(via definitelydope)
London’s Iconic Skyline is Recreated Using 2,186 Sugar Cubes
Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church
Libby Phelps was born into the controversial Westboro Baptist Church, famed for its inflammatory rhetoric against homosexuals and protests against military funerals. At an early age, she was thrust into the church’s us-versus-them mentality:
In the beginning, Libby saw the picketing as a play date with her cousins. Every week the children carried signs with messages of damnation and trudged around in a circle in Gage Park until a pattern was worn into the grass.
Sometimes in the summer it got so hot that Libby’s mother would wrap a wet washcloth around her neck. In the winter, getting their snow gear on took longer than the picket.
“I didn’t even know what a homosexual was,” Libby said.
Over the years, Libby protested an AIDS quilt tour, the Academy Awards, Jenna Bush’s wedding, soldiers’ funerals, actor Bernie Mac’s funeral, President Obama’s 2008 inauguration and more.
It wasn’t until she was 25 that she managed to break free from the church, severing her family ties in the process. The church, which has just 70 members, is heavily comprised of descendants of Fred Phelps, who was Libby’s grandfather.
Read more on Libby’s life since defecting from the church in our latest Column One feature.
Photos: Megan Phelps-Roper, Michael S. Williamson / The Washington Post
An old abandoned mansion near Galway, Ireland by elementalist
In what has to be most precise photography project ever, Harvard fellow Wim Noorduin used salt and silicon to create microscopic flowers on the surface of a penny.
Microscopic Flowers Photographed on a Single Penny
via CollabCubed
Pete Pin was born in Khao-I-dang, a refugee camp on the border of Cambodia and Thailand. Fleeing the infamous “killing fields” of Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime, his family eventually resettled in Stockton, Calif., in the mid-1980s. What started with a single portrait of his grandmother has evolved into a deeply personal project that aims to explore the Cambodian diaspora.
His grandmother survived Pol Pot and the killing fields, and after having her portrait taken in 2010, she unexpectedly felt compelled to share her story. “I felt that my camera created this safe place that enabled the conversation to happen,” says Pin. “The stories that my grandmother told me explained a lot about my family.”
Pin is hoping to reach older Cambodians, but also younger generations who may not be familiar with their family’s history and experiences under Khmer Rouge. His goal is to use photography to create an open dialogue within the Cambodian community.
Documenting Life Beyond The Killing Fields
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Pete Pin
(via reportagebygettyimages)
