November 2012

Accurate Photographic Recreations of Old Paintings That Feature Chairs

We've featured photographic recreations of old master paintings before, but usually they've focused on simple portraits rather than elaborate scenes. London-based photographer Maisie Broadhead went with the latter when doing her recent project "Taking the Chair." Working with her mother Caroline, Broadhead selected seven fine art paintings that prominently feature a chair. The duo then tried to accurately recreate the details of the scene for photographs.

Paparazzi Feeding Frenzy When Jennifer Lopez Appears at a Fashion Show

Last October, Jennifer Lopez made headlines around the world after showing up at a Chanel fashion show in Paris with her 4-year-old daughter (wearing $2,400 in jewelry) and 25-year-old boyfriend in tow. Photographs of the trio sitting in the front row quickly made their way to the front pages of major newspapers and websites.

Although the photos appear to show Lopez and co. peacefully sitting around, the environment created by the photographers there was anything but peaceful. Sébastien Bauer was sitting a few rows back at the time, and captured the above video showing what it's like to have frenzied paparazzi breathing down your neck as they look to score a widely-published shot.

The Ethereal World of Extreme Landscape Photographer Alexandre Deschaumes

Self-taught photographer Alexander Deschaumes only started making photos back in 2003, but his dedication to the craft and his thirst for jaw-dropping landscapes have brought him a long way since then. Deschaumes braves extreme weather and hazardous landforms, going to locations that many landscape photographers would never dare venture, all for the sake of his images. The 2-minute video above offers a look into his world of extreme landscape photography.

Princess Photographer: Nature Photos by Kate Middleton Seen Around the World

If you're a photography enthusiast who wants to have your images seen by as many eyes as possible, it helps to be royalty. Just ask Kate Middleton. The Duchess of Cambridge has published a number of photographs shot during a recent trip to the Bornean jungle in Malaysia. The photographs were quickly shared by major news outlets around the world, from The Guardian and BBC News in the UK to TIME magazine and CBS in the US. Publicity isn't hard to come by if you're a princess photographer.

500px Acqui-hires 2-Person Team Behind Popular iOS Photo-Browsing App ISO500

500px is on a tear. The service has been growing like a weed as of late, and appears to have some ambitious plans in the works. The company announced today that it has acqui-hired (i.e. buying out a small company mainly for the team's talent) the two-man development team Pulpfingers, creators of the popular iOS 500px browsing app ISO500.

How to Quickly Resize Multiple Photos in Mac OS X Using a Terminal Command

If you use a Mac and regularly need to resize batches of photos, there's actually a tool built into your operating system that lets you do just that without having to open any image editing program. It's called "sips", which stands for scriptable image processing system. It's extremely easy to use, but you'll need to know how to use Terminal to take advantage of it.

BTS: Using Shutter Drag to Shoot Motion-Blurred Photos of Dancers

I was recently offered the opportunity to direct a filler piece by Filler Magazine that involved telling a beautiful love story through fashion and dance. I also shot a series of artistic still photographs in which I used shutter drag to add motion-blur to the images. Here's a behind-the-scenes look at the shoot.

The Scale of Nature: Photos of Humans Dwarfed on Epic Mountainscapes

We humans may be apex predators, but we're rather tiny when compared to the sheer scale of nature and landforms. Polish photographer Jakub Połomski captured this fact through his project titled, "The Scale of Nature." Połomski visited the Alps in France and Switzerland between 2008 and 2012, and shot a series of aerial photographs showing mountain climbers being dwarfed by the awe-inspiring snow-capped mountains they're traversing.

RIP: Bayer Filter Inventor Bryce Bayer Has Passed Away

Bryce Bayer, the Eastman Kodak research scientist who invented the Bayer Filter back in 1975, passed away on November 13th at the age of 83. Bayer filter mosaics are used by nearly every digital camera, allowing a single sensor to capture a full-color photograph with the help of some "mathemagic".

