Category: Face Of The Day

A Malaysian mourner holds a candle during a vigil for missing Malaysia Airlines passengers at the Independence Square in Kuala Lumpur on March 10, 2014. Malaysia has expanded its search area for a missing jet after three days of scouring the sea failed to bring forth any confirmed sightings of wreckage, an official said. He added that besides searching in waters between Malaysia and Vietnam, authorities were also searching on land in Malaysia and off western Malaysia. By Manan Vatsyayana/AFP/Getty Images.

Phillip Toledano photographed his first year as a father:

NYC-based photographer Phillip Toledano‘s series The Reluctant Father is a frank and witty account detailing his less-than-enthusiastic reaction to his newborn daughter Loulou during the first year-and-a-half of her life. Rather than experiencing the “tsunami of love” most of us have been taught to expect, he instead confesses that “it was like trying to have a relationship with a sea sponge, or a single-cell protozoa. She didn’t DO anything. Or at least, nothing I could understand,” he recalls. Nor was he enamored of the shift that occurred in his and his wife Carla’s relationship, saying he felt he’d been replaced by an “alien.” Of course, as a short time would tell, he fell utterly and completely under Loulou’s spell.

A book of his work is available here.

Kaija Straumanis’s self-portraits capture the moment of impact:

Literary translator, editor, and grad student Kaija Straumanis has a keen eye for photography, as can be seen from her Flickr gallery. This series of self-portraits, which Straumanis humorously refers to as “stuff being thrown at my head” moments, stands out in particular. In each image, Straumanis is in the process of being hit in the face by some object, whether it is a dodgeball, a book, or even a jack-o’-lantern.

More of her photos here. Follow her on Twitter or Etsy.

A Dogue de Bordeaux looks out from its kennel on first day of Crufts dog show at the NEC on March 6, 2014 in Birmingham, England. By Spencer Platt/Getty.

A man wears a US President Barack Obama mask during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland on March 6, 2014. The annual conference is a meeting of politically conservatives Americans. By Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images.

Leo, aged 9 months, takes part in an experiment at the “Birkbeck Babylab” Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development in London, England. The experiment uses an electroencephalogram (EEG) to study brain activity whilst the baby examines different objects of varying complexity. Researchers at the Babylab, which is part of Birkbeck, University of London, study brain and cognitive development in infants from birth through childhood. The scientists use various experiments, often based on simple games, and test the babies’ physical or cognitive responses with sensors including: eye-tracking, brain activation and motion capture. By Oli Scarff/Getty Images.

Members of the Krew of Mondo Kayo Social Marching Club march through the rain during the Mardi Gras parade on March 4, 2014 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Fat Tuesday is the traditional celebration on the day before Ash Wednesday and the begining of Lent. By Sean Gardner/Getty Images. Meanwhile, Richard Campanella celebrates the city’s much-maligned Bourbon Street:

Las Vegas has been called America’s most honest city for its undisguised pursuit of profit. Perhaps Bourbon rates as our most candid street, for the clarity of its deal: accessible pleasures offered for a price to the passing parade. For all its flamboyance and swagger, Bourbon Street is one of the least pretentious places in town. It’s as utterly uncool as it is wildly successful, and in an era when “cool capital” is increasingly craved and fiscal capital increasingly scarce, there’s something refreshing about a place that flips off coolness and measures success the old-fashioned way: by the millions.

And authenticity?

Not only does Bourbon Street not try to be authentic, it doesn’t even think about it. If, as Sartre once said, “you seek authenticity for authenticity’s sake, you are no longer authentic,” then perhaps the opposite is true as well. For all its ruses and illusions, Bourbon Street puts on no airs, requires no subsidies or handouts, has no need for the kindness of strangers, and lets the loquacious literati and the fuming fundamentalists fulminate alone. What you see when you peer past the neon is exactly what you get.

For his series Notes for an Epilogue, Tamas Dezso captured scenes of post-Soviet Romania:

[T]here is a documentary element to the photos, which chronicles a way of life that is fast disappearing. The communist-era factories and structures being salvaged for scrap will eventually vanish. Entire villages, like Geamana in the fifth slide, have already been abandoned entirely. The cultures in the area are also disappearing…. It may seem rural Romania’s transition into post-soviet life is taking an inordinately long time, but Dezso says the region operates at a different pace than many westerners are used to. This is another imperative behind his effort to capture the essence of what’s being lost — these are cultures and traditions that have lasted a very long time, and now stand to disappear in the equivalent blink of an eye.

(Photo by Tamas Dezso)