Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Photography

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Unpublished photos taken by Lewis Wickes Hine make a haunting case against the conditions experienced by many working children in the early 20th century

One of Leonardo's notebooks (left) contains an erased figure (right). Conservators discovered the hidden sketch using multispectral imaging.

Cool Finds

How a Hidden Figure Emerged From One of Leonardo da Vinci’s Notebooks

Modern imaging reveals the approximately 500-year-old sketch

A white stork forages for food at a landfill in Beja, Portugal.

Anthropocene

These Photographs Show the Bleak New Home for the White Stork: A Landfill

Dutch wildlife photographer Jasper Doest followed the path of the white stork’s migration route, forever altered by human activity

Yellow and red are the primary colors in this double rainbow.

New Research

Not All Rainbows Have Every Color

Depending on the angle of the sun, ROY G. BIV don’t all necessarily appear

When the crew felt they had a good chance of freeing the trapped Endurance from the sea ice of the Weddell Sea, they put the sails up. As we know, this and other attempts failed. Realizing the ship wasn't moving, Hurley went onto the ice to take this photograph. New details of sea ice have been revealed.

Trending Today

Restored Photos From Shackleton’s Antarctic Wreck Reveal New Details

Photos taken during Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition have been digitally restored for the first time

The informally named al-Idrisi mountains meet the smooth surface of Sputnik Planum in this image.

New Research

New Images Capture Pluto’s Mountains, Badlands and Craters in Breathtaking Detail

These images are “the best close-ups of Pluto that humans may see for decades,” according to NASA

An artist's rendition of what the Juno spacecraft will look like as it flies by Jupiter

Cool Finds

NASA Needs Your Help Snapping and Processing Images of Jupiter

The public will help direct JunoCam as it twirls past Jupiter next July

Twelve decades worth of averaged yearbook portraits

New Research

Yearbook Photos Show How Smiles Have Widened Over the Decades

An analysis of roughly 38,000 high-school senior portraits shows Americans’ frowns turning upside down

Grateful Dead, 2015, "Fare Thee Well" concert, Chicago

We’re Looking for the Best Rock ‘n’ Roll Photos. What’s in Your Collection?

For those who photograph rock, we salute you

The Best Photography Books of the Year

These photographers see things differently and invite you into unfamiliar worlds

Austria

These Videos Will Change the Way You Think About Travel Photography Forever

A new technique lets you zoom through the world without leaving your desk

Page 38 of 62