Favorite color: there’s a tie between green, yellow and dark purple, I can’t choose!
Time right now: 9:10 PM
Average hours of sleep you get: on a work day it’s 3-5 hours, on a weekend it’s up to 14 sometimes (terrible)
Last Google search: some articles about octopi. I have been reading about cephalopods a lot the past month, they are super great and I love them.
Blankets you sleep with: 1-2, depending on the weather.
Favorite fictional character: SO MANY, but if I had to choose one it would be Raziel from the Legacy of Kain series.
Fictional character you can relate to: I tend to get fond of characters that are nothing like me so I wouldn’t know, but maybe Ziltoid to a certain extend? I, too, find respite in making fun of everything that makes me uncomfortable or angry and use self deprecation as a coping mechanism. I am not as horrible though, I hope.
Favorite famous person: Arjen Lucassen
Favorite book: I’m experiencing a bit of a crisis over that because it used to be The Stand, but then I had the chance to read it again a couple of years back and I didn’t like it much at all. Pan Tadeusz, maybe? I don’t know, really haha
Favorite movie: the Sean Connery dragon one!!! Nostalgia overload. He was the last one. Very good.
Favorite song: I’m drawing a blank here, sorry, I love so many songs. I can name some of my favourite albums, though!: The Human Equation, Deconstruction, Ocean Machine: Biomech, Hair of a Dog, Ghost, 01011001, The Scarecrow (even though I am not huge on Avantasia tbh), Wodospady, Mój Dom (super nostalgic), Z2, ok nobody asked for a list, I will stop here.
Favorite composers: Arjen Lucassen, closely followed by Devin Townsend.
What are you wearing right now: a green hoodie and an old pair of jeans.
Tags: if you read it, please consider yourself tagged if you feel like it!
Each of these lush landscapes looks like a photo taken in the vast wilds of Middle-earth, but they’re actually incredibly awesome aquariums. It’s been a year since we first discovered the world of competitive aquarium design, aka aquascaping, and the winners of the 2015 International Aquatic Plants Layout Contest (IAPLC) have just been announced.
Currently a nascent art form (begun in the 90s), aquascaping involves the painstaking arrangement of aquatic plants, rocks, driftwood, and other hardscape elements in massive tanks that take years to prepare. It’s underwater ornamental gardening, sometimes with fish as garden residents.
“The art of aquascaping is still a fledgling endeavor, first started in the 90s by Japanese wildlife photographer Takashi Amano. The annual IAPLC competition has grown dramatically since, with the 2015 contest seeing 2,545 entries from 69 countries. Japan, China, Brazil, and France dominate the top finalist spots (only 13 entries were from the United States).”
Japan’s Takayuki Fukada was the 2015 IAPLC grand prize winner with this beautiful aquarium entitled “Longing”:
Visit Colossal for additional photos and to learn more about the art of competitive aquascaping.
we never really covered the 2015 IAPLC – so here is something about it. After the death of Takashi Amano there was some speculations if his company will continue to organise and sponsor the probably highest profile competition of global aquascaping. Now, it seems they will, the announcement for the 2016 contest was made recently.
Dutch photographer Roeselien Raimond captures playful images of wild foxes to show how affectionate they are, despite their portrayal as mean, deceitful characters in stories and fables.
