Worlds amazing young photographer

Julia is rapidly developing a reputation as one of the leading young photographers in the country. She has won a large number of awards, and her images have been hung in the National Portrait Gallery, London, at Paris-Photo, at Photo-London, and shown at Arles. She has also had solo exhibitions in London, and contributed to a group show in New York. She has also been profiled in many professional and popular photographic magazines.


Julia was born in Bremen, Germany to a German mother and an English father. The family then moved to the United States, and back to Germany, before moving to England in 1986. Julia now lives in London.


After graduating with a Diploma in photography from Berkshire College of Art and Design, Julia spent five years as a freelance assistant. During this time, the shoots covered a wide variety of different fields - car advertisement, still-life, fashion, food, location shots, etc. She was able to hone her knowledge and skills, and at the same time begin to develop her own unique style.


Uniquely, for these shoots, Julia deliberately select girls who are not proffesional models. Once she has the idea for the shoot, she street casts the models. This produces a slight awkwardness in the posture of the models that enhances the unusual surroundings. Another difference is Julia's use of studio lighting to supplement daylight/ She may use as many as seven or eight lash heads to achieve the impression that she wants. This combination of eye for the content of an image, the naturalness of the models, the unusual surroundings, the effect of the lighting all combine to yield a style that identifies her pictures.

Strange facts about your eyes | 10 strange & wonderful eyes

Few people could argue that without our 5 senses life would be pretty dull. All our senses are extremely important but I think if you asked most people which sense would they least like to lose they would probably say their vision. As with most of our abilities, our vision is something that many of us take for granted. If you stop and think for a moment, you will realize that just about everything we do in our day to day life involves our vision. During this article I am going to try and see if I can get you to start thinking a little bit more about your eyes. Listed below is my top 10 list of strange and wonderful things you didn’t know about your eyes

10. Everyone needs reading glasses as they get older
This is assuming that you already have perfect distance vision. If you are currently reading this article and are under 40 years of age with perfect distance vision, I can say with absolute certainty that you will need reading glasses at some point in the future. For about 99% of the population the age that you will first start needing reading glasses is between 43 and 50 years old. This is because the lens in your eye slowly loses its focusing ability with age. In order to focus things near to you, your lens has to change from a flat to a more spherical shape and it loses the ability to do this as you get older. As you get to around 45 years old you will start to hold things further away from you to keep them focus.

9. The lens in your eye is quicker than any camera lens
Just behind the pupil sits the eyes natural lens, whose function is to focus on the object you are looking at. Just take a minute to glance around the room and think about how many different distances you are focusing at. Every time you do this, the lens in your eye is instantly changing focus without you even being aware of it! Compare that with a camera lens which takes a few seconds to focus between one distance and another. Just be thankful that the lens in your eye is as quick as it is, otherwise things would be continually going in and out of focus.

8. Your eyes are fully developed by the age of 7 years old
By the age of 7 years old our eyes are fully developed and are physiologically the same as adult’s eyes. It is for this reason that it is vitally important to pick up a lazy eye before we reach this age. The earlier a lazy eye is diagnosed, the greater the chance it will respond to treatment, as the eyes are still developing and capable of an improvement in vision. Beyond 7 years old no amount of treatment will result in any improvement in vision.

7. You blink approximately 15,000 times each day
Blinking is a semi- involuntary function meaning we do it automatically, but can also choose to blink if we so require. Blinking is an extremely important function of your eyes as it helps remove any debris on the surface of your eye, by spreading fresh tears over them. These tears help to nourish your eyes with oxygen and also have important anti bacterial properties. You can think of the function of blinking as being similar to the action of the windscreen wipers on your car, cleaning and removing everything to keep you seeing clearly.

6. Everyone gets cataracts as they get older
People don’t realize that cataracts are just a normal consequence of getting older and everyone gets them at some point in their life. You can think of cataracts as being similar to getting grey hair, in that it is just a normal natural age change. The average age people first get cataracts is about aged 70 years old and by 80 years old you are guaranteed to have cataracts. In the same way that you could not find any aged 80 years old without grey hair, it would be equally impossible to find anyone over 80 years old without cataracts. Cataracts refer to a gradual clouding of the lens in your eye and typically take about ten years from onset to them needing treatment.

5. Diabetes is often first detected during an eye test
People who suffer from type 2 diabetes (the type you develop later in life) are often symptom free, meaning they often don’t even know that they have it. This type of diabetes is commonly picked up during an eye test as it can be seen as tiny hemorrhages from leaking blood vessels at the back of your eye. This certainly is good reason to get your eyes tested regularly.

4. You see with your brain and not your eyes
The function of your eyes is to collect all the required information about the object you are looking at. This information is then passed from your eye to the brain via the optic nerve. It is the brain (visual cortex) where all this information is analyzed to enable you to ‘see’ the object in its finished form. This is not to say that your eyes don’t play an important role as they certainly do.

