Created by Polaroid in 1976, the 20x24-inch instant camera is one of the most unusual and massive pieces of photographic history you can get your hands on (if you're lucky enough... or have the dough). Fortunately for those of you who want to see the cam in action, photographer Chuck Close managed to do just that in a series of images for Vanity Fair's 20th Hollywood issue.
When a lot of the really big life moments are happening, we’re often too busy living them to find a way to document them for later. Who wants to be fumbling with a camera when you’re trying to say something important? But maybe there is an option that lets you capture the precious moments without having to worry about manning your camera at the same time...
I'm all for a little monkey business when it comes to taking photos and playing around with your gear, but this guy here might've taken it a bit too far...
A new photo released by NASA and taken from the International Space Station shows just how dark North Korea really is, and we don't mean figuratively. Taken on the night of January 30th as the ISS was passing over the Korean Peninsula, a nearly completely blacked-out North Korea jumps out at you, surrounded by its well-lit neighbors.
If you browse around online, even if you stay away from the magazine covers with their models liquified into long-legged oblivion, you will be hard-pressed to find professional portraits of women that are as honest and raw as the ones featured on RAW Beauty Talks.
That's because this organization, dedicated to empowering women through portrait photography and an honest conversation about beauty, doesn't just do away with photo manipulation in its portraits... it does away with anything meant to enhance or cover up the way the models actually look.
A reader over at Gizmodo sent a tip their way yesterday pointing to an embarrassing situation involving PayPal's use of a certain stock photograph.
Although it has since been removed, a photo of a small pocket watch over on PayPal's Political Campaigns page with a "donate" button located over it was found bearing a rather obvious iStock watermark... oops.
Here at PetaPixel we enjoy the crunching of numbers. So, naturally, when Mosaic told us about a blog post they had done recently that broke down some Lightroom catalog statistics, we were intrigued.
With "tens of thousands" of Lightroom catalogs synched to their service, they sampled a random 3,000 of those to come up with the average size of a Lightroom catalog. And in the end, they were actually quite surprised by the results.
Sigma made quite a splash at CES this year when the company not only announced that a 50mm f/1.4 lens would be added to its superb Art series, but claimed that this lens would be so good that its competition wouldn't be Nikon or Canon, but the indisputably exceptional $4,000 ZEISS Otus.
Well, thanks to the website Xitek and their recently posted lens test results, we finally get to see if the 50mm's bite measures up to its bark.
Earlier this morning, we received a tip from a reader (who has chosen to remain anonymous) that Doug Gordon -- who was embroiled in a nasty plagiarism scandal along with Jasmine Star late last year -- is still presenting at WPPI, despite having officially withdrawn in October.
As part of a new campaign, Profoto has teamed up with photography pair Justin and Mary Marantz to create a twenty-part video series aimed at educating (and promoting) how best to capture the vital moments of a wedding using TTL lighting.
An advocacy group concerned with the issue of campaign finance reform recently managed to capture some footage that has never been captured before: video from inside the Supreme Court.
What happens when you pit Nikon's $3,000 D800E up against a $30,000 Hasselblad H5D? Well, photographer Benjamin Von Wong -- whose work we've featured quite a bit here on PetaPixel -- got to do just that in a friendly comparison.
Earlier this week, the photography staff of the Orlando Sentinel in Florida was pulled into a meeting in which they were told that their current jobs are disappearing, and they will need to apply to new more 'videocentric' positions by tomorrow, Friday, February 28th.
As with most fields that are technology driven, in photography, if you don't keep moving you'll quickly find yourself dead in the water. This is why seasoned pros and amateur hobbyists alike should always be learning and expanding their abilities. It's really the only way to stay competitive. And I don't even mean that in a financial sense, I mean that just in terms of your skill set.
Update: This giveaway is now over. The winner has been announced at the end of this post.
It's time for another giveaway, and this one is a doozy! We promised you a big giveaway at the end of February and you're getting one. Just follow the instructions below and you can enter to win the new Fujifilm X-T1 with the 18-55mm lens and the battery grip to boot! That's a $1,950 value!
In need of some spiritual inspiration, photography style? Well you're in luck, because His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama himself has opened an Instagram account and is proving to be a fairly prolific poster.
Back at it again, the team over at Lomography has created a new "Super Kit" edition for one of their best-selling creations: the original DIY Konstruktor Camera.
If you've followed PetaPixel for a while, or even if you just keep up with popular photo news, the image above probably looks familiar. Created by photographer Fong Qi Wei, it looks like it's a part of his very successful series Time is a Dimension, which we featured back in August of last year.
But this isn't part of that series, it's actually one of 37 images combined into a single GIF. A GIF that is part of his creative followup to TIAD called Time in Motion.
Commercial mountain photographer Alexandre Buisse is a natural adventurer. When it comes to rock climbing or going for his major dream client with a cold call, Alex is a brave soul with immense talent to match. His client roster includes Patagonia, Red Bull, Sports Illustrated, Outer Edge Magazine, and many more.
We talked with Alex about his experience cold emailing and calling, what he’s learned about negotiating licensing rights, and his key marketing strategies. He also lays out the three things a budding adventure photographer should do when looking to get work -- including the importance of a work/fun balance.
The time-lapse above by photographer Colin Legg does a great job of showing off the power of Magic Lantern RAW video while capturing a cool astronomical phenomenon at the same time.
Update on 12/16/21: This video has been removed by its creator.
One of the biggest battles currently going on in the world of photography is DSLRs versus mirrorless cameras. There's no doubt that DSLRs are still on top in terms of numbers, but as more and more companies put their faith in the mirrorless market, they continue to tempt consumers of all levels to give this five-year-old system a chance.
