October 2012

IKEA Catalog Photoshop Controversy Spawns New Internet Photo Meme

IKEA received a lot of bad press around the world earlier this week after it came to light that the company had Photoshopped women out of its Saudia Arabian catalog. The company has since apologized, but the Internet isn't planning to let the story die down without poking some fun at IKEA's expense.

Leica: The Little Privately-Owned Engine That Could

The camera maker we know as Leica, officially known as Leica Camera AG, is now 100% privately owned. The main shareholder, Lisa Germany Holding GmbH, announced earlier this week that it had successfully bought out the 2.44% of stock still in the hands of third-party shareholders, paying a set price of €30.18 (~$39) for each of the shares.

The stock will also be removed from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange as a part of this plan, a move designed to save the company time and money -- the management will no longer need to worry about all the hassle that comes with being a publicly traded company.

Manga-Camera is Like Instagram Filters for Japanese Comic Lovers

There's an iPhone camera app generating quite a bit of buzz, and it's not Instagram or Camera+. The new rising star is Manga-Camera, a fun app that's been downloaded like hotcakes in recent days (okay, we made up that expression). It has been downloaded over a million times in just the past week, and is currently the number one most popular app in the Japanese App Store.

The app is similar to Instagram filters, except instead of making your photos look like they were taken with a retro or toy camera, it makes them look like they were drawn by a Japanese manga artist.

The Never-Before-Published Pacific War Photos of Private Glenn W. Eve

Back in the summer of 1942, the US Army called upon a young man named Glenn W. Eve (above left) for World War II. After finding him to be 5'9'' and just 125 pounds, the military deemed him unfit for combat. Unlike Steve Rogers, there was no experimental serum available to Eve, but luckily he had a desired skill: photography. In 1944, Eve was promoted to private first class and placed in the Signal Photo Corps in order to document the happenings in the Pacific.

102 Autofocus Points on Sony A99 Only Compatible with 6 Lenses At Launch

When the Sony A99 SLT was announced last month, photographers gawked at the camera's 102-point focal plane phase-detection system that compliments its traditional 19-point AF system. If you've been drooling over the idea of using 121 separate focus points, here's some bad news: the feature may not be compatible with your Sony lens.

The Phoblographer reports that only 6 lenses will be able to take advantage of the new system when the camera is launched later his month.

Interview with Angelo Sgambati, Photog for America’s Next Top Model

Angelo Sgambati is a fashion photographer based in Sydney. He has been a photographer for three seasons of the TV show America's Next Top Model. Visit his website here.

PP: Can you tell us a little about yourself and your background?

AS: I'm about to turn 28. I was born in Italy before my family moved to Australia when I was 5. I currently live in Sydney, Australia, but I have spent the last 2 years working around the world in England, Greece, Jamaica, Macau, Canada and Papua Guinea.

Photos of Women Holding Vegetables as Weapons

Yep, you read that title correctly. Vegetable Weapons is a photo project by Japanese photographer Tsuyoshi Ozawa. Since 2001, Ozawa has been traveling to various countries around the world, photographing young women holding make-believe firearms constructed using vegetables and other foods.

How Chinese Photogs Are Camouflaging Their Japanese DSLRs During Protests

Over the past month, there have been violent anti-Japanese protests across China over disputed islands between the two nations. Japanese businesses and manufacturing plants have been besieged, leading companies like Canon and Panasonic to suspend their operations and evacuate their premises.

In the midst of all this chaos, a tricky problem presents itself: how does a Chinese photographer go about documenting the rioting? As you know, Japan is the motherland of most major digital camera companies, while China doesn't have much of a role in this industry besides manufacturing the cameras at the request of those corporations. The answer: flags and tape.

Two Photographers Selected for $500,000 MacArthur “Genius” Grants

Every year, the MacArthur Foundation selects 20-40 exceptional people in the United States and awards them with $500,000 MacArthur Fellowship "Genius Grants" -- prestigious awards that come with no strings attached. Winners are of all ages, come from all kinds of fields, and are selected purely because they "show exceptional merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work."

The 2012 winners were revealed today, and of the 23 people selected, two of them were photographers: Uta Barth and An-My Lê.

Using Time-Lapse Photography to See the Movement of Massive Glaciers

People sometimes use the expression "slow as a glacier" to describe something so stagnant that even the speeds of snails and molasses would feel inadequately fast in comparison. The fastest glaciers ever measured move at tens of meters per day, while the slowest ones may budge only have a meter over the course of a year. Most of the time, the movement is too slow for the human eye to see.

Luckily for us, there's something called time-lapse photography. Back in 2004, PBS aired a NOVA episode titled Descent into the Ice, which followed photographers and adventurers as they ventured deep into the heart of a glacier found on Mont Blanc. One of the things they did was set up cameras to capture the movement of glaciers over extremely long periods of time. The video above shows 5 months of movement seen under a glacier moving 2 feet per day.

Man Scooters Across America with a Panoramic Camera Made of 8 iPhones

Gabriel Paez is like a one-man Google Street View. On September 21, 2012, the panoramic videographer and iPhone hacker set out from Seaside, Oregon on a journey across the United States to Portland, Maine. Carrying him from place to place was Pucho, his 2005 Vespa PX150 scooter. Strapped to his back was a giant panoramic camera rig designed to capture 360-degree video footage of his adventure "for a live stage show" he's working on.