3. Your eyes can adapt to blind spots in your vision

Certain eye conditions such as Glaucoma and certain general health conditions such as having a stroke, can lead to you developing blind spots in your vision. This would be extremely debilitating if it wasn’t for your brain and your eyes ability to adapt to make these blind spots disappear. It does this by suppressing the blind spot in your affected eye and letting your other good eye ‘fill in the gaps’. It is adaptation like this that makes your eyes so resilient.

2. 20:20 vision is not the best vision you can have
When people hear the phrase 20:20 vision they assume that this is the best vision possible. However this is not true as 20:20 vision refers to what the average adult should be able to see. If you imagine a typical eye test chart the 20:20 vision is probably only the line second from the bottom. The line below it is even smaller than 20:20 vision and would mean you have 20:16 vision. So don’t be so impressed next time someone tells you they have 20:20 vision!

1. Your eyes water when they are dry
I know this might sound crazy but this is one of strange facts about your eyes. Your tears are made up of 3 different components and they are water, mucus and fat. If these 3 components are not in exactly the right quantities, your eyes can become dry as a consequence. Your brain responds to this dryness by producing extra water and hence your eyes water.

A man won beauty contest

This guy from Russian province Yakutia decided to take part in the beauty contest "Miss Yakutia".
He went to stylists, rented some nice dresses and after that made a portfolio at a professional photographer.
Afterwards he posted the pictures on the "Miss Yakutia" website and made it to the finals.
Unfortunately, a couple of days later he was disqualified because somebody told the contest authorities that he was not a woman.
Take a look at the photos.

Horse boxing | Stallion horse | Wild horses

Horse boxing is the dramatic moment two proud stallions faced off in a bloody fight for dominance and mating rights in a herd of wild horses.

The Koniks, or Polish primitive horses, reared up on their hind legs with their teeth bared during the ferocious attack.

Photographer Henri Ton, 41, captured the fight over females at a nature reserve in Loevenstein, The Netherlands.

Stallions rear up on their hind legs as they fight for dominance in a herd of Koniks in The Netherlands

Fierce: One of the male horses lands a thudding blow with its hoof as the fight turns bloody

One stallion could be seen chasing a mare while others fought among themselves.

Mr Ton, who works as an electronic engineer, spends several hours a week observing the herd of 36 horses to better understand their behaviour.

He said: 'The Koniks were put in a nature reserve and left to fend for themselves.

'The public are told to keep their distance and not to feed them so they can remain wild.

'I go looking for them about once a week and have done for over a year now.

'I try to avoid attracting their attention so their behaviour in my pictures is as natural as possible.'

Dominance: Teeth bared, the two horses continue to fight as other members of the herd watch in the background

The battle among the Koniks, or Polish primitive horses, took place at a nature reserve in Loevenstein, The Netherlands


He said the herd is formed from a mix of bachelor groups - young stallions who have been abandoned or rejected and need to play to build up their strength before returning - and harem groups which feature one stallion, around six mares and foals.

There is one lead stallion horse in the herd, which is the only male allowed to breed.

'Fights with the lead stallion can be very rough and if he is injured the other stallions try to take over.

'Sometimes it is playful, almost like an act or dance, but it can also be very aggressive with bloody injuries.

'The Konik horse is one of the few types of horses able to survive in the wild. They are wild but they have never been aggressive towards me.'

Grant luxury hotel, US

The smoke free US Grant Luxury Hotel offers opulence, grandeur, and gracious hospitality in the heart of the city. Specially commissioned Native American artwork is exhibited throughout the public areas and in guestrooms. The resplendent lobby itself is a work of art: white Italian Carrara-marble floors with gray veining, hand-milled carpets, hand-carved ceilings, and polished mahogany woodwork.

Capsule hotel in japan

A capsule hotel in japan is a hotel system of extremely dense occupancy. Guest space is reduced in size to a modular plastic or fibreglass block roughly 2 m by 1 m by 1.25 m, providing room to sleep and little more, although facilities usually include a television and other electronic entertainment. These capsules are then grouped and stacked, two units high. Luggage is usually stored in a locker away from the capsule. Privacy is maintained by a curtain at the open end of the capsule but noise pollution can be high. Washing facilities are communal and there are often restaurants, or at least vending machines, and other entertainment facilities.

The benefit of these hotels is convenience and price, usually around $25-$ 34 a night
This style of hotel accommodation was developed in Japan and has not gained acceptance outside of the country. The Japanese capsule hotels vary widely in size, some having only fifty or so capsules and others over 700. They are often used primarily by men. There are also capsule hotels with separate male and female sleeping quarters.

The first capsule hotel was the Capsule Inn Osaka, designed by Kisho Kurokawa and located in the Umeda district of Osaka.

These rooms can be seen in the movies The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and Gung Ho. They were also used as a basis for sets in the film The Fifth Element.



Each capsule has a little control panel. There is an alarm clock, TV/Radio speaker, light and TV on/off switch, volume knob, and some panic button

OYC hotel in guangdong province, china

OYC Hotel is located by the Seven Star Crags Lake in Zhaoqing, Guangdong province, China. The hotel boasts of its lush vegetation and fresh air,which is well known for high density of oxygen. That's why OYC have got an award for being a 'Wonderland on the Earth'.

