April 29, 2012

The Last Sitting--Marilyn Monroe's Topless Pictures From Her Last Photoshoot Ever

These are vintage chromogenic pictures of Marilyn Monroe who, almost 50 years after her death in August of 1962, remains one of the most famed and celebrated icons in the world. The topless photos of Marilyn, collectively referred to as "The Last Seating", were snapped by photographer Bert Stern for Vogue Magazine in 1962 just six weeks before the platinum blonde mega diva was found dead at the age of 36 in her California home.

The famous prints which emerged recently, are scheduled to go up for auction on May 8th in New York.




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April 26, 2012

Enigmatic Art--Ray Caesar's Gorgeous, Puzzling, and Provocative Subjects

These images are the magnificent work of British-Canadian visual surreal artist and digital painter Ray Caesar whose work has been featured before on Lunatica Desnuda. All I can say is that I never cease to be completely fascinated by these gorgeous, enigmatic, provocative and evocative images so deftly created by the immensely talented Caesar. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Self Examination

Siren

Titania

Iron Shoes

Asterion

Words of Wisdom

La Chasse

Premonition
Home Coming

Second Sight
See more of Ray Caesar's work here and here

Fantastic Fusion of Drawing and Photography--Ben Heine's Amazing "Pencil Vs Camera"

"Pencil Vs Camera" mixes drawing and photography, imagination and reality. It’s a new visual concept invented and initiated by Ben Heine in 2010. It's full of magic, illusion, poetry and surrealism. Ben published his first "Pencil Vs Camera" image in April 2010 but the series is the result of a long graphic exploration and a logic consequence of his personal artistic development. Ben usually integrates an inventive hand made drawing in front of a realistic background. There are several methods to achieve the same effect (see "Interviews" for more info). Ben’s hand is always clearly visible; it represents the close connection between the viewer, the artist and the artwork. The drawing is always in black and white while the photo is often very colorful, this amplifies the contrast between the two mediums. In this series, Ben likes to focus on people’s life, portraits, nature, animals, architecture... Among others, the main themes approached in "Pencil Vs Camera" are: Love, Freedom, After Life, Friendship and Nature. Ben says: "I just make art for people. I want them to dream and forget their daily troubles. I used to write poems many years ago, I want to convey a poetic and philosophical meaning into my pictures, each new creation should tell a story and generate an intense emotion, like a poem, like a melody". Because of their originality and the visual innovations Ben brought in his artworks, this series has had a huge impact on the graphic design community and has generated several buzz on the Internet. Ben says the initial idea of this "Pencil Vs Camera" concept came by coincidence while he was writing a letter in his family house in Braives, Belgium.











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Ben Heine.com

April 24, 2012

Michael Oswalds's Sexually-Charged AmalgaMATE Fembots





Michael Oswald, who also responds to the moniker of "MichaelO", is a photographer and graphic designer who likes to tinker with the human female physique to create these sexy fembots through the use of Photoshop and digital painting techniques. Creepy or sexy? What do you say folks?