Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Photography

Protestors sit outside a local town hall.

Trending Today

Indian Artists Are Protesting a Private Takeover of a Public Art Gallery

Local artists want the Venkatappa Art Gallery to stay public

Cool Finds

The Hubble Scoped This Space Bubble Just in Time For Its Birthday

The Hubble Telescope has been in orbit for 26 years

Berlin Face, Berlin, 2013

Fashion Photographer Klaus Mitteldorf Captures the Chaos of Modern Identity

These images evoke a world of endless distraction

Water spreads like inky-blue fingers into mangrove forests along the shore of Australia's Ord River (top). The sediment load in the water shows up as yellow and orange while mudflats stick out like a light blue bull's-eye on the lower left.

Journey to the Center of Earth

These Stunning Satellite Images Turn Earth Into Art

These images illustrate the brutal beauty geologic processes carve into our planet

Run-DMC-JMJ on the rooftop of Russell Simmons's apt

Breaking Ground

Vintage Photos Recall the Early Days of Hip-Hop, Before It Became a Billion-Dollar Industry

More than 400 images from the 1980s to the early 2000s detail the “standout moments” of the rise of Run DMC, Grandmaster Flash, Jay Z and many more artists

The green color of the superb startling’s wing feathers is produced by microscopically structured surfaces that interfere with and scatter light.

Art Meets Science

The Extravagant Beauty of Feathers

A new book spotlights the astonishing diversity of avian plumage

Giraffes make their way across the Mara River. Whether they’re ambling or galloping, giraffes maintain balance by moving their necks in synchrony with their legs.

What Elephants, Zebras and Lions Do When They Think No One’s Watching

The stunning results when a photographer uses remote cameras to capture Africa’s great beasts

Peter Strien was 21 years old when he was wounded at the battle of Fort Steadman.

Cool Finds

These Eerie Civil War Photos Changed How the U.S. Saw Veterans

Reed Bontecou’s groundbreaking photography used a new medium to bring attention to the wounds of war

This psychedelic form is actually a map of pathways inside a human brain. The different colors show the ways various parts of the brain communicate—left with right sides in red, front with back in green, and the brain to the rest of the body in blue.

Trending Today

Take in the Beauty of Science With This Year’s Wellcome Image Award Winners

From winding brain pathways to sparkling moth scales, these evocative images both teach and amaze

Paul Johnson explores "landthropology" through his nature photography.

Cool Finds

This Designer Makes Animations With Nature

Paul Johnson turns Twin Cities landscapes into hypnotic stop-motion

She knows where this photo was taken—and so might a new neural network.

New Research

Google’s New A.I. Can Tell Exactly Where a Photo Was Taken

A new neural network is better than humans at sussing out the location of a picture

New Research

Pluto’s North Pole Is Streaked With Canyons

Enormous pits and frozen valleys straddle Pluto’s northern hemisphere

A biocube is placed in Central Park's Hallett Nature Sanctuary in New York City.

You’d Be Astounded to Learn How Much Wildlife Can Fit Into One Cubic Foot

A whole new world opens up when you try to catalog every visible creature that moves in and out of a biocube set down on either land or in water

Cool Finds

Watch a Stunning Time-Lapse of Cave-Bound Glowworms

These New Zealand sparklers aren’t stars—they’re insects

Cool Finds

Take 360-Degree Tours of Mars and the Moon

Earth’s neighbors have never seemed so tantalizingly close

"Lotus, An X-ray" c. 1930's.

Cool Finds

Check Out These X-Rays of Flowers From the 1930s

Dain L. Tasker’s radiographs depict delicate flowers from the inside out

Levi's Stadium

360-Degree Cameras and Other Cool New Tech for Super Bowl 50

This year’s game, held at San Francisco’s Levi’s Stadium, should be the most high-tech Super Bowl ever

“I’d never go into a back alley in Berlin or Manhattan,” Wolf says. “It’s not like that at all here.” In this alley, a resident has found a creative use for coat hangers: to make hanging planters for orchids.

The Beautiful Life Hacks in Hong Kong’s Back Alleys

In a new book, photographer Michael Wolf captures the ways inhabitants of the ultra-dense city carve personal space out of grim alleyways

Elvis Jigsaw (2011)
Elvis makes an appearance in several images in Short Stories.

Photographer Matt Henry’s Obsession With the 1960s Led to These Amazing Images

Inspired by the movies of the era, he brings together elaborate sets and casts to make his scenes

Cool Finds

These Little-Known Photographs Put an Eerie Face on Child Labor

Unpublished photos taken by Lewis Wickes Hine make a haunting case against the conditions experienced by many working children in the early 20th century

Page 36 of 61