We love photo essays here at Apowl. But we love photo essays about the unexpected more – as is the case of writer and surfer Gai Shtienberg and his documenting of the life of an ultra-orthodox Jewish man’s life as he balances his devotion to religion and his irrepressible affinity for surfing. Shtienberg followed 34-year-old [...]
For decades, the year 2000 had been the embodiment of «the future». As early as a hundred years before, people imagined what the world would look like in 2000. There is a wonderful set of illustrations by various artists who imagined futuristic France. Later, once time had turned 1984 from dystopia to past, the year [...]
Palangan Village, in the mountains near the Iraq border. Palangan, illustrative of many of the country’s rural settlements, has benefitted handsomely from government support. Many villagers are employed in a nearby fish farm, or are paid members of the Basij, whose remit includes prevention of “westoxification”, and the preservation of everything the 1979 islamic revolution [...]
Thanks to a truce in the drug wars, Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, for the first time in years, no longer has the world’s highest murder rate. But for a generation that grew up around constant violence, the fight for normalcy is just beginning. Click the pic to read this fascinating essay on Buzzfeed.
Today marks the end of the 13th cycle of the ancient Mayan calendar, giving rise to rumors about the end of the world. Worries about a looming apocalypse are nothing new in human history, but 21st century reactions to the possible destruction of the planet (or human civilization) vary widely, from “preppers” who cultivate self-sufficiency, [...]
This mind-blowing paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly [...]
If you haven’t already heard of chess boxing, you might be forgiven for thinking you’ve wandered into some kind of absurd comedy sketch. However, the sport is very real, and although it might still be marginal, it is growing. It’s already a popular sport in London and Berlin, but it has also started to spread [...]
On the anniversary of the Russian Revolution in 1917, History in an Hour has taken a brief but fascinating look into the events that would change Russia, and the world’s future forever. The Russian tsar, Nicholas II, had been disposed following the February Revolution of 1917 to be replaced by a provisional government, headed by [...]
In 2009, the British Council invited Olivia Arthur to teach a two-week photography workshop to a group of women in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Arthur has spent much of her photographic career documenting facets of the East/West divide, but was unsure whether or not this teaching post would lead to a project of her own. Nevertheless, [...]
“Say cheese.” It’s an expression that has become so much a part of our culture that everyone understands it to simply mean, “Smile,” rather than a command to actually utter the word “cheese.” For many people, smiling and posing for casual snapshots go hand-in-hand, but why do people smile for pictures, and when did this [...]
