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First few days we were in the room in and out, so I only grabbed a few photos from the window, which were pretty breathtaking anyway, but on the last day, right after breakfast, while waiting for an elevator to take me down, I decided to venture around the floor a bit. And stumbled on an open roof access. Bingo!

I’m not a roof topper by any chance, but I get the thrill of it. It is genuinely exciting! One thing to remember, though, is that I was born in Moscow, Russia, and I, as all ex-USSR kids are, used to be in thousands of forbidden places — and really scary places even for an adult to venture in.

So I glanced around, came back, got down the elevator, and hid my excitement during a coffee chat with Oleg over daily business and routine. Once we got back from the cafe up to our room, I said — “Come on, get your iPhone out, I have something very special to show you”.

We got to the stairs and climbed up the roof. You can see everything around! The roofs or windows of other building ...

New York is a huge city. You might feel it, when you are walking in the city among the skyscrapers, but you don't feel it, until you are on the top of the roof of the 44-story building. You cannot feel the vastness of the city, or the greatness of the human intellect, powered by the massive ideas and dreams of construction... You don't feel all this, until you are on the roof. Only to find out that 44th floor is, rather, not that high, when you are in New York.

We came to New York on March 29th, 2012 on a business trip, and lodged in a Double Tree by Hiton, located on 8 Stone Street in lower Manhattan. To be fair, lower Manhattan is one of three my favorite places in New York city — other being SoHo and Central Park, of course.

Luckily for us, we were able to quickly check-in, got warm and very tasty chocolate chip "The Cookie" (I usually hate those but this one made me want more!), and got the plastic cards within a nice paper wallet, saying 44. Well, we’ve got the room on the top ...

I love when some contemporary 'artists' impress the public with some obscure and unusual art installations. I always find them too grotesque to be even considered art. But, well, we live in a society that loves to be engaged, loves to be impressed. And that's where the contemporary forms come from. So, consider this to be my own 'The Art Project' with all the lavish titles and consequences that go with that. Yeah, I'm gonna accept all the awards you are about to throw at me in awe.

PS: What's even cooler is that you can hover over every photo and purchase it as a canvas print or as HD download. It's art, for art sakes!

A month back our 500px team went to Mexico for a short vacation before the launch of the new 500px. We knew we wouldn't get much sleep before the launch and after it, so it was a great getaway to get out, get some tan and shoot some photos for fun. It's not the whole story yet, and I have yet to unpack my gigabytes of photos to upload here, but I hope you'll enjoy a small scoop into the atmosphere of Mexico :)

There are places you will never believe exist. No computers, Internet, daily routine, traffic jams. It’s wide and breathtaking. It’s actually so big, that it might take you years to travel it all. I’m talking about mountains.

I don’t know if many had been there, or if whether many companies have been there, and I bet it’s not a very large number.

Some people, like Anton Jankovoy are the explorers in a classic sense. They find thrill in going places, and then — going beyond. They show that human is not a merely traffic-jam-sitting-sapiens, but rather a crown of evolution.

Anton is not a usual person in one more sense. He is stunningly good photographer, bringing amazing and unbelievable photos from his travels.

Not to mention, he’s so good that Apple (yes, that Apple) reached out to him and bought one of the images for the next OS release. Could that be Mountain Lion? We’ll find out this summer!

And it’s a real please that Anton loves 500px so much, that he brought a flag with h ...