advertising

The dust has barely settled from the Instagram policy fumble, but it looks like parent company Facebook might be in for a similar upheaval.

The company's recently proposed changes to its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and Data Use Policy -- which were supposed to take effect on the 5th -- have been delayed after users and privacy groups alike have voiced serious concerns.

At first glance, these photos by London-based photographer Benedict Morgan don't seem like anything special. That is, until you find out that what you're looking at hasn't been touched by Photoshop at all.

There's nothing like a gimmicky camera to make you tilt your head to the side and raise an eyebrow out of curiosity. The most recent gimmick to cross our desks is a camera that is equal parts advertising and DIY creation: an over-branded Sprite camera with a Raspberry Pi at its core.

Dove Canada is getting serious about promoting Real Beauty by going after art directors, graphic designers and photo retouchers -- basically anyone who distorts body image in print. In order to fight those who they feel create an unrealistic representation of what the body actually looks like, they created a "Beautify" action that can be downloaded for free from popular editing sites. The action appears to add a "glowing skin" effect when in reality, it reverts the image back to its original, unretouched state, thus driving home Dove's philosophy that "Real Beauty Isn't Retouched."

I don't know about you, but if I downloaded a skin enhancing action only to find it reverted my image back to the unretouched state, I'd be throwing out all my Dove products in protest.

Just in case you weren't feeling media-saturated enough already: there's word of an emerging technology that could decorate your photos with ads only a camera can see.

We told you about the Postagram app/service by Sincerely all the way back in 2011 when it first made landfall. Using the free app, users could select photos, pay $1, and have them slapped onto a postcard and sent to whomever they chose.

Now, with help from a few companies that are eager to get their brand in front of your eyes, Postagram is adding the ability to send free, advertiser sponsored post cards that won't cost you a thing.

When they were tasked with putting together a powerful advertising campaign for Crisis Relief Singapore, ad agency Publicis Singapore mixed heart-wrenching photos with a hard-to-swallow tagline to create something quite moving.

It's not often an ad gets recognized as a phenomenal piece of cinematography, but that's what has happened for the short film 'Alma' (translated: "soul") produced by Sentimental Filme for the release of the Leica M-Monochrome at the Leica Store in São Paulo.

Smartphones have been stealing market share from the big camera manufacturers for years now, and it doesn't seem like it'll stop anytime soon. Naturally, that leads to a healthy fear from companies like Canon and Nikon who, unlike Sony or Samsung, don't have players on both sides.

For its part, Canon has decided to start fighting back in the form of a new advertising campaign with the tagline: "don't let a call interrupt your photo."

Here's an example of photography being used to deliver a powerful message in a creative way: Singapore-based suicide prevention organization Samaritans of Singapore recently ran a series of ads recently that highlight the challenge of spotting depression.

Adobe recently came up with a clever and funny way of promoting its Adobe Creative Day event that'll be held next week. The company visited a bus stop in Sweden and pranked people by Photoshopping them in real time into a digital movie poster advertisement displayed next to the bench. The whole thing was documented with hidden cameras and shared in the video above.

I was on little road trip recently, when the need for BBQ became so overwhelming that I had to stop at the first restaurant I could find. It happens sometimes. I'm not proud of it, but when Pork speaks, I listen. Luckily, there was an adorable little BBQ place in the next town. A tiny little mom-and-pop joint, which in my opinion, are always the best.

AlmapBBDO, the ad agency behind the touching Getty ad "From Love to Bingo," are at it again. Last time they spent six months picking 873 stock photos out of 5,000+ options to create an award-winning one minute video.

This time Getty asked them to do the same thing, only using the agency's massive video archive instead. The resulting video is, dare we say, even better than the "Love to Bingo" ad.

You know those iconic minimalist product photos for Apple gadgets? Have you ever wondered about how they're shot and who shoots them?

One of the people behind the photos is San Francisco-based photographer Peter Belanger. The video above is a behind-the-scenes look into how Belanger photographed the iPhone 3GS for a 2009 issue of Macworld magazine.

The video above is a commercial Canon is running over in Japan to promote its new Kiss X7/Rebel SL1, the world's smallest and lightest DSLR. It shows how the camera is perfect for soccer moms who would like to capture action shots of their "super soccer kids."

One of the most prominent celebrity endorsement deals in the camera industry has been actor Ashton Kutcher serving as the face of Nikon. Since 2009, Kutcher -- a guy who boasts over 14 million Twitter followers -- has been appearing in commercials and print ads hawking Nikon digital cameras. In 2012, TIME voted the partnership as a top 10 celebrity tech endorsement.

There have been strange rumblings in the camera industry over this past weekend regarding the relationship between Kutcher and Nikon, with a rumor suggesting that the relationship has gone sour and is over.

For its H5D ad campaign, Hasselblad approached underwater photographer Henrik Sorensen, knowing that he would put together something worthwhile. What he came up with is a "twisted take" on Denmark as a fairytale country that he's calling "Not Just a Fairytale," and the above video takes us behind the scenes at the underwater shoot.

Actress Jennifer Lawrence may be fine with excessive Photoshopping, but advertising regulatory authorities in the United States aren't of the same opinion. We reported back in 2011 that the UK had banned certain advertisements for excessive Photoshop work, and that the US was moving in the same direction.

To promote this year's edition of its sports photography competition, Red Bull Illume is sending out a pretty slick promo. It's simply a USB drive loaded with a press media kit, but the presentation is so clever that we thought we'd share it with you (perhaps you can do something similar to promote your own photography business).

The Brazilian advertising agency Y&R recently came up with an extremely clever series of photographs for Colgate to promote the company's line of Total dental floss. Check out the three couple portraits in the post and see how quickly your eye is drawn to the weirdness.

