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Ice Palace

Welcome to the Ice Palace. This frozen temple has been lost in the mountains for thousands of years…until now. Part of our “Earth Chakras” series, this level will be the throat chakra, center of communication, wisdom, voice, sound, clarity etc. Lara must activate the seven chakras of the Earth, each in a very different location, helping our beautiful mother Earth to heal herself once again.

This level is very much a work in progress, expect more screenshots later and a trailer for all 7 chakra levels by the end of the year, time permitting. This is just a short preview to give you a taste. I mixed the music for this video (which will be in the level), which features tracks from Deuter, Ivo Sedlacek, and the Baraka soundtrack. A lovely meditative vision. Expect more relaxing videos like this in the future!

Naturescope Prints

These mandalas from nature evoke the best of the five elements, each one with its own natural wisdom.

Click here to order any of these prints online!

NatureScope Wallpaper Pack

Want these images as your desktop wallpaper? We’re offering 10-packs of our best prints as wallpapers for donors to our ongoing fundraiser. With a $50 donation, the below images could be yours, along with two other 10-packs from our Thailand and Cosmic print collections. Visit our Donate page for more information and images!

These original photographs have been digitally enhanced and manipulated to communicate the divine patterns and wisdom contained in nature. Includes 1600×1200, 1280×1024, and 1024×768 resolution images. Other sizes available upon request. Images for personal use only, not for resale, distribution or commercial use.

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Donate & Receive Wallpapers

Cosmic Mandalas

These mandalas made from Hubble photos and fractal renders remind us of the intricate patterns that manifest all throughout the Universe.

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Some images by NASA, composited and enhanced by us. NASA images are public domain and can be freely sold provided credit is given. Thanks NASA!

Cosmic Chakras Series
Cosmic Mandalas Series

Cosmic Flowers

This colorful gallery of bright and vibrant flowers features orchids and other flowers from our trip to Thailand. A few photos have been recolored from the Thailand gallery, while most of them are brand new. Enjoy these cosmic flowers!

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Visions of Brahma

We created Visions of Brahma as a portfolio and design service website in 2009. The name came from the visionary nature of our work and our resonance with the Hindu Creator deity Brahma, who represents students, artists, the youthful and those that create. For a time it was a good representation of our work online, and we often developed the site to make it better.

This post is a tribute to the website we used for over a year before discovering our true brand in The Astrarium, and an overview of some of the interesting designs we came up with along the way.

As many designers know, the most difficult projects are the ones for yourself. Finding the right business name, brand, and image is very important, and it took us quite some time to find The Astrarium, which is just the right name to describe what we do. Before the Astrarium, there was Visions of Brahma and A Quiet Forest. See our post about A Quiet Forest’s Lifecycle to see some of our older websites.

Here are the various incarnations of Visions of Brahma durings its heyday, leading up to the creation of the Astrarium in April 2010.

Copyright Michael McCracken

This was one of the first layouts, mostly focused on web design services but also featuring artwork in the form of products. This layout, while still quite nice, was a bit too expansive. We set out to create something more grounded and contained.

Copyright Michael McCracken

This version, still largely focused on web design services, used a new background image that found its way into many incarnations of this site. It still needed some improvement though.

Copyright Michael McCracken

At this point in the process, we crafted the new categories browsing method we use now on this web site. At the time we had five categories, and a layout somewhat similar to my site today.

Copyright Michael McCracken

A home page design we created with a new and more vibrant version of the background image, to make the site pop more.

Copyright Michael McCracken

Final version of the home page design with new background and categories browsing, and the last one to be used before we developed the concept for The Astrarium.

If you’re thinking about hiring us for your own web site, and this article turned you off, don’t worry. We don’t usually work like this. Many of our clients say the layout we come up with is spot on the first time, and the revisions are up to you from there on out. It’s just that it’s very difficult to create a personal web site at times, and we also struggled with how to organize the site, as we were creating something totally new. This was a process that evolved over several weeks into the site you see today. We were guided in just the right ways to make each change in layout and organization, and it turned out beautifully.

Vanessa's Vision

Our red carpet premiere for our Documentary 1&2 videos was quite a success! Now it’s time to release both the director’s and extended cut of Vanessa’s Vision online!

Extended Cut

Vanessa is tired and stressed, and not even close to ready for graduation. Her friend Milena comes to her aid and suggests she take a walk on the trails to clear her mind. What started as a short walk on the trails turned into something quite surreal, and ends up changing Vanessa’s life forever.

Part 1

Part 2

Director’s Cut

When my teacher viewed my nearly finished film, he suggested I cut out the other characters, the classroom scene, and all the voiceovers to make a different version of the film. It really tells an entirely different story and leaves it up for interpretation.

Vasudhaiva

This simple abstract video was an introductory project for one of my Video Production classes. We had to explore the theme “The World Is My Family” which in Sanskrit is Vasudhaiva Kuthumbhakam. I filmed myself meditating and overlayed those frames from the wide universe down to our small college campus.

Hindu Deities in the Body

I took a Sanskrit class while at MUM and created this short abstract film as a final project, illustrating the metaphorical locations of the Hindu Deities in the human body and introducing each deity.

Note that the images and music used in the video are not my own. Music is “Dawning” by Benjy Wertheimer and “Integration: The Beginning” by Sophia. I did the After Effects work and put the whole thing together, along with an oral presentation.