Woman Disrespects Military in Facebook Photo, Has Life Turned Upside-Down

It's a story that's becoming more and more common: someone uploads tactless photos to the Internet, the Internet disapproves and collectively pounces on the person. It happened after Hurricane Sandy when a Brazilian model decided to do a photo shoot amidst the devastation, and it has happened again. The target of the Internet's fury this time is a woman named Lindsey Stone, who posted the above photograph to her Facebook page.

A Time-Lapse Showing How Quickly Dust Accumulates on Nikon D600 Sensors

Back in October, we wrote that the Nikon D600 suffers from excessive sensor dust in the upper left hand corner of the frame -- something many owners have been reporting and a flaw confirmed by review sites such as DPReview. Toronto-based artist Kyle Clements wanted to test this himself, so he bought a new D600, pointed it at a white piece of paper, shot 1000 frames, and created the time-lapse video above.

Using a Gigantic Wet Plate Van Camera to Tell the Stories of People in America

Earlier this year, we shared a beautiful short documentary, titled "Silver & Light", which featured Los Angeles-based photographer Ian Ruhter and the gigantic wet plate photographs he shoots using a van that he converted into a massive camera. Since then, Ruhter's work has received a good deal of attention; the video now has nearly 1 million views, and Ruhter has been traveling around the country and using his special photography to tell the stories of people he meets.

He has just released the new video above, titled "American Dream." It's an inspiring look at some of Ruhter's first shoots for the project (note: it contains some strong language).

Abstract Photographs of Human Bodies in Motion

Japanese photographer Shinichi Maruyama has an interesting series of photos simply titled, "Nude." Each image shows an abstract flesh-colored shape that's created by a nude subject dancing in front of the camera.

Viral Photos of a 72-Year-Old Grandfather Modeling Women’s Clothing

Product photos for clothing lines typically feature generic, attractive models, since the point of the images is to make the clothes accessible and desirable to consumers. Yuekou, an online clothing store in China, has found great success by using a different approach: its photos for teen girl outfits feature a 72-year-old man.

Interactive Photos Can Now Be Shared Directly on Twitter

Twitter has introduced the ability to share interactive photographs directly through the microblogging social network. Images that have a rich content layer added on via services like Stipple and ThingLink can be displayed in-line through Twitter's website with all their extra goodness intact.

ClearViewer: A Folding High-Diopter Lens That Turns Your LCD Into an EVF

ClearViewer is the compact camera's equivalent of a DSLR viewfinder attachment. It's a folding high-diopter lens that lets you use your compact camera's LCD screen as an electronic viewfinder by putting your eye less than 2 inches away from the screen. This lets you see fine details in the shot, make precise manual focus adjustments, and avoid the problem of glare.

Cameras and Film in White, With All Visual Branding Removed

New York City-based photographer and brand strategist Andrew Miller has finished his project Brand Spirit (which we featured earlier this year), a photo-a-day effort to capture a well-known product in a way that's completely devoid of visual branding. For 100 days, Miller painted an object completely white and then photographed it on a white backdrop. Of the 100 objects he chose, three of them are related to photography: a Polaroid camera (#65), a Canon FTb (#86), and a roll of Kodak film (#39).

Photos of Faces Projected Onto Trees

Clément Briend is a French photographer who photographs images being projected onto various surfaces in various spaces. For his project titled Cambodian Trees, he traveled to the Kingdom of Cambodia and photographed trees that had faces of the nation's deities projected onto the leaves.

Tips for Shooting Killer Silhouette Photos

My wife Tori and I are suckers for a good silhouette. While out photographing, we are always scanning the environment for a good silhouette opportunity. We don’t nail every attempt, but over the past few years, we’ve picked up some simple tips that increase our chances of achieving a killer silhouette shot. If you want to execute a jaw dropping silhouette, put these tips to practice and chances are, you’ll accomplish your goal!

