Google has put up a slick new website for the Glass augmented reality glasses it's developing, and today the company released a neat new video that offers a first look at what it feels like to use the glasses during "everyday life" (or perhaps, "while living the life").
In the middle of last year, The Economist released rankings for the world's most livable cities, and Hong Kong was found at the top. What many people don't know, however, is that there is a percentage of Hong Kong residents living in rather horrid conditions.
In an attempt to draw attention to the issue, human rights organization Society for Community Organization recently commissioned a series of photographs showing what a number of unacceptable living spaces look like when viewed from directly overhead. (Here's a larger version of the photo above.)
This is an incredible photo. The range of emotions expressed (anger, grief, despair), the position of the people and bodies, and proximity of the photographer to the subject make it an incredible moment in time. And because of these elements, this photo was deservedly named the World Press Photo of the Year.
It also looks like an illustration.
A more complete list of specs has emerged for the rumored Canon 7D Mark II. The camera may be a miniature counterpart to the EOS-1D X, likely featuring a smaller body, less features (maybe), less weathersealing, and a lower price point than the 1D X.
Photographer Ian Ruhter has released the latest video in his beautiful Silver & Light series, which follows along as he creates portraits around the United States using a giant wet plate camera van. The video above is titled, "Death Do Us Part," and is about the idea of letting go of fears.
Back in 2010, we humorously reported that chickens have image stabilized heads. Some people took the idea further, turning chickens into organic Steadicams and doing further research into the subject.
Moscow, Russia-based photographer Alexey Kljatov shoots incredibly beautiful photographs of snowflakes on the open balcony of his home... using a custom compact camera kit. That's right: rather than use fancy (and pricey) camera gear, Kljatov simply uses a 12.1MP Canon PowerShot A650 and some DIY macro gear that he put together.
NYC-based creative agency OKFocus has created a brilliant interactive music video for the song "Not The Same" by Tanlines. The experimental video is styled after Photoshop's workspace.
The "ultrapixels" that were rumored earlier this month have arrived. HTC announced its new flagship smartphone today. Called the HTC One, it features new camera tech that aims to shake up the world of smartphone photo snapping.
Animated GIFs are often created with a sequence of photographs, but UK-based artist INSA puts an interesting twist on the concept by mixing the concept with graffiti and time-lapsing. For his GIF-iti projects, he paints large-scale street art pieces on various walls and surfaces (e.g. the side of a truck) over a number of days. Once each version of the piece is complete, it's saved as a photographed with a camera fixed in a certain location.
After the series of graffiti pieces is completed, the photographs are strung together into unique animated GIFs.
Shooting a seasonal time-lapse poses several challenges. You have to figure out how to power the camera for a very long time, how to protect it from the elements, how to make sure nobody messes with it, and how to run your set-up for months without needing to check on it very often.
Fortunately, if you're interested in making your own long-term time-lapse, the people of Kontent Films have put together a step-by-step tutorial on Instructables that covers all the bases -- from building the enclosure to shooting the (many thousand) exposures.
New trend alert: Eric Wilson of the New York Times reports that fashion …
You may or may not know this, but Google Maps offers a Business Photos feature through which the search giant allows "Google trusted photographers" to provide street view tours of business establishments. That way, you can browse the local camera shop's selection before you ever actually go in.
But a small ski shop in France made headlines a couple of weeks ago by putting the feature to hilariously creative use. The store is Krakatoa in southern France, and when you tour their establishment, you'll find some very interesting things are going on in that store.
Grammy Award-winning Jazz singer Esperanza Spalding is currently in the midst of a legal battle with photographer Kevin Ryan over the cover art on her 2012 album Radio Music Society (pictured above). The cover shows Spalding sitting atop a vintage boombox that is actually a sculpture made of pictures attached to a wooden box.
Spalding and her people chose to use the piece on the cover after discovering it at Brooklyn’s Galapagos Art Space. The issue is that they neglected to credit or license Ryan, who was the photographer behind the photos on the box.
Portland, Oregon-based photographer and visual artist Jim Kazanjian is like the M. C. Escher of architectural photography. His art pieces appear to be photos of some of the strangest looking buildings found in the weirdest locations, but the reason the images are so dreamlike is because they came from Kazanjian's mind rather than the real world.
Are you a fan of small things? UK-based photo enthusiast Greg Dash is trying to launch "the world's first digital Lomo-fisheye." It's a pint-sized digital toy camera that packs a 170-degree fisheye lens.
We already know that buying 'new' camera gear online is no guarantee that you're actually getting something new. Even when the source seems to be trustworthy (ala Amazon), you just never know.
Film emulation software company VSCO has added another offering to its lineup of Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw plugins. VSCO Film offers the same high-end film emulation power as Film 01 and 02, except it's designed for mimicking the look of instant films rather than standard color and black-and-white film stocks.
In in 1946, the United States conducted a series of nuclear weapon tests at Bikini Atoll in what's known as Operation Crossroads. A total of two bombs were detonated to test the effects nuclear blasts had on naval warships. The second, named Baker, was the world's first nuke to be detonated underwater. Due to the unique properties of underwater explosions, the Baker test produced a number of unique photographs that the world had never seen before.
Sony has a couple of new cameras and a set of new lenses coming out, and we're starting to get a better idea of what we'll be seeing announced very shortly. Expect to see a new SLT camera called the A58, a new mirrorless camera called the NEX-3N, and a trio of A-mount lenses.
Online dating websites are a multi-billion dollar business nowadays, and more and more single-and-looking people turn to the Interwebs to find their soul mates. Photographers Patrick Eggert and Sophie Ellis met through the Web as well, but not through a matchmaking site: their relationship started through a Flickr comment.
