In the Malabar region of Kerala, India, an ancient Hindu ritual known as Theyyam exists in a continuum of ceremonial customs that date back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The practice carries on today through elaborate costumes and dances during which a performer wears sacred garments and invites a deity to enter their body as a way to seek blessings. Theyyam season, which typically runs from October to May, sees hundreds of performances around the region, with many concentrated in November and December.

“Theyyam is a reminder that the divine exists within and around us,” says artist Navneet Jayakumar, whose lens-based practice centers around explorations of ethnography and the surreal. “In an age of disconnection, its wisdom has the power to ground us and heal a fragmented world.”

Now based in London, Jayakumar grew up in Malabar, and Theyyam was a memorable part of his childhood. For the first time in 12 years, he returned to Kerala during the ceremonial season and was struck by its intensity and time-honored connection to the region’s cultural heritage. “Witnessing the ritual reignited my curiosity about the broader spiritual and historical context of my culture, the role Theyyam once played in it, and the ways in which colonial narratives had distorted my perception of both,” he says in a statement.

Jayakumar’s series Beyond the Colonial Gaze documents the ancient custom through an ethnographic lens, aiming to highlight an event that’s little understood outside of the region, primarily due to its oral traditions, which make it challenging to research. “With a lack of traceable records exacerbated further by centuries of colonial intervention, I discovered there was very little information available about the ritual’s broader spiritual context,” he says.

Through the innately visual medium of photography, Jayakumar set out to record Theyyam to counteract its lack of recognition—especially as an Indigenous tradition that was seen by European colonizers as “uncivilized” or “primitive.” His energetic, glowing images portray meticulously designed costumes and face-painted performers.

Exhibited in different parts of Europe, Jayakumar’s images represent what he describes as “a symbolic victory of a culture that was destroyed and shunned as barbaric but lives on through me and many, many people back home.” Find more on Jayakumar’s website and Instagram.

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When viewed through early telescopes, some nebula appeared round, so astronomers in the 18th and 19th centuries likened them to planets. These so-called planetary nebulae, having actually nothing to do with planets, are formed when a star—of a type similar to the Sun—emits huge amounts of ionized gases as it reaches the end of its life.

In late October, the James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) captured this dramatic and beautiful phase occurring in what’s known as the Red Spider Nebula, or NGC 6537.

“After ballooning into cool red giants, these stars shed their outer layers and cast them into space, exposing their white-hot cores,” scientists say. Ultraviolet light from the star then causes the material to glow as it’s cast off into space. “The planetary nebula phase of a star’s life is as fleeting as it is beautiful, lasting only a few tens of thousands of years.”

Webb’s newest image of the Red Spider Nebula, named for its wide lobes that form the “legs” of its namesake, shows hot dust likely orbiting the central star. “Though only a single star is visible in the Red Spider’s heart, a hidden companion star may lurk there as well,” a statement says. “A stellar companion could explain the nebula’s shape, including its characteristic narrow waist and wide outflows.”

Learn more on the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope website, where you can explore many more images. (via PetaPixel)

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The shortlist for this year’s Close-Up Photographer of the Year competition has arrived. After deliberating for a total of 20 hours on Zoom, 22 judges evaluated a record-breaking 12,557 photographs and consolidated its most promising contenders. Capturing the diversity of wildlife and nature landscapes across 11 unique categories, each photo highlights stunning close-up, micro, and macro perspectives.

CUPOTY’s Top 100 photos are yet to be selected from this collection in January 2026. Find the entire shortlist on the contest’s website, and in the meantime, follow Instagram for updates. Can’t get enough of these extreme close-ups? Immerse yourself in images from past cycles of the contest.

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As it turns out, humans aren’t the only animals with a flair for drama. The 2025 Comedy Wildlife Awards (previously) presents another collection of angsty, surprised, and utterly terrified creatures around the globe. This year’s competition highlights several characters that would be right at home in a neighborhood yoga studio, from the elegant orangutan doing her own interpretation of tree pose to a fox crashing onto its neck after an all too relatable misstep.

Find all the winning images on the awards’ website.

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From record-breaking droughts and catastrophic flash floods to contaminated pipelines and increasingly thirsty AI farms, water is at the nexus of the climate crisis. The life-giving liquid is both scarce and too abundant, causing half the global population to lack sustained access to fresh drinking water, while much of the world is subject to hotter, wetter weather that subsumes communities with extreme conditions.

For designer, author, and activist Julia Watson, pinpointing myriad approaches to these all-consuming problems is one of the most critical and urgent tasks today. Her new book Lo-TEK Water, published by Taschen, highlights various Indigenous technologies and aquatic systems that could be utilized in adapting to a climate-changed world.

There are the two-meter-deep canals of Xochimilco, Mexico, which delineate 55,000 square meters of raised fields called chinampas. While built by the Aztecs to clean the water and irrigate crops, this system actually originated with the Nahua people. Similar are the floating islands of Intha Myanmar, which weave together roots, leaves, sediment, and other materials to create hydroponic beds.

Although Watson is keen to draw on ancient practices that could be more widely utilized today, she also highlights more modern approaches, like Pakistan’s Yasmeen Lari, an architect who’s responsible for devising the world’s largest program for creating shelters and cookware that leave no carbon footprint.

At 558 pages, Lo—TEK Water positions “water as an intelligent force that can shape resilient cities and landscapes. Aquatic infrastructure is reframed—from extractive and industrial into regenerative and evolving—designed to sustain life for generations,” a statement says.

Watson is a key voice in the broader Lo—TEK movement, and this new book is a companion to her previous volume focused on sustainable technologies. Find your copy on Bookshop.