We spend all day staring at pixels, but really, just how good is our vision when it comes to noticing the small details in photographs? Well, I can't speak on behalf of everyone, but using the tricky images below, you can get a good idea for yourself.
German artist Simon Menner created an interesting photo series that features military snipers hiding in various landscapes. The photos show just how well these highly trained individuals can blend into their surroundings, which vary from empty fields to rocky valleys.
Living smack in the middle of the information age, we're well acquainted with the incredible amount of data and statistics gathered and thrown around on a daily basis. And with the advent of social networking, the amount of publicly available data about society has only increased.
These networks are a treasure trove of information for better understanding the underlying trends and habits of people. Trends that would otherwise go unseen. One research project in particular, called Phototrails, is trying to spot these trends by gathering insights from that photography-oriented social media site many of us love to hate: Instagram.
According to Lifehacker, Adobe is currently sending out emails to notify users that they are resetting everybody's Creative Cloud 30-day free trial. If you've not given the newest versions of the software a chance and you're not one of the people who is dead set against it, now is a great time to see if what you're missing is worth jumping into the subscription model.
The Zeiss Otus is easily the biggest DSLR 55mm currently available. I say currently, because I'm sure in some lab in the depths of upper Siberia a technician made a 50mm the size of a small child, just because. But the Otus shouldn't surprise us, Zeiss will never shy away from the pursuit of image quality at the expensive of "convenience."
Within a few short days, thousands of photographers will descend en masse upon that neon playground known as Las Vegas for WPPI’s annual conference and expo. The conference is held at the MGM Resort, or The Emerald City as I like to call it.
The MGM is located directly across the street from another resort featuring a fake skyline of New York complete with a fake Statue of Liberty. Across from that is a fake castle, down the road one way is a fake Egyptian Pyramid, and down the road the other way is a fake Eiffel Tower and volcano. Can you think of a better place for a photography convention?
Now, first time attendees of the conference can be a little overwhelmed, not just with the fakeness, but with all the things to do while at WPPI. You want to make the most of your time, and with so many options, you need a guide. So, in the interest of assuring that everyone has the best time possible, I’ve compiled my list of “Tips for Photographers Attending WPPI.”
"Selfies are fun," California lice expert Marcy McQuillan recently told the SFist, "but the consequences are real." What consequences, you ask? Well, as you might have already guessed given McQuillan's occupation, the consequences she is referring to are head lice. Namely, a lot more head lice among teenagers.
Taken on February 19th (and available in high-resolution here) the satellite image above …
Following on the heels of the news that no less than four law firms were going after or planning to go after Nikon over the D600 dust/oil spot debacle, Nikon has issued a service advisory announcing that they will fix ALL D600 cameras with sensor dust/oil problems for free regardless of warranty status.
It can often be a challenge explaining to others what we do as photographers, whatever genre of work we may be in. But where we often struggle to explain our vocation to friends or family, in wedding photographer Chris Thornton's case, it was his 3-year-old son whose understanding of what his dad did as a wedding photographer wasn't quite pieced together.
And so, he decided to put his creativity and photographic abilities to use and do what any good father would do: he put it into terms his son would not only understand, but appreciate.
Continuing to uphold the "gold standard" of film emulation, Visual Supply Co. has released its fifth series of film emulation presets. Called VSCO Film 05: The Archetype Films Collection, this emulation palette is based on some of the film stocks that defined the consumer analogue photography market of the past two decades.
When I was in middle school, I had a crush on a celebrity.
It was a time when young girls daydreamed with stars in their eyes, imagining every love song was written about them, doodling hearts on their Lisa Frank notebooks and knowing with full certainty that one day their prince charming would whisk them away, like on the cover of a Harlequin Romance novel, or like Fabio in an “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” commercial.
Or in my case, I'd be driven away in the front seat of a bright red Ford Gran Torino, the kind only TV undercover cops would drive.
In a rather interesting development that was somewhat overshadowed by the announcement of the Nikon D4s, Nikon has unveiled a new piece of photo editing software made specifically for processing images from Nikon cameras.
It was in the early part of 2013 when Trent Bell, a commercial photographer known for his architectural photos, received the shocking news that a friend of his had been sentenced to thirty-six years in prison for some trouble he got himself into.
In about a month's time we might have a new contender for world's thinnest interchangeable lens camera. Leaked images and specs from earlier today indicate that Samsung is working on a new camera dubbed the NX mini, and this cam is going to be tiny indeed.
iStock, which is owned by Getty Images, is in the process of notifying some nine thousand users that they owe Getty money because an error with the payment system overpaid them in September and October of 2013.
Yesterday, SanDisk unveiled the newest addition to its Secure Digital memory card lineup: a 128GB microSDXC card that effectively doubles the storage capabilities of the current generation of cards.
And while the practicality of that much storage on a microSD card isn't overly exciting for most photographers, there are certainly some scenarios where this will be beneficial.
The National Parks Services and Gigapan recently put together a photography project that takes a comparative look at two of America's best-known pieces of land and how they've changed over the course of 80 years.
Just over a week ago, we reported on the news that a US law firm was collecting information from disgruntled Nikon D600 users for a potential class action lawsuit. Well, it turns out they're actually late to the game. Three days after that story broke, a few other law firms actually filed a class action suit against the Japanese camera giant.
Alright, we'll be the first to admit that this isn't strictly photography related, but it's a funny camera issue and a great way to start Tuesday off on a light note. The viral BBC News clip above is quickly spreading to all corners of the globe as people giggle their way through what may be one of the funniest transitions in serious news history.