LIFE – The world is too small? or Is it?

37 Weirdly Beautiful Old-School Science and Tech Photos

During its four-decade run, from the late 1930s to early 1970s, as one of the world’s premier weekly magazines, LIFE covered an utterly dizzying array of people and events. Best-known, of course, for its photographs and articles on World War II, the Space Race, the Vietnam War, Camelot, pop-culture icons like Marilyn Monroe and Sinatra and other major issues and world figures, from the very first LIFE also opened its pages to coverage of science and technology.

Staff photographers like Fritz Goro, Andreas Feininger, Yale Joel, J.R. Eyerman and others were justly celebrated for finding new and creative ways to illustrate the often-esoteric breakthroughs — and the scientists and engineers — transforming the world in the middle part of the last century. Often the magazine’s treatment of these issues and people was unreservedly admiring; at other times, LIFE cast a more skeptical eye on new developments, inventions and areas of research. But no matter how wry or laudatory its voice, the magazine’s ability to bring seemingly “unphotographable” concepts to light always helped to further the conversation around everything from space travel and atomic energy to the minuscule workings of human cells.

Here, LIFE.com presents a selection of photographs by some of history’s most innovative photographers — pictures that encompass the bizarre, heady and often beautiful worlds of science and technology as seen in the pages of LIFE.

Here are some of these photographs:

LIFE With Sophia Loren: Rare and Classic Portraits of a Film Legend

“Powerful, enduring relationships can sometimes develop between a photographer and his or her subjects. Such was most definitely the case with LIFE’s Alfred Eisenstaedt and the luminous Italian movie star Sophia Loren. Over the course of their decades-long friendship, Eisenstaedt would take countless pictures of the Oscar-winning legend — most of which never made it into the pages of LIFE magazine (and many of which were never intended for the magazine).

Loren appeared on LIFE’s cover seven times through the 1950s and ’60s.”

Here are some of these great shots:

When Cover Lines Collide: Mixed Messages From LIFE Magazine

“There’s an art to writing magazine cover lines — those enticing blurbs of text that, when all goes well, tell readers what stories or features to watch for inside. Editors agonize and argue not only over what articles make the cover, but how to best highlight those articles that make the cut. The cover story itself, of course, gets an awful lot of attention, but quite often there are two or three (and sometimes more) features that merit prominent mention.

Finding a way to somehow, simultaneously, create a hierarchy among the various cover lines — this one is very important; this one is perhaps a tad less so; this one, meanwhile, is just kind of cool — while also making sure that all of the stories get noticed is among the trickiest balancing acts in all of publishing. When it works, it’s beautiful. When it doesn’t … well, things can get confusing, and unintentionally comical, right quick.

On April Fools’ Day, LIFE.com takes a friendly look at a number of LIFE magazine covers through the years that featured some jarring — and frequently humorous — disconnects between cover photos and cover lines for other stories in the very same issue. Marilyn Monroe and UFOs? A slow, huge-eyed primate and Winston Churchill? Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis and germ warfare? Here, in all their oddball wonder, are early examples of media mash-ups that, decades later, still have us scratching our heads — and smiling.”

“As an added bonus, for no other reason that that we like it so very much — and because it’s so very strange — we’ve also chosen to include the cover of the April 26, 1937, issue of LIFE: the only cover among literally thousands published by the venerable weekly not to feature the distinctive red and white LIFE logo in the upper left-hand corner. The reason for the logo’s exclusion? According to a note from the editors that appeared on the issue’s table of contents page, the LIFE logo “was not boldly superimposed on this week’s cover because that would have spoiled the composition” of Torkel Korling’s striking portrait.”

“All these years later, we find it impossible to argue with that logic. The White Leghorn Rooster — proud, defiant, inscrutable, unblinking — stands alone.

Well played, LIFE. Well played, indeed.”

Rememebering JFK inaugural address

When I captured JFK’s inugural address, I had not expected that it will lead to so,unexpected, unplanned , but so fruitfully long trail,of so many great details.

Leap Year and Leap Day: Pictures of People Leaping About, in Honor of February 29 – LIFE

Leap Year and Leap Day: Pictures of People Leaping About, in Honor of February 29 – LIFE.

The irrepressible LIFE comes up with one more of a very innovative, equally interesting, photo story.

This time the topic is Leap Year.

Be prepared to enjoy great photographs and archive them for frequently re-visiting.

Remembering Audrey Hepburn

The regular visit to LIFE is more beneficial than having to see better photographs.

You can re-visit your past in manner which in itself can be a very enriching experience.

This post is to gratefully document such a visit and remembering Audrey Hepburn.

AUDREY HEPBURN at Her Most Stunning

http://www.life.com/embed/index/gallery/id/22722/isHd/0

and

Audrey Hepburn: Life and Career

http://www.life.com/embed/index/gallery/id/22721/size/large/isHd/0

LIFE’s Person of the Year

Every year since 1927, TIME magazine has singled out one newsmaker as its Person of the Year — the headline-grabber who most captured the world’s attention and influenced people, for better or for worse, over the previous 12 months. The title has been bestowed upon adventurers (Charles Lindbergh), heroes (MLK), villains (Hitler), royals (Queen Elizabeth II), U.S. presidents (every one since FDR except Ford), and Internet mavericks (Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg). Now the pick has been made for 2011.”

<!– LIFE GALLERY 52661 –>http://www.life.com/embed/index/gallery/id/52661/isHd/0

THe LIFE still continues to be so stunningly active and interesting!