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From a record-breaking 60,636 submissions, the 2025 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition (previously) has selected 100 images that capture the breadth of life on Earth. The 61st annual contest, helmed by Natural History Museum, London, features a diverse array of habitats, from a brown hyena skulking through an abandoned Namibian diamond mine to an orb weaver spider illuminated by the kaleidoscopic glow of headlights. Together, the photos present a timely consideration of our impact on the environment, along with an astounding glimpse at the planet’s many gems.

As usual, you can find a fraction of the winning images below, but all are available for viewing on the museum’s website or in person through July 12, 2026. Photographers can also submit their works for the 2026 competition through December 4.

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As the days grow shorter and colder in the Northern Hemisphere, billions of birds are migrating south. Their routes, habitats, food sources, and behavior are incredibly varied. From distinctive plumage to sleeping habits to intimate connections, the world of avians is as about as expansive and awe-inspiring as it gets.

More than 11,000 species have been formally documented around the world, but there may be upwards of 20,000 depending on how they’re recorded. And through the eyes of fine art photographers, we’re afforded a stunning look into this unique world. A new book, Aviary: The Bird in Contemporary Photography, celebrates feathers and flight.

Published by Thames & Hudson, Aviary features the work of more than 50 international photographers. Colossal readers may recognize images by Joseph McGlennon, Søren Solkær, Tim Flach, Leila Jeffreys, and many more, all of whom approach their subjects with an eye for atmosphere and individual personalities.

Christine Ward’s “Connection,” for example, is an eminently relatable moment between two ravens. In Jeffreys’ portrait of an owl, we can imagine being given the side-eye, as if it knows more than it’s letting on, and the dangling songbird in Kimberly Witham’s “Still Life with Goldfinch, Bleeding Heart and Tulip” evokes a distinct sense of humor.

More than simply a catalogue of different species, the volume highlights vibrant and artistic portraits, landscapes, and candid moments that glimpse “our complex relationship with birds, questioning how we observe them and respond to their presence—and vice versa,” the publisher says.

Find your copy in the Colossal Shop.

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Such minuscule details of life may be out of sight, but they’re certainly not out of existence. Back for its 2025 installment, Nikon’s Small World Photomicrography Competition (previously) highlights the complexities of our world beyond the naked eye.

From dozens of algae cells floating in a single droplet water to the inner workings of a dedifferentiated liver cell, this year’s collection of winning images and honorable mentions capture the microscopic diversity of life forms. Flip through the contest’s online gallery for more, and add some science to your feed on Instagram.

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Nothing sparks the imagination quite like coming across a trove of old photographs. We look for writing on the reverse and scan the anonymous faces to read a range of expressions. Where exactly they were at that moment, what brought them together that day, and who took the picture? For Stan Squirewell, the allure of historical portraits is a central tenet of his multimedia practice.

In large-scale, mixed-media collages, the artist begins with black-and-white photographs, typically taken a century ago or longer. He especially emphasizes portraits of Black individuals, whether gathered together as a group or posing independently. Some of these compositions start with a formal portrait in a studio, while others have more of a snapshot quality. On their clothing, Squirewell collages fabric patterns, paint, and glitter, inviting the past into the present.

Squirewell’s current solo exhibition, Robitussin, Hotcombs & Grease at Plattsburgh State Art Museum, delves into Black identity and daily experience. The title nods to ubiquitous items as “hallmarks of domesticity and comfort in Black homes,” the museum says, focusing on “the reclamation of identity from historical anonymity.”

Squirewell sources photographs from the Smithsonian Institution’s anonymous photo collections and from family and friends. Through the intimate medium of the portrait, anonymous individuals emerge from the archives and are imbued with vivacious textile patterns, and recognizable luxury brands like Louis Vuitton and Gucci suggest elevated style and status. Scale also plays a role, too, as Squirewell prints the photos quite large, blurring features in the process yet representing the figures closer to life-size so that their presence is palpable.

Robitussin, Hotcombs & Grease continues through December 5. Plan your visit on the museum’s website, and find more of the artist’s work on Instagram.

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“New York is humanity itself. Every type of person is here—every ethnicity, every culture, every religion, every viewpoint. And somehow, despite the honking, the yelling, the shoving, we find a way to make it work,” says Brandon Stanton.

Creating one of the most well-known archives of city life, Stanton is the photographer behind Humans of New York, the ongoing portrait project that shares the stories of everyday people. Since launching the series in 2010, Stanton has amassed 10,000 images that offer a wide-reaching narrative that spans all five boroughs. Humans of New York has long been accessible via wildly popular social media accounts and published in a few books, but now, it’s also sprawled across Grand Central Terminal.

Dear New York debuted earlier this month at the iconic station. Fifty-foot portraits projected in the Main Concourse, along with smaller photographs and quotes lining the underground passageway fill every spot typically reserved for advertising and transit information. This marks the first time Grand Central is completely without ads (at least in recent memory), and Stanton funded the takeover entirely on his own—a decision that cost all the money he earned from the project during the last 15 years, he said in an interview.

“Dear New York is a living, breathing immersive art installation staged in the one place where the entire city comes together—Grand Central. It is a love letter to the people of this city, and about the people of this city,” Stanton added.

Like Humans of New York, this installation intends to transform public space into a site for finding commonalities and recognizing our shared humanity. To emphasize its focus on community, the project also includes a display of works by 600 New York City Public School students in Vanderbilt Hall.

Dear New York is also the title of Stanton’s newest book, available from Bookshop. And if you’re in the city, stop by Grand Central to see the installation through October 19.

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