One concert down and one really big work project complete, and I find myself with a few spare minutes to post some things I’ve stumbled across the past few weeks. These truly are random…
World’s Largest Architectural Blunder
I found this via UrbanPlanet. The largest hotel in the world was supposed to be the Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyong, North Korea.
In 1987 construction began on a 105 story (1,083 ft.) building in the Potong-gang district of Pyongyang, North Korea. Containing 3.9 million sq. ft. of floor space it would have become a stand-out in the skyline of Pyongyang.
In 1992 it did certainly become a stand-out but the building would never be functional. Construction ended on the skyscraper leaving a crane at the very top to become a permanent display in a country starving for electricity and funding. The building sits dark in the skyline as a show of the country’s seclusion to the rest of the world.
Given N. Korea’s totalitarian regime, I can’t help but wonder how many engineers and architects were executed for this massive embarrassment. I was also able to find multiple Flickr photos and a link in Google Earth. The GE link goes to a KMZ of the 40 tallest buildings in the world. Ryugyong is number 18 on this list.
Following the links on this story led me to another cool discovery, the "Damned Interesting" website. This site is just a collection of odd stories, such as the one about the Ryugyong Hotel.
Grand Illusions
Another interesting site stumbled upon this week is Grand Illusions. Like Damned Interesting, this one has an odd collection of interesting tidbits. It seems most of theirs is science and DYI types of activities. They even have a tutorial on Chlorophyll Photography using geranium leaves. I may have to give that one a shot sometime.
More Tilt-Shiftiness
I found that shooting from high up in a stadium down towards football players is a near-perfect tilt-shift opportunity…
This images make much more sense if you click on them to view larger. The pictures were taken last Saturday at Furman’s Homecoming game with UTC.
I did have one more tilt-shift discovery. This was was video rather than static, and must have used a true tilt-shift lens for a very narrow DOF. It’s a music video of Thom Yorke’s "The Eraser." Pretty cool.