An Indian man is so obsessed with photography that he named his three sons after iconic camera brands – Canon, Nikon and Epson – and spent a small fortune on a three-story villa shaped like a giant camera.

You hear the phrase “passionate about photography” a lot among photography enthusiasts, but Ravi Hongal, a 49-year-old professional photographer from Belgaum, India, actually came up with some truly unique ways of showing off his passion for the art. After naming his three sons after some of the most iconic camera brands in the history of photography, Ravi recently spent around $95,000 on an impressive house shaped like a giant vintage camera, complete with a lens-shaped window, flash, and even a giant SD card.

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The county of Staffordshire, in central UK, is home to a mysterious and rather eerie attraction – an old oak tree with branches shackled in heavy metal chains tied to a creepy local legend.

The story of the Chained Oak near the village of Alton is the most famous legend in Staffordshire. It is said that one day during the 1830’s, as the Earl of Shrewsbury was returning home to his home at Alton Towers estate a beggar woman stopped his carriage in the middle of the road and asked him if he could spare a coin or two. The earl cruelly dismissed her and urged the driver to move on, at which point the woman allegedly cursed him to lose a member of his family whenever a branch fell off a magnificent oak on the side of the road.

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Robin Lachhein, 31, and Judith Schneider, 30, a couple from, Germany, have a very interesting hobby – they travel around the world to recreate iconic movie scenes in the exact same locations they were filmed at.

Robin and Judith met at a friend’s party 10 years ago, and they’ve been visiting famous film locations for the last six years. At first it was just a personal hobby they kept for themselves, only posting photos they took around their home, but then friends started noticing them when they came over and praising their talent for recreating iconic scenes. Instagram had been gaining popularity, so they started their very own page, aptly named ‘Secret Famous Places’, which has gained tens of thousands of followers.

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Ever heard of a pie too pretty to eat? Me neither, but then I discovered pastry designer Karin Pfeiff-Boschek and her intricately decorated creations, and I started to have a whole new appreciation for pies as works of art.

Anyone would be lucky to call Karin Pfeiff-Boschek their friend. That’s because the German-born pie master bakes at least three pies a week and gives most of them to her friends after taking some photographs of them and sharing them with her Instagram fans. But looking at how beautifully decorated her works are, you can understand why she cares more about the photos than the pies themselves. Some of her creations look so incredible that it would be a crime not to keep any evidence of their existence. Luckily, Instagram lets artists like Pfeiff-Boschek do just that and make a living off of it.

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“Chiseled physique” is not a phrase you would normally use to describe the appearance of a 6-year-old boy, but in the case of Arat Hosseini, the shoe fits perfectly, as they say.

Instagram star, soccer prodigy or expert gymnast are just some of the flattering labels people have used to describe Arat Hosseini over his short but very eventful life. He first made headlines around the world a couple of years ago when a video of what many originally assumed was a girl dribbling opponents on the soccer pitch went viral on social media. That ‘girl’ turned out to be a long, dark haired Iranian boy whose father had been training to become an athlete since before he could walk. Soon pictures of his tiny six-pack abs and videos of his training routines were doing the rounds on the internet, and Arat’s career as an international social media star took off.

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If, like me, you spent a fair bit of your childhood on a farm, or if you’re simply fascinated by domestic birds, you’ve probably seen a crested duck at least once in your life. Their fluffy headgear is a adorable to look at, but it comes with some severe side-effects.

First of all, the funny-looking plumage on the heads of crested ducks is just a genetic defect, and one that has some serious health implications. The fluffy hairdo actually grows out of a section of fatty tissue that covers a gap in the duck’s skull. Not only does this defect make it dangerous for a female crested duck to mate – especially with a particularly aggressive drake – but it has also been linked to seizures, neurological problems and early death. Unfortunately, the photos of cute crested ducks circulating on social media these days don’t come with information about these issues, which only makes the ducks sought after as pets. That leads to another serious problem, breading…

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Legendary photography company Kodak recently launched a gigantic jigsaw puzzle made up of 51,300 pieces and measuring a whopping 28.5 feet by 6.25 feet.

If you’ve gone through all your jigsaw puzzles and are looking for a real challenge, Kodak just released what it calls “the world’s largest puzzle” (that you can buy), featuring images of iconic landmarks shot by professional photographers. But putting your patience and jigsaw solving skills to the test will cost you both real money and a lot of space, as Kodak’s behemoth will set you back between $409.99  and $599.99, and will probably take up a decent-sized room when completed.

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Johannes Stötter is a world-renowned body-painter whose artworks are so incredibly realistic most people would never guess they are actually made up of people contorted in just the right positions and photographed from the right angle.

