This amazing image might look like a computer generated graphic, but it’s actually a composite photograph by NASA showing India’s population growth over the years. The white areas show the illumination visible in the country prior to 1992, while the blue, green, and red lights indicate new lights that became visible in 1992, 1998, and 2003, respectively. The four photos were tinted and then combined into an image that reveals where new populations are appearing. NASA definitely needs to do one for every country!

Nighttime Lights Of India (via Business Insider via Photojojo)

P.S. The image is currently being circulated around the Internet as a photo that shows the Hindu celebration Diwali (AKA the “festival of lights”). Unfortunately, that’s not true.

Filmmaker Kevin Shahinian of Pacific Pictures has a knack for unconventional wedding videos. In the past, he’s turned one wedding flick into a thriller, starring the newlyweds.

Key to his films is the idea that the stories are somehow universal; the plot extends beyond the individual love story that he is documenting. Though he is covering the personal stories of a single wedding party, he crafts a storyline that even strangers can appreciate.

For his most recent film, “City of Lakes,” he’s masterminded a fantastic conceptual short film by fusing live footage from a wedding and a scripted love story he created.

Though the film runs just under 30 minutes, it’s definitely worth a watch.

As an added plus, all the filming was done exclusively with Canon DSLRs, the 5D Mark II and the 7D, outfitted with L-series lenses.

The hybrid feature film was shot over the course of nine days, on location at Udaipur, India. Shahinian said that he was working with a skeleton crew that he usually works with to shoot live wedding events. Shahinian wrote on his Vimeo production page:

…it would become an unprecedented attempt to combine a fully scripted, produced film with Melissa & Samir’s real, live wedding into one, seamless film…“CITY OF LAKES” is as much a documentary about what it means to return to the birthplace of one’s ancestors, as it is an exploration of the Hindu faith, and the rituals of a Hindu marriage.

The resulting film is a colorful cultural portrait, a beautiful love story, and an engaging wedding video with a touch of Bollywood-style lightheartedness.

In a move that might spark another Internet debate, Flickr has added India to the list of countries unable to view content rated moderate and/or restricted.

Flickr user crazydude2006 posted a topic to the help forums titled, “i can not see the photos of my contacts.” After a few other users chimed in with their suggestions on how to fix the problem, staff member zyrcster posted the following response:

As you are coming in from a Yahoo! ID in India, and we just localized our site to India, you won’t be able to view moderate or restricted content.

Here’s a screenshot of the thread:

A quick look at the help page for content filters reveals the following updated lines:

Note: If your Yahoo! ID is based in Singapore, Hong Kong, India or Korea you will only be able to view safe content based on your local Terms of Service (this means you won’t be able to turn SafeSearch off). If your Yahoo! ID is based in Germany you are not able to view restricted content due to your local Terms of Service.

Thus, if you’re based in India and noticed recently that you can no longer access certain photographs, now you know why. It likely won’t do much good to complain to Flickr, however, since they need to abide by the laws of each country in order to continue providing their service there.

(via Thomas Hawk)