Photographer Jason Hawkes returns to The Big Picture once more having captured stunning aerial shots of global landscapes, many of which have somehow been affected by humans. View all 26 photographs here.

Gorgeous work by Saatchi & Saatchi for B&B Italia. View the entire campaign here.

Hedi Slimane shoots the Coachella Music Festival. More at Hedi Slimane's photo diary.

News stories about North Korea have been quite frequent recently, with their test launch of a rocket over Japan, withdrawal from nuclear disarmament talks coupled with a threat to restart their nuclear program - and their recent arrest and indictment of two U.S. reporters on its border with China. Even with all this attention, photographs from North Korea are still restricted and hard to come by.

One way around that has been for photographers to peer inside from across the border. Collected at the Big Picture are some recent photographs, looking into reclusive North Korea from the outside - and some of the reactions these observations induce.

Via The Big Picture.

Oki-Ni has recently launched their much-talked about Fashion Archive. The Archive brings back iconic pieces from earlier collections of select designers. For now, the spotlight is on Raf Simons, menswear's most quietly influential designer. I thought Oki-Ni did a great job of covering Simons' diverse portfolio, especially his earlier works. I would definitely recommend a view through for anyone who has only recently heard of the man. Check it.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft is now a nearly a year into its extended mission, called Cassini Equinox. The spacecraft continues to operate in good health, returning amazing images of Saturn, its ring system and moons, and providing new information and science on a regular basis. Collected at The Big Picture are 24 more breathtaking images from our ringed neighbor.

Via The Big Picture.

Swedish photographer Edvard Koinberg has created a visual counterpart to Carl Linnaeus’ 18th century work on plant sexuality with his new book Edvard Koinberg: Herbarium Amoris. Linnaeus worked with a collection of 20,000 plants and grouped them according to sexual organs, drawing parallels to human anatomy, a concept that formed the basis for Edvard's plant photography. The book is available now at TASCHEN.

Via Curated.

Christian communities around the world are currently celebrating Holy Week - both the last week of Lent and the week before Easter. Holy Week commemorates the last week of the earthly life of Jesus Christ culminating in his crucifixion on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter Sunday. Here, hooded penitents from the Fusionadas brotherhood take part in the procession in Malaga, Spain.

Via The Big Picture

Beginning March 22nd, 2009, Alaska's Mount Redoubt, began a series of volcanic eruptions, and continues to be active to this date. Ash clouds produced by Redoubt have pushed 65,000 feet into the sky, disrupting air traffic, drifting across Cook Inlet, and depositing layers of gritty ash on populated areas of the Kenai Peninsula and Anchorage, about 180 km to the northeast... Nature always does it best.

Via The Big Picture

Photographed by Hedi Slimane.

One of my favorite online shops, Oki-Ni, will soon offer its customers the opportunity to explore archived collections of select designers. Creative Director John Skelton reasons "we produced the archive because we wanted to and because we wanted to keep giving you more than just products to buy. We hope to offer a completely unique experience and this is one of the ways we’re trying to do that."

The first designer to be featured is Raf Simons. A selection of his pieces, including items from his initial mid 90’s collections, will be displayed online for public viewing.

Via Style Savage.

Afghan horsemen play Afghanistan's national sport Buzkashi in the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, March 20, 2009. Buzkashi is the national sport of Afghanistan, which literally translated means "goat grabbing."

In Buzkashi, a headless carcass is placed in the center of a circle and surrounded by the players of two opposing teams. The object of the game is to get control of the carcass and bring it to the scoring area.

Via Big Picture

Iraqi Kurds carry torches up a rocky hill as they celebrate Nowruz in the Kurdish town of Akra, 500km north of Baghdad on March 20, 2009. Nowruz marks the first day of spring and the beginning of the year in Iranian calendar. It is celebrated on the day of the astronomical vernal equinox, which usually occurs on March 21.

Via The Big Picture.

Thom Browne's debut print campaign photographed by Lauren Winslow. View the rest of the ads here.

Via Selectism.

.

Prada's curious Spring 2009 lookbook, produced and designed by the brand's go-to architect, Rem Koolhaas and his Rotterdam research firm, AMO. Exploring the collection's "domain of inspiration", the lookbook shows the clothes on some highfalutin mannequins—namely, Greco-Roman statues.

Via Men's Style.

On March 18, 2009 an undersea volcano erupted off the coast of Nuku'Alofa, Tonga, sending plumes of steam, ash and smoke up to 100 meters into the air. Dana Stephenson of Getty Images managed to capture this stunning shot of the eruption.

See the rest of the set over at The Big Picture.

I recently discovered the work of large-format photographer Edward Burtynsky through Jennifer Baichwal's documentary Manufactured Landscapes. Burtynsky's most famous photographs depict sweeping landscapes altered by industrial expansion. The grand, awe-inspiring beauty of these images is often in tension with the ravaged environments they portray, a point that Baichwal emphasizes in her documentary.

Burtynsky's most compelling work (in my opinion) is his visual documentation of China's ongoing Industrial Revolution, you can view the entire series here.

Last Wednesday, people in India and other countries with large Hindu populations celebrated Holi, the Festival of Colors. Holi is celebrated as a welcoming of Spring, and a celebration of the triumph of good over evil. What that translates to in action is an enthusiastic dropping of inhibitions, as people chase each other and playfully splash colorful paint, powder and water on each other.

It's like living through one of those Color Like No Other commercials... what I would give for an experience like that! For more stunning photography from the event, head over to The Boston Globe's Big Picture.

The latest issue of NY Times' T-Style Magazine launched a few days ago, shifting our focus back to menswear with the current spring/summer collections. After a quick scroll through the bit that really stuck with me was Eric Nehr's 'Artistic License' spread, an homage to my favorite expressionist artist, Egon Schiele. The photography here is beautiful; Nehr did a fantastic job of capturing on camera the contorted proportions and angular poses that characterized Schiele's work. Check it.