We originally featured the magical body-paintings of Johannes Stötter back in 2014, when he made international news headlines with a mind-blowing project where he turned two of his models into almost perfect Ara macaws. sitting on a branch. He has been keeping busy since then, coming up with all sorts of stunning compositions, from a near-perfect frog made up of several painted human models, to a single person posing as perfectly-detailed butterfly sitting on a sunflower. But, as always, even knowing the secret of Stötter’s art, you still have to squint to make out the people hidden in the artworks.

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If you’re looking to have some goofy fun while quarantined in your own home, how about investing in a high quality portrait of your pet as a pompous royal?

Enter Crown & Paw, a company dedicated to helping pet owners honor their bundles of joy by creating hilarious digital portraits of them as generals, princes, or ladies, whatever title the client desires. The company curates a collection of authentic 19th century portraits and rare Renaissance era oil paintings, and combine them with pet portraits to hilarious effect. Seriously, just look at the examples below.

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We originally featured the amazing ballpoint pen drawings of Portuguese artist Samuel Silva back in 2021, but he has been buys over the last eight years, and I though we’d take a look at what he’s been up to.

Looking at some of Silva’s incredibly realistic artworks, it’s clear why many consider him the no. 1 ballpoint pen artist in the world. The photo-like level of detail in his masterpieces is simply uncanny, making it hard to believe that he is a self-taught artist who never went to art school. He started drawing when he was 2-years-old, and developed his own style and technique by creating “simple classroom sketches in the back of exercise books”. A lawyer by by training, Samuel Silva doesn’t create new works as often as other artists, but when he does, you better believe it’s something special.

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Only slightly larger that the insect it’s named after, the Bee Hummingbird weighs no more than two grams and lays eggs roughly the size of coffee beans. It is officially the world’s tiniest bird.

Found only in Cuba, the Bee Hummingbird is extremely small even for a hummingbird, so much so that people often mistake it for an actual bee when they see it hovering over flowers. But this tiny flier not only looks like an insect, it also competes against them for resources. It is the result of a phenomenon scientists call “island dwarfism”, where certain species have problems competing against larger species for resources, so they get smaller and smaller over evolutionary time to avoid running out of food and start competing against other categories of organisms.

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Samia Al Homsi Dagher, a software engineer and illustrator from Lebanon, has made a name for herself by creating stunningly realistic ballpoint pen portraits. From celebrities to commission portraits of everyday people, this talented artist’s artworks are sometimes hard to tell apart from photographs.

Born in 1987, the Tripoli-based artist started drawing when she was only five years old, and as you can see from the images below, she has gotten a lot better since. She is now considered one of the world’s best ballpoint pen illustrators, and it’s not hard to see why. The attention to detail, the precision of every stroke and dot, the perfect proportions of various facial features, all come together to form drawings that are sometimes indistinguishable from photographs.

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For the last two decades, Indian wildlife photographer and conservationist Aditya Singh and his wife have been buying land adjacent the famous Ranthambore Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan, and simply letting the forest grow back as a refuge for big cats and other wildlife.

In 1998, Aditya Singh left his comfortable job with Indian civil services in Delhi and moved to a remote part of Rajasthan, in the vicinity of the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, to be closer to nature. He took up photography and together with his wife, artist Poonam Singh, opened a tourist resort to earn a living. They had been able to buy a piece of land, because farmers were eager to sell due to the danger of tigers from the nearby reserve venturing onto their properties. Over the year, the couple bought up more land, but instead of planting crops, they just let nature slowly reclaim it. Over the last 20 years, their 35 acres of land has transformed into a green forest patch where lions from the tiger reserve as well as wild boars and other animals come all year round.

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A temporary waterfall in Yosemite National Park has become a popular tourist attraction in the mouth of February, because under the right conditions sunlight makes the water flowing down the rock face look like fire, hence its nickname, Yosemite Firefall.

Every year, from December to April, water from melting mountain snow flows toward the eastern edge of El Capitan, forming the temporary Horsetail Falls. The waterfall itself is quite a sight to behold, but it becomes truly breathtaking for a few days (7 -10) in February, when, under the right conditions, it turns into a firefall, with the water looking like flowing lava and swirling flames. The Yosemite Firefall is considered one of the most amazing spectacles one can behold in Yosemite National Park.

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Ukrainian-Russian art duo Asya Kozina and Dmitriy Kozin are taking paper craft to new heights with their elaborate and flamboyant wigs made entirely out of paper.

Inspired by Baroque and Rococo wigs, the talented couple and art duo create their own modern wigs out of pristine white paper. The unique choice of material only makes their creations stand out even more, so it’s no wonder that their amazing headgear has been getting a lot of attention both within the art world but also on social media. Looking at some of their most recent creations it’s really not that hard to see why people are so impressed with Asya and Dmitriy’s work – it’s really unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.

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