I came across two great photo essays yesterday. The first is an art project from China, called 13 Months in the Year of the Dog. Two photographers selected daily news items and recreated them with dramatic lighting and highly theatrical composition. The result is an eerie series of beautiful and surreal images that bend the brief stories into dramatic worlds of deeply resonant emotion. The set feels not unlike to the fantastic Gregory Crewdson’s work.

How To Be An Alaskan Fisherman is an essay for Fecal Face by Corey Arnold, a hip young photographer who also happens to be a fearless fisherman, traversing the open sea off the coast of Alaska, leading a life of danger and adventure. With brilliant photographs, he illustrates the steps one must take to transform from a naive art school student to a toiling laborer in an exotic and incredible locale. It reminded me that I should maybe make a five-year plan towards getting my ass off the computer and out into the big wide open world with all of its odysseys and adventures.