Yesterday was the third annual Corgi Derby, an event that pays tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth II by racing her favorite dog breed. Juno was the fastest to complete the 230-foot course in Musselburgh, Scotland, and was presented with a trophy and treats by Judy Murray, mother of tennis champion Andy. Here's a selection of cute (and some slightly snarly) photos from the dogs' big day out, courtesy of Defector.

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#Photography #Photos #Dogs #DogsOfMastodon #Scotland #Corgis #QueenElizabethII

Marc Chagall's painting, White Crucifixion, was Pope Francis's favorite. "Pain is depicted there with serenity," said the late pontiff of the 1938 work, which was created in reaction to Nazi crimes against Jews. Forward examines how Francis' experiences under military dictatorship in Argentina in the 1970s may have led to his love for the painting, which culture editor Talya Zax says shows, "there is a kind of fragile peace to be found in the act of surviving what might seem unsurvivable." Zax concludes: "He understood, very well, the violence of the world he was about to leave. And he understood, like Chagall, that any experience of peace within that world was something to strive for — not something guaranteed."

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#Art #Painting #PopeFrancis #Catholicism #Judaism

"This is a quiet photo that speaks loudly," says World Press Photo executive director Joumana El Zein Khoury of the World Press Photo of the year. The portrait of nine-year-old Mahmoud Ajjour, who lost both arms in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City in March 2024 was taken by Palestinian photographer Samar Abu Elouf for the New York Times. Learn more about the winning image, runners up and regional winners from @BBCNews.

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#Photography #Photos #NewsPhotography #WorldNews #Palestine

When artists imagine the future these days, it looks bleak and dark — and actually, fair enough. But for Boomers, it was colorful, shiny, and sometimes sexy — and that's at least partly down to the late Syd Mead, the concept artist who worked on "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," "Tron" and "Blade Runner," and also depicted futuristic vehicles and alien vistas, imbued with optimism rather than evil. Six years after his death, Mead has his first retrospective, Future Pastime. Read more about it in the Art Newspaper's story here, and see it in New York until May 21. Story may be paywalled.

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#Art #Movies #Film #ScienceFiction #Futurism #Dystopia #BladeRunner #Tron #StarTrek #SydMead

There was huge backlash last month when OpenAI announced its new AI image generator and demonstrated it by showing Studio Ghibli-inspired pictures. The company's CEO, Sam Altman, responded to the criticism last Sunday by describing it as "democratization" of art creation. @ArtNews's digital director Harrison Jacobs says Altman's missed the point, quoting Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki. "I can’t watch this stuff and find [it] interesting. Whoever creates this stuff has no idea what pain is whatsoever. I am utterly disgusted. If you really want to make creepy stuff, you can go ahead and do it. I would never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all. I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself.”

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#Art #AIArt #StudioGhibli #HayaoMiyazaki #SamAltman #ArtificialIntelligence #AI

Need something to make you smile? Popular Science shares 15 images from the International Pet Photography Awards, including shots of an elegant whippet, a gentle Friesian stallion, and a sweet rescue rat named Button.

https://flip.it/e7vYpd

#Photography #Photos #Pets #Lifestyle #DogsOfMastodon #CatsOfMastodon #HorsesOfMastodon #RatsOfMastodon #Dogs #Cats