HTC has been teasing the release of the rumored HTC One smartphone for the past few weeks by tweeting out cryptic photos that supposedly hint at features that will be officially announced at their press event on February 19th.
Most of these photos get just enough media attention to keep HTC in the news coming up on the Tuesday press event, but the latest photo (top) has the photography world in a bit of a stir. That's because it depicts a Canon lens, leading some sources to speculate that the HTC One will feature Canon DSLR lens add-ons.
Here's a cool time-lapse (or rather, "hyperlapse) that involved quite a bit in way of post-production to get it to work with the background music as well as it does. It was shot over 14-days within a 3-month period, and offers an awesome time-lapse look at the amazing city of Vienna.
Over the holiday season, many of the brick and mortar retailers (Best Buy among them) promised to match online prices in a bid to stop their clientele from trying in store and ordering from the likes of Amazon online -- a process that has been nicknamed "showrooming."
A couple of months later, Target made its online price match policy year-round. And now, according to Bloomberg, your friendly neighborhood Best Buy (assuming they haven't closed down the one in your neighborhood, that is) is following suit, making it an attractive place to purchase basic camera gear.
For beginners in the world of photography, getting a good grasp on the types of lenses available and when you might want to use them is an important step. So, given that there's a lot of glass out there, we thought we'd share this basic lens intro from Pentax.
Chinese New Years festivities have been going on over the past week in cities around the world. Over in Singapore, photographer Choo Yut Shing captured this neat photograph of a giant light snake slithering down a street.
Late last year, photographer Cheyne Gallarde turned to Kickstarter to raise funds for an ambitious series of self-portraits titled Universe of One. Inspired by the work of Cindy Sherman, the project features Gallarde posing as a wide range of people, both male and female, of different ethnicities, and from different walks of life. The transformations are done using only makeup, wardrobe, and lighting tricks.
To drum up interest for the series, Gallarde came up with an interesting incentive: contribute to the book, and have a portrait of yours recreated humorously with Gallarde posing as you.
We've shared some funny pictures in the past that illustrate how distance, not focal length, changes perspective -- but nothing beats a video walk through. So, in this short video, photographer Mike Browne explains why you should treat your zoom lens as a series of prime lenses, and not the equivalent of getting physically closer to your subject.
In what many are seeing as a bid to take over some of Twitter app Vine's newly created video loop market, video company Vimeo has bought up the popular iOS app Echograph. Echograph, in case you're not familiar with it, is an application that allows you to create animated GIFs, loops and cinemagraphs.
In 2002, photographer Greg Heisler was asked to photograph former PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. Now, eleven years later, we get to hear the story behind that photo.
At the time, Heisler was already in Gaza city photographing former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. And even though the photo of Arafat was a very simple shot taken using a wooden four-by-five camera, a black velvet backdrop and a simple soft box, it's still fascinating to hear exactly what went into getting it.
Iran recently made headlines when they unveiled their new state-of-the-art fighter jet, the Qaher-313. Touted as a cross between an F-35 and an F-22, it immediately fell under scrutiny when aviation experts pointed out that the plane that was unveiled could, at best, be only a miniature working prototype.
In response, the Khouz News website published the photo above, showing the 313 patrolling the skies over majestic Mount Damavand. Clearly this was the real deal, right? Not exactly. As it turns out, the photo is a Photoshop creation combining a wallpaper image courtesy of Picky Wallpapers, and one of the original photos of the jet from the unveiling.
If you're going to infiltrate the world of penguins for an up close and personal documentary, you have to get creative. So, wildlife producer John Downer and camera operator Geoff Bell did just that.
By creating undercover cameras shaped as everything from rocks and pieces of ice, to several robotic penguin creations, they were able to get an incredibly intimate look at the lives of the world's best dressed birds.
From hitchhiking across Africa with a borrowed camera, to photographing some of the world's hardest to reach places from the air for National Geographic, expedition photographer George Steinmetz has quite a story to tell. And in this video, he's kind enough to share the details.
NPR has published a fascinating piece about 25-year-old young Syrian woman named Noor Kelze who has been working the front lines of the Syrian conflict as a conflict photographer for Reuters.
The Pew Internet & American Life Project released the results of a survey this week that sheds light on social media use among Americans. One of the networks they asked participants about was Instagram.
After surveying 1,802 Internet users in late 2012, the study found that 13% of Internet users use the mobile photo sharing service. It also found that the service is "especially appealing" to "Adults ages 18-29, African-Americans, Latinos, women, [and] urban residents."
Photographer Bill Gekas of Melbourne, Australia has been creating portraits of his young daughter in the style of master European painters of old.
One of the major international news stories today is the fact that a meteorite streak across the sky in central Russian today, causing an explosion and shock wave that injured over 1,000 people. It was the largest meteor reported since 1908. The event was well documented, as many Russian drivers had dashcams rolling as the event unfolded.
When people test cameras and lenses for resolution, they commonly use special resolution test charts that are filled with black bars of varying lengths and thicknesses. They're kind of like eye charts, except for cameras instead of eyeballs, and with lines instead of letters.
Well, did you know that in dozens of locations around the United States, there are gigantic resolution test charts on the ground?
This 2 minute 39 second video is the official trailer for the upcoming documentary, "Finding Vivian Maier." It tells the story of one of the greatest photography finds in recent history, and of the brilliant work of a photographer no one had heard of just a decade ago.
When Eastern Australia was hit by ex-Tropical Cyclone Oswald late January and early February, it caused certain places to turn into foamy wonderlands, as up to 8 feet of sea foam was blown onto land from the sea. Photographer Brandon Rooney took advantage of the occurrence by pulling out his Canon 7D and documenting the strange scene.