The whole hotel takes around 120,000 square meters, combined with one convention centre and 55 convention rooms, and 750 luxurious guestrooms and suites. Each room equipped with the latest technology such as high-speed broadband internet and complete room amenities. Guests also have a wide selection of F&B outlets to choose from, including Chinese, Japanese, Italian and other western cuisine.

OYC Hotel holds the world's largest indoor hot springs, laying special bottom depth of 3,000 meters from the sand. For more information visit oychotel.com

Huge family with 18 children | Big family | Large family

The family with 18 children that prays together... gets bigger and bigger: Meet devoutly Christian Mr and Mrs Bates and their EIGHTEEN children

Super-parents Gil and Kelly Bates love babies so much, they can't stop having them.

The couple, from Tennessee, U.S., celebrated the birth of their 18th child a month ago and are already praying for more.

The Bates look set to become the big family in the world one day, and are one baby behind the Duggars of Arkansas, who have 19.

'We will have many more children if God allows it,' said proud dad Gil, 45, a tree surgeon.
Truly blessed: The Bates family (from left to right) Ellie, Addallee, Isaiah, Warden, Jackson, Katie, Josie, Carlin, Trace, Tori, Alyssa, Nathan, Lawson, Erin, Michaella, Kelly holding Judson Wyatt and Gil holding Callie-Anna

'Children are a blessing and God has blessed us many, many times.'

Devoted mum Kelly, 43, said: 'We just love children and every baby brings extra joy to our family. The most exciting time is when a new baby comes.

'We all wonder are the boys going to be ahead, or are the girls going to be ahead?'

The couple married 23 years ago, and Kelly has been pregnant for almost every year.

Their massive brood range includes Zach, 21, Michaela, 20, Erin, 18, Lawson, 17, Nathan, 16, Alyssa, 15, Tori, 14, Trace, 13, Carlin, 12, Josie, 11, Katie, 10, Jackson, 8, Warden, 7, Isaiah, 5, Addallee, 4, Ellie, 3, Callie-Anna, 1, and Judson Wyatt, one month.
Feeding the five thousand: The family fill up half a restaurant when they go out on in Lake city, Tennessee - and their own dining table is so large Dad Gil says he can't hear what's going on at the far end

Dad Gil is busy extending their home which already has five bedrooms, eight bathrooms, two kitchens, a huge dining room with a 14ft table and its own nursery and a schoolroom.

The Bateses make many of their own clothes and refuse to have a TV in the house, spending their spare time playing games, singing and playing instruments.

At weekends they go out singing together at old people's homes to spread goodwill.
Expanding home: Gil, a tree surgeon, is currently extending their five-bedroom, eight-bathroom property in Lake City to make more space


Gil runs a tree surgery business with some of his older sons while Kelly, a housewife, teaches all the younger children at home.

The family gets through a massive amount of food each week - polishing off 48 eggs, four packs of bacon, 40 scones and two large loaves of bread each breakfast time.
Most recent additions: Gil and Kelly met at college in 1986, married in 1987 and she fell pregnant soon after. Here they are holding Callie-Anna, one, and month-old Judson Wyatt

'The dining table is so big I can't really hear the people at the far end,' said Gil.

The house has four huge washing machines and two industrial dryers to cope with the seven loads of washing that needs to be done every day.

'The kids are very responsible and caring of each other,' said Kelly.

'I hardly even cook these days.'

Gil and Kelly met at college in South Carolina in 1986.

They married in 1987 and Kelly fell pregnant soon after.

'I didn't want any children at all when I was younger,' said Kelly. 'I wanted to be a career woman. I didn't enjoy babysitting. But over time God changed my heart.'

After Gil finished college, the babies came thick and fast. For the first 15 years Kelly was pregnant every single year.

'I was pregnant more than I wasn't pregnant,' said Kelly.

'I always loved having lots of brothers and sisters,' said Zach, the eldest, 21, who is a volunteer fire fighter, as well as working for his dad.

'There's always someone to play with. There's always a friend. I don't know what being lonely feels like.'

After the couple's 16th child, Ellie, now three, Kelly suffered two miscarriages.

'That was one of the hardest times in our lives,' said Gil, who has delivered 11 of his children.

Doctors told Kelly that the miscarriages were caused by low progesterone levels so, after some hormone replacement, she fell pregnant yet again.
Spreading goodwill: At weekends, the family go out singing at old people's homes. 'We wouldn't change our family for the world,' says Nathan, 17

Baby number 17, Callie-Anna Bates, was born on August 2, 2009.

On September 15, 2010 Judson Wyatt, the family's eighth boy and 18th child was born.

The brothers and sisters sometimes argue but the Bates' say they are usually one big happy family.

Nathan, 17, said: 'None of us would change our family for the world.

'It's currently eight boys and ten girls.

'We've got a bit of a race going and Mom needs to have two more boys to settle it.'