Processing a Space Shuttle Endeavour Flyby Photo Using Lightroom

When Space Shuttle Endeavour was making low level flyovers of famous landmarks across the United States a couple of months ago, Adobe Lightroom Quality Engineer Ben Warde was able to photograph it flying by the Golden Gate Bridge. The 10-minute video above shows how Warde post-processed one of his best shots from that day using basic Lightroom adjustments. While the information may be basic for many of you, it should be helpful for people who are just starting out with programs like Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw, or Aperture.

Win a Joby Strap, GorillaPod, Ballhead, and Camera Backpack Worth $550

Update: This giveaway is now over. The winner was randomly selected and announced below.

It's giveaway time! With the holiday season just around the corner, we have a great prize package that's sure to bring some photographic cheer to one lucky reader. We're giving away a Joby UltraFit Sling Strap (your choice of the men's and women's versions), a GorillaPod Focus with Ballhead X, and a Lowepro Rover Pro 45L AW camera backpack. The total value of this package comes out to $550.

Eye-Fi May Soon Launch Its Own Cloud Photo Sharing Service Called Circ

It seems like we're saying this every week, but the cloud photo storage industry is becoming more and more packed. Heck, even AT&T launched its own service called Locker earlier this month. The next entrant to the arena looks like it will be a photography company we didn't expect: wireless SD card maker Eye-Fi.

Photos of the 37 Ingredients That Go Into Making a Twinkie

By now, you've probably heard the sad news: Twinkie maker Hostess announced last week that it plans to shut down and sell off all its assets. To pay tribute to the popular -- and not-so-good-for-you -- snack cake, here's an interesting project photographer Dwight Eschliman shot a while back, titled, "37 or So Ingredients."

GOP Committee Causes Stir by Posting, Pulling Paper on Copyright Reform

One of the big stories in the tech world this weekend was a policy brief published by the Republican Study Committee titled "Three Myths About Copyright Law and Where to Start to Fix It," which people called "shockingly sensible" and a "watershed" paper. However, just one day after it went up, the paper suddenly vanished.

Review: Canon EOS M is Like a Sluggish DSLR Trapped in a Compact Body

Canon made its loyal customers wait quite a long time before it finally joined the mirrorless camera revolution, announcing the Canon EOS M back in June. The camera comes nearly four years after Panasonic kicked things off by “friending” Olympus -- forming the Micro Four Thirds alliance -- and introducing the Lumix DMC-G1, making Canon the last major DSLR maker to join the fray.

A Dazzling Time-Lapse of Stars, Meteors, and Auroras Dancing in the Sky

Photographer Brad Goldpaint started his journey in photography just three years ago, but you'd never guess that from watching this impressive time-lapse effort, titled "Within Two Worlds." Goldpaint writes,

Within Two Worlds depicts an alternate perspective by giving us the illusion of times movement, signifying a beginning and end within a world of constant contradiction. It appears you are traveling in the midst of a dream, half-sleeping, half-waking, and touching the arch connecting heaven and earth.

I discovered my passion for photography shortly after my mother’s passing while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) 3 years ago. This time-lapse video is my visual representation of how the night sky and landscapes co-exist within a world of contradictions. I hope this connection between heaven and earth inspires you to discover and create your own opportunities, to reach your rightful place within two worlds.

The Camera Versus the Human Eye

This article started after I followed an online discussion about whether a 35mm or a 50mm lens on a full frame camera gives the equivalent field of view to normal human vision. This particular discussion immediately delved into the optical physics of the eye as a camera and lens -- an understandable comparison since the eye consists of a front element (the cornea), an aperture ring (the iris and pupil), a lens, and a sensor (the retina).

Despite all the impressive mathematics thrown back and forth regarding the optical physics of the eyeball, the discussion didn’t quite seem to make sense logically, so I did a lot of reading of my own on the topic.

Humor: What Some Photography Clients Act Like in the “Real World”

Here's an oldie but goodie: Scofield Editorial released this tongue-in-cheek video back in 2009 titled, "The Vendor Client relationship in real world situations." It pokes fun at how clients try to bargain with creative professionals in ways that they would never do in "real world" situations (e.g. eating at a restaurant, buying a movie, getting a haircut).