my little cutie boy

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The World’s Most Beautiful Libraries

“Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.” -Ray Bradbury

For centuries, books have housed the collective knowledge of the world and formed the foundations of educational institutions. Given that these objects contain such value, it only makes sense that throughout history people have constructed beautiful buildings to house them.

We put together a list of some of the most beautiful libraries as captured by Instagrammers around the world. For more photos from these architectural wonders, check out their linked location pages below.

• Stuttgart City Library, Stuttgart, Germany
• Trinity College Library, Dublin, Ireland
• Library of Alexandria, Alexandria, Egypt
• Real Gabinete Português de Leitura, Rio de Janiero, Brazil
• The Royal Danish Library, Copenhagen, Denmark
• George Peabody Library, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
• Kanazawa Umimirai Library, Kanazawa City, Japan
• New York Public Library, New York City, NY

sleepypsychedelia:

Mute Swan

nice picture

thai Fry rice

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Spotlight: Iceland

Since launching, we’ve seen Instagram spread from our headquarters in the Bay Area to every corner of the globe. In this series, Spotlight, we’ll highlight top users from countries and cities with thriving Instagram communities.

The island country of Iceland is best known for its volcanoes, beautiful waterfalls, northern lights and hard to pronounce, well, everything! It’s situated between the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge slices right through the center of the small island nation. Though it is only 103,000 square kilometers (40,000 square miles), there’s no shortage of photographic terrain.

Want a first-person tour of Iceland? We put together a list of some amazing Instagrammers from in and around the country.

• Hans-Olav, snowy scenery and daily life around Iceland’s capital city, Reykjavík — @solavander
• Sig Vicious, graphic designer with an affinity for architecture — @sigvicious
• Vala Halldorsdottir, biking and camping adventures around the island — @valahalldorsdottir
• Anna Sig, stunning nature photography — @annasig

To explore the country in depth, you can also browse the location pages for some of Iceland’s most popular landmarks:

• The Blue Lagoon, a beautiful geothermal spa situated in a lava field
• DC-3 Sólheimasandi, the carcass of a downed United States Navy plane
• Jökulsárlón, a 60-year-old lagoon lagoon filled with giant drifting icebergs
• Gullfoss Waterfall, one of the most popular tourist attractions in Iceland

ikenbot:

The Milky Way Band and Dark Skies

PSA:“That has to be superimposed - they photoshopped that on!” It’s understandable why a lot of you (and I do mean a lot) might be confused when confronting these vistas. But these are actual images of the milky way as seen under the best viewing conditions known to our planet, the dark skies. Due to the rapid growth of our civilization, we emit more light than we should and thus this darkens out many of our views and blocks us from making those wonderful necessary connections to the skies our minds desperately need. We can’t see the Milky Way band as seen above in many places, it’s always there though, rest assured, ready to greet us with its lovely stars. If we’re missing out on this.. is the way we use public lighting really as conventional as we believe it is? [Similar Posts: Losing the Dark - a Public Service Announcement on Light Pollution] [Losing The Dark: GIF set]

Images: Southern dream, Southwest Night, Three Roads To Galactic Paradise, Tropical milky way

disminucion:

(by Tom Cuccio)

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Weekend Hashtag Project: #WHPwaiting

Weekend Hashtag Project is a series featuring designated themes & hashtags chosen by Instagram’s Community Team. For a chance to be featured on the Instagram blog, follow @instagram and look for a photo announcing the weekend’s project every Friday.

This weekend’s tag was #WHPwaiting, which asked participants to capture photographs of places or scenes that represent waiting. Every Monday we feature some of our favorite submissions from the project, but be sure to check out the rest here.