February 2012

Beautiful Mosaics of Trees Photographed Across Time

Photographer Noel Myles has been working for the past 15 years on "still films" of trees across the countryside of eastern England. He originally created platinum/palladium prints of the trees around the year 2000, and then photographed the trees a decade later using color film. He then combined pieces from the different photos into single mosaics, which he tells us are "the antithesis of the notion of a decisive moment".

CineSquid: A Suction Cup Tripod System Fit for Spiderman

Last year MIT grad Justin Jensen raised nearly half a million bucks through Kickstarter to launch CineSkates, a camera slider system that adds wheels to GorillaPod Focus tripods. Now Jensen and his startup Cinetics are back again with a new product called CineSquid, which provides a strong suction cup mount system rather than wheels. This allows cameras to be mounted onto things like cars, boats, and even airplanes.

Hovering Swarms of Random Objects

Photographer Thomas Jackson has an ongoing project titled Emergent Behavior that consists of surreal photographs of swarms of various things (e.g. leaves, plastic cups, ping pong balls) in various locations. The images aren't computer generated, but are rather composite images combining a number of photographs -- probably similar to the "flock of phones" tutorial that we featured a while back.

An Insane Non-Manipulated Photograph of a Keel Walk Stunt

This amazing photograph of sailor Alex Thomson walking on the keel of an 8-ton yacht was created with courage rather than Photoshop. It was an ad for fashion house HUGO BOSS, which has sponsored Alex Thomson Racing since 2003. The conditions for the shot had to be just right, and the skipper had to carefully keep the yacht at a 45-degree angle for up to a minute to avoid crushing Thomson and the jet ski driver.

Fully-Functional Twin-Lens Reflex Camera Created Using LEGO Bricks

After seeing the LEGO large format camera we featured last year, Norway-based photographer Carl-Frederic Salicath set out to create his own LEGO camera. Rather than go with large format, he decided to build a more complicated Rolleiflex-style twin-lens reflex camera that uses 120 film. Aside from LEGOs, he also used some matte ground glass, a mirror, and lenses taken from a binocular.

Maddie the Coonhound Balancing on Things Across America

Atlanta-based photographer Theron Humphrey is currently on a year-long trip through each of America's 50 states, and is using a unique photo project idea to document it: he has his coonhound named Maddie -- his travelling companion -- balance on various things in the different places they visit.

Camera Lenses with Custom Paint Jobs

A week ago we published a tongue-in-cheek post on how to improve the quality of your Canon kit lens by painting a red ring around it. While that wasn't intended to be taken seriously, we were pointed to a Korean workshop named Park in Style that actually takes custom lens body work quite seriously. What you see above is a Canon 18-55mm kit lens that they disassembled, painted, and then reassembled to look like a Canon L lens!

LED Light Suit Turns Snowboarder Into a Sole Light Source

Fashion photographer and filmmaker Jacob Sutton recently had the idea of capturing "a lone character made of light surfing through darkness". He had designer John Spatcher create an LED enveloped suit, and then had pro snowboarder William Hughes wear it while zipping down the slopes of the Rhône-Alpes region in south-east France.

D-CAN: A Cylindrical Concept Camera

Designer Jean-michel Bonnemoy thinks that traditional camera designs are wrong, and that form factors were driven more by technical necessity (e.g. the need to hold film) than by ergonomics and ease of use. Instead, he proposes that modern digital cameras should be cylindrical and resembling a handheld telescope. A lens cap is built into the front, a viewfinder and LCD screen are built into the back, and the controls are in easy-to-access locations on the side of the camera.

How Before and After Bodybuilding Photos are Often Faked

Here's a clip from the bodybuilding documentary "Bigger Faster Stronger” in which photographer Rich Schaff spills the beans on some industry secrets for how those unbelievable before-and-after photos promoting bodybuilding products are made. He shows how both shots can be of the same model on the same day, with various tricks and image manipulations used to achieve the drastic differences you see.

Everything is a Remix Explores the Derivative Nature of Creativity

Everything is a Remix is a fascinating four-part video series by filmmaker Kirby Ferguson that explores the concept of creativity, and how everything created has some degree of copying, transforming, or combining of old ideas. While the series isn't specifically directed towards photographers, the ideas are quite relevant to the discussion of "original" work.

Basketball Fan’s Secret Weapon is a Giant Photo of His Own Face

An Alabama basketball fan named Jack Blankenship has been attracting quite a bit of media attention for his creative method of distracting opposing players when they shoot free throws: Blankenship printed out a giant photograph of himself making a strange face and waves it around while making the same face. His antics quickly caught the attention of sports writers, television cameras, and the Internet -- one screen grab from a recent game has been viewed over half a million times already online.

“When I Borrow Someone’s Car for a Couple of Hours I Slip Them Fifty Quid”

Last week we reported on a dispute between photographer Jonathan Kent and The Telegraph over the newspaper's "use first and ask/pay later" policy. After contacting the paper over an image of his that was used without permission, Kent received a response from picture editor Matthew Fearn, who informed him stating that their policy is standard and due to the "ever-shifting nature of news". In response, Kent wrote up a tongue-in-cheek letter likening the paper's actions to borrowing a car for a joyride and paying for the use afterward.

The Amazing Photo Manipulation Art of Erik Johansson

Here's an awesome TED lecture in which digital artist Erik Johansson discusses creating realistic "photographs" of impossible scenes.

Erik Johansson creates realistic photos of impossible scenes -- capturing ideas, not moments. In this witty how-to, the Photoshop wizard describes the principles he uses to make these fantastical scenarios come to life, while keeping them visually plausible.

Lightroom 3 Priced at $70 at B&H for 24H

Adorama had a Valentine's Day discount on Adobe Lightroom 3 yesterday, pricing it at just $80. It's back to $135 now, but if you missed out, you now have another chance: B&H has decided to one-up Adorama by selling the program for just $70. The sale will last until the end of today, so you might want to act fast this time if you've been on the fence.

Sound Painting Photographs with Paint and Speakers

Photographer Martin Klimas, whose porcelain figurine photos we shared yesterday, has a series of photographs that look like 3D Jackson Pollock paintings. He spent six months photographing portraits of sound by playing music through a speaker that's crowned with paint. Klimas dials up the volume and then photographs the paint coming alive from vibrations caused by the sound waves.