on private land until the police threw them off. The boy’s parents clean car windscreens because they cannot get legal work.

Dong is 9 and lives in Yunnan in south-west China with his big family. He loves to write and sing, and in the evenings he spends one hour doing his homework and one hour watching TV shows. He dreams of being a cop when growing up.

Roathy is 8 and lives on Phnom Penh in Cambodia. A huge rubbish dump is unfortunately his home, and his mattress is made from old tyres. He wakes up at six every morning to start work which is looking for cans and plastic bottles that they eventually sell to a recycling company. He has only one meal per day.

Thais is 11 and lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with her family. The neighbourhood she lives in are involved with lot of gang rivalry and drug abuse, but it has undergone major improvements. Thais wants to be a model when she gets older.

Nantio is 15 and a member of the Rendille tribe in northern Kenya. She lives in a tent where the whole family sleep. She went to a school village school but she quit because she is hoping that a moran (warrior) will marry her soon. before the marriage she has to undergo circumcision which is completely normal where they live.

Joey is 11 and lives in Kentucky, USA. He likes outdoor activity and to go hunting with his father, and he already owns two shotguns and a crossbow. His first kill was made when he was seven when he shot a deer. He also attends school and loves watching TV while petting his dragon lizard pet.

Russian Prisoners Life Style In 1891

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 15:00:05 +0000

When old photos are shown in sepia style, which was the only way to color the photos back then, it almost always look like taken from a horror movie. Maybe it’s because we have seen too many old sepia photos in scary movies nowadays, or it just was a lot of horrible things happening then because of lack of knowledge they always did some creepy things. And I bet that half of these prisoners are not guilty but still sentenced to death.

At the border of China and Russia in the far east there were this prison that photographer Aleksey Kuznetsov went to and took some photos in year 1891. The prison is located in Nerchinsk, and on the photos you can see how the prisoners lived.

There are even a female prisoner which you may thought they didn’t have. They worked all day, and when it was time to rest they got cuffed in heavy chains and got some very thing pillows to sleep on.

Not comfortable at all. Kuznetsov also photographed one of the prison executors. Scary and old-fashioned. If you would like to see more you can take a look at a creepy abandoned Russian prison, and see how it looks today.

Real Life Shrek Existed

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 20:23:57 +0000

For those of you who don’t know who Shrek is, let me explain: he is a big and not so attractive green ogre in this animated movie that goes by the same name. Yes he is a fictional character, but imagine the real life Shrek. He actually existed! The French Maurice Tillet, born 1903, was better known as the “Freak Ogre of the Ring” because he was a professional wrestler.

But why he got compared to Shrek is because he had Acromegaly, a disease that made his bones grow uncontrollably large, so for many people he looked weird, and many would say scary and ugly like Shrek. But as Shrek he was a charismatic guy.

The disease made also some disfigurements to his body so he even looked more unusual. I don’t know how he got accepted at that time, I suppose they looked on him as different, but he seemed very witty and positive, and they also called him The French Angel, so never judge a book by its cover.

All I know is that it would be cool seeing him in person. He couldn’t help looking like that because of the disease, but these meth addicts could, but they chose to destroy themselves.

Fun With Old Album Covers

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 17:58:06 +0000

You can have more fun with album covers than you can imagine. Here you can see some examples on illusions that are made by holding different album covers in front of different people. Some are using the musicians head as their head, some are using half of their bodies as their own body parts, etc, etc.

The manipulations are detailed done with adding the right mood and the right colors to the background. You can see album covers of Cliff Richard, Prince, Jay-Z, Iggy Pop and David Bowie. If you want to do this yourself, just pay your parents a visit and try to find their old LP’s, and maybe you’ll get a few killer shots. As we all know it’s easier to hold up album cover of an LP so the artists are mostly old. Old album covers from the 80′s has also been recreated with comic book heroes, take a look.