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Photography

Ray Halliburton, 92, at his ranch in Luling, Texas

A Portrait of an American Hero and a Generation That Is Slowly Fading Away

Photographer Dan Winters shows us the modern-day life of an unheralded World War II veteran

The Marines Have Confirmed That One of the Men in the Iconic Iwo Jima Photo Has Been Misidentified for 71 Years

Pvt. 1st Class Harold Schultz never publicly spoke about his role during his life

A sidewalk vendor, known as a "betel nut beauty," sells snacks on a curb in New Taipei.

Smithsonian Photo Contest Galleries

These Eclectic Images Reveal Taiwan’s Many Moods

A highlight from our photo contest: Local photographer Yingting Shih captures surprising and unique moments in his travels

"Lux Noctis" is a series of photographs depicting landscapes of North America within the framework of traditional landscape photography, influenced by ideas of planetary exploration,19th-century Romantic painting and science fiction | Bisti Badlands, New Mexico

Photo Contest Featured Photographer

These Drone-Lit Photos of the American West Are Straight Out of a Science Fiction Novel

Photographer Reuben Wu casts new light on a familiar world

The scalding solution that pipes from the vents does not boil because of the mass of water pushing down from above.

Journey to the Center of Earth

Scientists Explore Breathtaking Hydrothermal Vents in Virtual Reality

With a high-tech remotely operated vehicle, a team is able to map a dark, hot and toxic vent field on the ocean floor

Adam Donnelly repairs light leaks inside a camera that he and David Janesko constructed in Coachella Valley, California.

Art Meets Science

From Sticks and Stones, Two Artists Make Pinhole Cameras

David Janesko and Adam Donnelly are using materials found in nature to photograph nature

Inside Alabama’s Abandoned Buildings

As Birmingham flourishes again, an urban explorer documents what is left behind

Buckminster Fuller's Geodesic Dome, 1967 World Exposition, Montreal

A Photographic Tour of the Wonders That World’s Fairs Leave Behind

Jade Doskow goes to old World’s Fair sites and photographs the remnants of once glorious visions

A family photo taken near Noatak, Alaska

Cool Finds

An Archive of Native Americans Portraits Taken a Century Ago Spurs Further Exploration

Edward S. Curtis’ photography is famous, but contemporary Native American artists go beyond stereotypes

The Bowdoin College swim team poses for photographer Heather Perry in Brunswick, Maine.

Underwater Photographer Heather Perry Dives Deep and Looks Up

Is it crazy to think that people are at their most natural in the water?

Sculptor Anne Arnold and her husband, the abstract painter Ernest Briggs, owned a house with a barn in Montville, Maine, where they raised farm animals, including pigs, cows, and chickens, and kept many dogs and cats. Arnold frequently relied on photographs of her menagerie to create her lively sculptures of animals in metal and wood.

A Look at the Creative Process and What Makes an Artist Tick

A new exhibition delivers a better understanding of where artists find their inspiration

Ground beetle (Carabus (Coptolabrus) elysii), detail

Art Meets Science

Eek! Each of These Insect Portraits Is Made From More Than 8,000 Images

With a mastery of macro, Levon Biss captures every hair and dimple on insects’ vibrant bodies

The 400,000-square-foot building has LEED Gold certification

Breaking Ground

Come Inside the New African American History Museum (Photos)

Take a peek behind the scenes to see how curators, architects and designers are prepping for the museum’s historic opening

Freedmen's Hospital Nurses, 1930

Do You Recognize Anyone in These Historical Photos? The Smithsonian Wants to Know

The American History Museum calls on the public to select images and identify subjects in photos pulled from the museum’s archives

A furled chameleon tail obviously takes its shape from the rolling of a tube, but its pattern is distinct from that created by rolling an even tube, such as that of a garden hose. The gentle taper of the tail produces a logarithmic spiral—one that gets smaller, yet the small parts look like the large parts.

Art Meets Science

The Science Behind Nature’s Patterns

A new book explores the physical and chemical reasons behind incredible visual structures in the living and non-living world

Oceanic whitetip, Cat Island, March 2014 (Instagram: michaelmuller7)

This Photographer Shoots Sharks to Save Them

When he’s not creating movie posters, Michael Muller swims among the oceanic predators, capturing stunning images

Sisters Emilia Ponzoni, Regina Colombo, Concetta Finardi and Luigia Panceri mapped the positions and brightness of 481,215 stars.

Cool Finds

These Little-Known Nuns Helped Map the Stars

A century later, the identities of women who mapped over 481,000 stars are finally known

Austria

These Black and White Images Reveal a Vienna Most Travelers Don’t See

Photographer Carl Yurttas captures the city’s many moods

Pangolin

Art Meets Science

These Eerie Portraits Capture Endangered and Extinct Animals in a Film That Is Also Vanishing

Denis Defibaugh uses Polaroid 55 film to give animal specimens an afterlife

Trending Today

Marines Are Investigating the Identity of a Flag Raiser in the Iconic Iwo Jima Photo

Amateur historians have called into question the identity of a soldier in Joe Rosenthal’s 1945 Pulitzer prize-winning image

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