A photo of Chicago and the southern tip of Lake Michigan taken onboard the ISS (you can see it in the foreground). The photo comes from an In Focus photo collection covering the recent changing of the guard at the ISS. NASA loves documentation, and this video shows the hugs and handshakes when they opened the hatch in February on Discovery’s last trip.

For a few years Jeff Bridges has been publishing great on-set photographic diaries from his films: True Grit, Tron, Crazy Heart, and Iron Man. He really is good with a camera—able to capture intimate moments of the movie process and personalities of the people behind it. Plus, look at that ridiculous rig.

Frequency of the bass strings and high shutter speed of the camera lead to this suprising string-wobble footage.

There is no slow-mo applied to the take. Sound is original.
Video was filmed with a Canon 5D Mark II, Nikon 50mm lens on 1,8f.

There has been some discussion about what we are actually seeing here—whether it’s due to a strobe effect between the shutter speed and the string vibration, or it’s caused by the rolling shutter of the camera itself.

It’s both, to an extent. There are some other tests out there (1, 2), and notice at the end of the second clip, when the string is almost horizontal, the chaotic wobble is nearly gone. A cool effect of the rolling shutter.

You may have seen the rolling shutter effect in a video like this involving an airplane propeller. Here’s a handy simulation of exactly how that happens.

• I really enjoyed this video on how a quartz watch works.
• The Reader published its annual photo issue (with not one but two photos from Brian Bonenberger).
• A good story will involve George S. Kaufman or Groucho Marx. A great story will feature both.

• The Royal Observatory in Greenwich awards the Astronomy Photographer of the Year each year for a number of different categories. In an audio slideshow, Dr Marek Kukula, one of the judges, explains this year’s winning photographs.
• Gunung Mulu is a cave system that extends for hundreds of miles under the island of Borneo. Much of it remains unexplored, but National Geographic collects some pictures of its interesting formations and chambers.
• The BBC put little video cameras on the backs of some of the fastest birds in the world: the Peregrine Falcon and the Goshawk. Look at that thing weave through the trees!

• “During the 1860s, several photographers based in Moscow and St. Petersburg produced a series of cartes-de-visite showing Russian ‘types.’ These remarkable portraits provide a fascinating record of working-class townspeople, artisans, street vendors and peasants, some staged performing an activity, such as drinking tea or gaming, and some photographed in the performance of their occupation.”
• Chicago’s Adler Planetarium could get a Space Shuttle when they are retired next year, but competition is fierce from Texas, Florida, and New York.
• I knew Groupon was doing well, but I didn’t think they were doing THAT well: according to Forbes, it is one of the fastest companies to reach a $1B valuation (YouTube being the fastest, but it has yet to see profit).
• Finally, a particularly depressing list from Wikipedia: list of last occurrences.

Chicago’s had some heavy storms in the past week. Here’s some amazing footage of lightning striking three of the tallest buildings at the same time. There’s an HD version on Vimeo.

• Bicycle-enthusiast and Talking Head David Byrne describes his perfect city, combining qualities from some of his favorite places.
• Need a handy World Cup TV schedule? Here it is.
• One of the defining photographers of 1960s London, Brian Duffy, died recently. His photos are fantastic—I love that Smirnoff ad.
• Speaking of David Bowie, this interview with Playboy from 1976 is entertaining and historically interesting.

BP has their own coverage of the oil leak clean-up efforts. The brilliant blues and clear skies tell a very different story than images from other sources, like The Big Picture.

• Sir Ian McKlellan is performing “Waiting For Godot” in Melbourne, and, to get some publicity shots, they took the characters out into the streets and even begged for money.
• The oldest tree in the world, named Prometheus, was cut down in 1964 at about 4862 years old. Amazing, but clonal trees like the aspen can be much, much older. Pando, a clonal colony in Utah, is 80,000 years old!
• Nicolas Vigier is a Parisian photographer who likes to explore abandoned places. He and a friend visit a train station that was built for the 1878 World’s Fair.