To make the point that Garnier Fructis' hair products are great for both women and men, advertising agency Publicis teamed up with photographers Billy & Hells for a series of creative advertising photographs.

Upon first glance, each of the photographs appear to show a tough guy with a massively long beard. However, look a little closer and you'll realize that things are not what they appeared to be.

If you had any doubts regarding how much of a part of our culture Instagram has become, just take a peek at the public outcry that erupted after Instagram announced changes to its policies yesterday. The controversial edits were reported in media outlets around the world, and legions of die-hard Instagram fans took to social media channels to protest them.

People mainly focused on a section of the document that appears to give Instagram sweeping permissions to sell photos without consent or compensation to third-parties for advertising purposes.

Earlier this month, Facebook stated that it's working on strategies for monetizing Instagram. Now we're starting to see the gears in the money-making machine warming up.

Instagram announced an update to its Terms of Service and Privacy Policy documents today, with changes that will take effect on January 16, 2013. While it's understandable that any service's terms must change if rolls out a new business model, many users aren't pleased with what some of the updated sections say.

Check out this brilliant marketing idea: to promote its professional sling-style camera backpacks, Kata designed a carnival/arcade-style game called Shootout. It's live contest that has been held in various store locations and trade shows around the world. Basically, participants engage a virtual cowboy photographer in a duel. Once the timer starts, one must swing their camera bag around, "unholster it", and snap a photo of the screen. If the time captured in your photo is less than the time achieved by Mr. Cowboy Photog (and faster than other participants), you win a pretty pricey camera bag.

Sony is continuing its campaign against the mindless use of DSLRs. After releasing a series of viral videos poking fun at inept DSLR users, Sony is now turning to facts and hard evidence (in addition to humor). The company recently did a survey of 1012 non-professional DSLR users, and the results are pretty interesting.

Chinese photographer Liu Bolin (AKA "The Invisible Man") has received quite a bit of attention over the past seven years for his self-portraits showing himself blending into various scenes with a carefully painted body rather than digital manipulation. His photographs have attracted the attention of Ford, which recently commissioned Liu to create a series of advertisements to promote the 2013 Ford Fusion.

We've shared examples of creative promotional mailers in the past, but we usually don't receive them. A few days ago, however, we received a small box from the folks over at Photojojo. Inside was a clever papercraft Polaroid camera that serves as both a press kit and a desk decoration.

Apple is constantly engaged in its fair share of courtroom battles, but its latest one hits a little closer to home for photographers. Swiss photographer Sabine Liewald has filed a lawsuit against Apple for using her "Eye Closeup" photograph to promote the 15-inch MacBook Pro's Retina Display.

Texas wedding photographer Allen Ayres was recently contacted by an advertising agency that wanted to use one of his wedding photographs for one of its pharmaceutical clients. Ayres had in mind to ask for $1,000, but wisely decided to ask for advice over at Digital Wedding Forum.

Virtually all digital still cameras capture light using either a CCD or a CMOS sensor. Most consumers don't know the difference, and -- given the rate at which CMOS sensors are improving -- both sensors perform equally well in most cases (Leica is rumored to be switching over to the CMOS camp with its upcoming M10).

However, that's not what a PC World store in Ireland wants you to believe. The photo above shows an informational placard that was on display recently in one of its stores. The top image shows a scene shot with a CCD sensor, and the bottom image allegedly shows the "same scene" shot with a CMOS sensor. Hmmm...

One of the most important things a photographer must do is advertise and sell their services. All professionals have a good grasp on how to take great photos and edit them in post to make them look even better, but fewer have the time, expertise, or funds to put together a quality portfolio that will catch a client's eye and bring them business. That's where the Iconify platform comes in.

Hong Kong model Angelababy lost her contract with Panasonic after leaking …

We've heard of camera manufacturers dipping into unrelated fields before, and we've also seen some pretty interesting marketing stunts, but in the early 90's Kodak had already done both... in a colorful, cuddly sort of way. Back then, as an either desperate or creative ploy to get kids into photography, Kodak came out with the Kolorkins: a set of colorful, collectible stuffed animals.

Here's a clever advertisement idea done by Brazilian ad agency Y&R Sao Paulo and photographer Lúcio Cunha. They took the iconic posters of famous movies (Kill Bill, Forrest Gump, and Pretty Women) and created photos showing what they would look like if viewed from behind.

Mailers are a popular way to self-promote as a photographer, but too often the promos go directly from the …

To promote its new One X phone (and the camera on it), HTC came up with the bizarre idea of doing a skydiving fashion shoot with photography student Nick Jojola and model (and professional skydiver) Roberta Mancino. During the photoshoot above the Arizona desert, Jojola plummeted to Earth at 126MPH while Mancino whizzed by at 181MPH, giving the photographer a tiny window of 0.8 seconds to squeeze off the shot.

Japan-based art collective NAM shot this series of advertisements showing gravity-defying chocolate confections. What's interesting about the concept is that they decided to do everything without digital trickery, opting instead to hang the various foods from thin strings.

German ad agency Jung von Matt created this brilliant series of photographs for a LEGO advertising campaign titled "Imagine". The images show famous characters from children's television shows in simplified LEGO form. Can you figure out each of the shows?

While a number of countries are taking steps to ban the unrealistic Photoshopping of models, Israel has …

One of the most important things I’ve learned during my ongoing adventure as a small-town, self-employed photographer is that nothing is more important than the relationships I’m building. So when I decided sometime last year that I was going to do a 2012 promo I wanted to create something that looked elegant, something that the recipients could be a part of and most importantly, something that could start building long-lasting relationships.