July 2014

Video: Inspirational Words on Having Confidence as a Photographer

We are our own worst critics. It’s always the case. Naturally, we see the works of others and gawk in amazement, but when viewing our own work we can often only notice the flaws and imperfections. But, photographer Mike Browne is here to hand out a healthy dose of inspiration and speak to the power of self confidence.

Striking Black & White Photographs Capture the Chaotic Streets of Tokyo

While he was born in 1965, it wasn’t until 2008 when Tatsuo Suzuki first picked up a camera with the intent to be a photographer. Since then, he’s been traveling around, camera in-hand, capturing the turbulent street life of Tokyo. Deep in contrast, strong in grain and often paired with a dragged out shutter, his monochrome images seem to paint a perfect picture of the world around him.

No Bokeh? No Problem! These Out of Focus Backgrounds Hold You Over Until You Get that Fast Lens

Want a blurry background for your portraits on-demand, whether or not you're using a fast lens? Or maybe you are using a fast portrait lens, but you want to shoot with it stopped down to the sharpest possible aperture without sacrificing that beautiful bokeh you're going for.

Well now you can now do that without having to put serious distance between your background and subject. Just pop up one of Lastolite's new Out of Focus Backgrounds.

Video: Comprehensive Introduction to Macro Photography

Landscape photographer Tim Cooper is a name we just recently shared with you. Today, we’re sharing his work with you again, this time in the form of a presentation he shared at a B&H event earlier this year. In it, he gives a detailed look at the world of macro photography.

Kayakers Raised Out of the Water by Playful Whale, Capture the Incredible Encounter on Camera

A couple of kayakers, believe to be a father and daughter, had an unbelievable encounter with some playful whales in the waters off the coast of Puerto Madryn, Argentina. They captured the entire thing in a GoPro video that has since gone viral, but the footage has sparked serious criticism from authorities and those who capture professional footage and photos of these gentle giants.

Canon 7D Officially Marked ‘Discontinued’ on Amazon

There are plenty of reliable rumors from trusted sources claiming that the 7D Mark II (if that's even what it'll be called) will finally be arriving sometime in early September, but those rumors are now being bolstered by another piece of news.

The Inspirational Story of How Photography Helped One Man Recover from Paralysis

July 4, 2011 is a day architectural and commercial portrait photographer Kevin Young will never forget. While taking a short break from a plethora of assignments he was working on, he was involved in a swimming accident that broke his C4-C6 vertebre, paralyzing him from the neck down.

In the above video, Young details his recovery, how he used photography as a motivation, and how the entire situation left him with a desires to help others, including the woman who saved his life.

Nostalgic Photo Series Shows the Evolution of Video Game Controllers

Photographer Javier Laspiur has long been a fan of video games and their respective consoles. And so, to pay tribute to the consoles of his past and the memories he made with them, he created a series that takes us on a journey through the consoles of Laspiur’s past and gives us a fascinating 'time-lapse' look at how much consoles have changed over the decades.

DJI DropSafe Automatic Parachute Will Try to Save Your Camera if Your Drone Falls Out of the Sky

Drone photography is the next time-lapse (which, incidentally, was the next HDR), but it presents a challenge that the previous two styles never did: safety. In this particular case we don't mean safety of the people around (or rather below) you, but rather the safety of your gear itself.

As we've seen time and again, drones drop from the sky on occasion, and when they do, they rarely survive the journey south... Until now. A new product called DJI DropSafe aims to change all that.

Play Around with Refocusable Images from Pelican Imaging’s ‘Light Field’ Camera for Smartphones

With each passing day, it seems as though light field photography (and its imitators) is becoming more and more ubiquitous. Patents here, rumors there, it’s a conglomeration of what is very likely the next frontier in photography.

And this past week, Pelican Images published a collection of online 3D viewer images captured with its thin light field camera that might be making its way into mobile devices soon.

iOS App Solves the Problem of ‘Overswiping’ When You Hand a Friend your Phone to Look at Photos

Admittedly, it's a VERY first world problem, but a problem it is nonetheless: you hand your friend your phone to look at certain photos you took, and they go on a swiping spree. Immediately your mind goes into overdrive as you try desperately to snag the phone out of their grasp without looking too much like you're hiding something.

We'll call it 'overswiping,' and it's even got its own meme. But you can save your ulcers, because a new app is making sure that overswiping is a thing of the past.

Stop Hiding: Show YOU and You Won’t be ‘Just Another Photographer with Pretty Images’

In the world of photography, we typically hide behind our cameras and our images. Many of us are shy and would prefer to stay behind the camera, not in front of it. And then that starts to extend into our online brand as well.

I can relate. I’ve done this for a long time. But I recently had a meeting that changed everything.

Ghostly Images of WiFi Signals Captured Using Long Exposure Photography and an Android App

So much of the world today is invisible to cameras. Technology operates in a light-less world of zeroes and ones, electromagnetic waves that fly over our heads in ever-increasing abundance.

For his fascinating project Digital Ethereal, designer Luis Hernan set out to capture one of these invisible signals, WiFi, using a creative combination of long exposure photography and an Android app.

iPhone Case Looks to Keep Away Prying Eyes, Eases Privacy Concerns

This is the iPatch, a cheekily-named iPhone case hoping to add an added layer of privacy to your mobile device(s). Currently seeking crowdfunding on HeadFunder, iPatch as an iPhone case with a built-in slider for the front and back cameras that allows you to manually cover them when not in use.