Kodak Pulls the Plug on T-MAX P3200

Kodak may be planning to sell its film division, but for the time being the business is still under the company's control. The company announced yesterday that T-MAX P3200 is the latest in its lineup to be discontinued, citing the plummeting demand for ultra-high speed black-and-white film.

Daredevils Brave Near-Scalding Water for Incredible Lava Photographs

Photographers and best friends CJ Kale and Nick Selway tell us they make a living by creating and selling photographs of Hawaiian volcanoes. "Making a living" is an interesting choice of words, because both photographers risk their lives in capturing their incredible images of violent explosions and glowing lava flows.

Canon 3D Appears Briefly on B&H Before Vanishing Into the Night

Canon's rumored-but-yet-to-be-announced 46-megapixel DSLR may be named the Canon 3D after all. While browsing camera store B&H last night, the folks over at Nine Volt randomly decided to search the site for "Canon 3D". They were surprised to find that the actually returned a result.

Sony Makes a Couple of Last Minute Edits to the RX1 Full Frame Compact

How do you stuff a full frame sensor into a compact camera body? The answer: with great difficulty. It appears that Sony is running into a few technical hurdles after announcing its groundbreaking RX1 full frame compact camera. The company announced today that the camera will be shipping with a couple of last minute modifications made to the design and to the specs.

Nikon D4 Used by Usain Bolt at London Olympics Goes Up for Auction

Usain Bolt ran beyond the boundaries of sports and made headlines in the world of photography earlier this year at the London Olympics. After winning yet another gold in his 200m race, he ran over to Scandinavian newspaper photographer Jimmy Wixtröm, grabbed his Nikon D4, and began shooting some awesome photographs of what he was experiencing.

Wixtröm just sent us an email with some neat news: the famous D4 is now being auctioned with the proceeds going to charity.

Ansel Adams Prints Found Sitting in a Box in a UC Berkeley Library

UC Berkeley's library system is the fourth largest library in the United States, so it's no wonder that treasures are often forgotten and buried inside the rare collections. Case in point: a massive collection of signed prints by Ansel Adams have been discovered in one of the 32 libraries, just sitting around in a box.

A Portrait Project Showing Subjects with Two Perfectly Symmetrical Faces

Symmetrical Portraits is a well-known and oft-imitated series of photos by photographer Julian Wolkenstein, shot back in 2010. After picking a number of subjects based on their facial features, he photographed them staring blankly straight-on into the camera. He then split the faces down the middle in order to obtain two separate "portraits" showing what the subject would look like if they had a perfectly symmetrical face.

Apple: iPhone 5 Purple Flaring Is Normal, You’re Just Holding it Wrong

Remember this photograph tweeted last week by @weaksauce12? It shows the strange purple flaring reported by many iPhone 5 users, which is being called everything from "purple haze", to "the Hendrix effect", to "Purplegate". Fingers were pointed at everything from the phone's new sapphire lens to the infrared filter -- or supposed lack of -- inside.

If you were patently waiting for a fix, you'll be disappointed to know that there doesn't appear to be one on the horizon: Apple is saying that the excessive purple flaring behavior is "normal".

Iranian President’s Photographer Defects During Assignment in New York City

Official presidential photographers lead exciting lives. President Obama's photographer Pete Souza attends secret meetings and captures iconic photos. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's personal photographer was arrested last year after being accused of being a spy for Russia. Now Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's photographer is the latest to do something noteworthy: he defected to the United States.

How Facebook Profile Pictures Can Make a Difference in Someone’s Life

In addition to being used for art and documentation, photographs have long been a medium of communication. This is even more true in this social networking age in which photographs can easily be used to tear people down or build people up. This heartwarming video published over at Facebook Stories is a great example of the power of socially shared photos.

Creative Landscape Photos Shot Using a Mirror and Off-Camera Lighting

Last week we shared a project by photographer Daniel Kukla, who photographed mirrors on easels in the desert in a way that makes them look like landscape paintings. Photographer Brendan Wixted did a similar project earlier this year for a photography class at his university, except he used off-camera lighting to illuminate the reflected landscapes.

IKEA Caught Photoshopping Women Out of Its Saudi Arabian Catalog

IKEA found itself in some hot water today after it came to light that a number of women seen in its catalog photographs had been Photoshopped out of the frame for the Saudi Arabian edition. Swedish newspaper Metro broke the story today with a scathing piece titled, "Women Cannot be Retouched Away," writing that IKEA's new catalog reflects the country's oppression of women by editing out every single human with two X chromosomes.

The Surreal Light Painting Photography of a Blind Photographer

Sonia Soberats' journey in photography didn't start until she couldn't see the photographs she was producing. Around two decades ago, she lost her eyesight to glaucoma between losing her son to Hodgkin's disease and her daughter to ovarian cancer. At the turn of the century, Soberats began taking photography lessons in New York City as a form of therapy and self-expression. Her technique of choice? Light painting.

Baseball Fan Catches Home Run Balls with a Camera in the Other Hand

Die-hard Dodgers fan Bobby Crosby is the only person to ever film himself catching a home run at a Major League Baseball game. That's not all though: over the past few years, he has also filmed himself catching tens of home runs during the batting practice prior to games, holding his baseball glove in one hand and his camera in the other. The video above, which is currently going viral online, shows Crosby's amazing first person view of all but a few of those catches.