Peter Stringfellow, 1994. He was an English businessman and nightclub owner. Stringfellow started in the nighttime trade in the early 1960s and recalled booking acts including The Beatles, The Kinks and Jimi Hendrix to play at his clubs. Peter Stringfellow has died aged 77 on June 7, 2018. (Photo by Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Documentary photographer William E. Crawford was one of the first Western photographers to gain access to North Vietnam after the war ended. He has photographed the capital, Hanoi, at regular intervals since 1985, concentrating on the colonial and indigenous architecture, urban details, landscapes and intimate portraits of people in their home settings, street scenes and the city’s surrounding countryside. Here: 54 Hàng Ga (Chicken Street), 1994. (Photo by William E. Crawford from the book “Hanoi Streets 1985-2015: In the Years of Forgetting”)

An Israeli spectator watches a giant T-Rex balloon during the Purim parade festival in Petah Tikva, Israel, Thursday, March 24, 2016. The Jewish holiday of Purim commemorates the Jews' salvation from genocide in ancient Persia, as recounted in the Book of Esther. (Photo by Oded Balilty/AP Photo)

Natalia Williams dressed as Corpse Bride Emily and Tony Knight as a Mandalorian, arrive at the Bradford Unleashed Comic-Con, an entertainment and comic book convention in England on March 8, 2020. (Photo by Danny Lawson/PA Images via Getty Images)

Students training to be flight attendants hold books on their heads, chopsticks in their mouths, and papers in between their knees, as they take part in a standing posture practice at a vocational school in Shijiazhuang, Hebei province, China May 4, 2017. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

If we were to burn NH4Cr2O7 with HgSCN in the Dark Ages in Europe and show it to anyone, it is us who would be burning next on a fiery cross of Inquisition. And it’s no wonder, since this experiment produces a truly marvelous result. At first, as you ignite the mixture of NH4Cr2O7 and HgSCN, all you can see is that it is slowly burning with a reddish flame. After a while, however, a crater is formed in the middle of the burning pile, and then, suddenly, tentacle-like appendages start sprouting from the burning mixture. And you can almost hear the scream of the mad occultist – “Come forth, Kraken! Come forth!” But of course, this is simply a chemical reaction that is called the "Pharoah's Serpent". It was also often sold in firework stores until people realized that it was toxic.

Sleep under the Stars, hosted by Hepburn Wind, has given us an opportunity to enrich our daily life with art. Thanks to this festival, a regular wind turbine was turned into a marvelous peace of art. The artwork is especially noticeable, since its theme greatly contrasts with the background behind the wind turbine. Moreover, the idea of drawing a woman-giantess walking over the mountain tops on a large conical object is quite extraordinary. Nevertheless, the grey and green colors of the picture were very well chosen for this particular image. You can only imagine the obstacles that the artists had to face when making a picture on such a large object. However, nowadays, people never cease to amaze with their ingenuity, leaving us gaping in awe at their creations.

Seth Casteel is an award-winning photographer and the New York Times Best Selling Author of Underwater Dogs. His new book, Underwater Puppies, was published September 16, 2014. Photo: “Underwater Puppies”: Popcicle. (Photo by Seth Casteel)