This Interactive Map Shows Where You Can’t Fly Drones for Aerial Photography

Just got your hands on a drone and can't wait to use it to shoot aerial photographs? First, make sure you only use it where it can legally fly. If you're not sure where to look for this info, there's a new website designed just for you.

It's called Don't Fly Drones Here (DFDH), and is an interactive map that shows off limit areas of the US by shading them in with red.

No Cameras Allowed: Is it Real or Fake?

'No Cameras Allowed' is an upcoming film that shows the journey of a guy named Marcus Haney who got into Coachella festival with a faked press pass and got exclusive film footage of famous bands.

After that, he got invited by bands like ‘Mumford and Sons’ to join them on tour. The film has gotten quite a bit of hype in the online photo world, but is No Cameras Allowed real or just a faked story to get some money out of kids who believe this is how the music photography business works?

Photographer Peeks Inside Cheap Plastic Toys with X-Ray Photo Series

Australian photographer Brendan Fitzpatrick uses images to document the hidden side of things. More specifically, he documents the inside of things.

Having turned his sights on flora and fauna, Fitzpatrick decided to peek inside the world of cheap plastic children's toys for his series Invisible Light.

This is What Happens When You Close the Drapes on Your At-Home Camera Obscura

Photographer Daniel Tellman is an experimenter, and his ideas often lead to beautiful results. After turning his daughter's room into a giant camera obscura, he decided to have some fun by closing the drapes and turning them into a makeshift projector screen.

He then set up a camera in front of the drapes to capture images of the world outside passing by over the course of a day. The time-lapse video above is a gorgeous compilation of those images.

‘My Saddest Photo Yet’: Does Astronaut Photo from Space Show Israel and Gaza Burning?

German astronaut Alexander Gerst sparked quite a discussion online yesterday by uploading the photograph above to Twitter. His caption read: "My saddest photo: from the #ISS , we see explosions and rockets over #Gaza and #Israel."

Before long, the photograph was retweeted and republished far and wide, with many people and publications commenting on how horrible it is that the fighting is so intense that the rockets and fires can be captured from space... Or can they?

Photographer Turns Her Spam Emails into Imagined Portraits of the Imaginary Senders

What do you do when you get spam emails from imaginary people that try to separate you from your hard-earned money? If the email is lucky enough to get past spam filters, it's usually immediately recognized and deleted by the recipient.

If it ends up in the inbox of photographer Christina De Middel, however, it gets turned into a photograph. For her project Poly-Spam, De Middel took her spam, carefully noted the details within, and created fictitious portraits of the imaginary senders.

Instagram Briefly Teases Its Snapchat Competitor ‘Bolt’… Maybe

Last night, a number of Android-touting Instagram users noticed a peculiar banner within Instagram that previewed Bolt, a "one tap photo messaging [app].” Just as quickly as it had appeared for many, it disappeared. But not before a number of users captured and shared a screenshot, stirring up plenty of talk in the tech community.

Curious Coincidence: Photo Shows Same Time and Place as Frame from Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’

Here's a pretty fascinating little story of two men with cameras being in the same place at around the same time, over half a century ago. One of the men was Alfred Hitchcock.

The story began over at the vintage photography blog Shorpy, where a member named Ron Yungul submitted the above photograph. It was captured by his late father on the hills of San Francisco in 1957.

Chicago Skylines and Thick Fog Make For Surreal Urban Landscape Photos

Photographer Michael Salisbury is a determined Chicagoan with a desire to slow down and capture the world around him in the most vivid and compositional of ways. It was last month, after a string of severe storms, that he had the opportunity to combine his love for the Windy City’s architecture with some surreal fog that coated the beaches and skyscrapers of Chicago like a blanket. The series is titled June Fog, and the results are astounding.

Sony’s Curved Sensor Set for 2015 Debut In the Xperia Z3X and New Full Frame RX

With each passing week it seems as though a new piece of information is coming out about Sony’s latest curved sensor technology. First it was the rumor, then the specs for a 2/3” sensor, then the first image captured with said sensor. Finally, the leaks and patterns are starting to align to form the constellation that will likely be the advent of Sony’s curved sensor tech in consumer products.

Marcus Haney: The Music Photographer Who Made it By Sneaking into the World’s Biggest Shows

If there is a path that music photographers usually take to make it big, it's not the path Marcus Haney chose. Rather than start at the lowest levels by shooting smaller gigs to build a portfolio and reputation, Haney decided to start things off by sneaking into Coachella as a faux credentialed photographer back in 2010. He was only a junior studying at USC.

The trailer above is for an upcoming documentary titled No Cameras Allowed, which chronicles Haney's unconventional journey into the world of concert photography.

Understanding Aperture: Why Shooting Wide Open Isn’t Always the Best Choice

When you drop hundreds or thousands of dollars on a new piece of fast glass, it’s natural to want to shoot it wide-open until the focusing ring falls off. But, the idea that for all portraits you want to be wide open and for all landscapes you want to be stopped down isn’t true. Here to explain in the above video is photographer Matt Granger.