art

You May Be A Photographer, But Are You An Artist?

"When you push the shutter and take a photo, you're a photographer... but are you an artist?" asks photographer Roger Ballen. "As an artist, I use photography as a medium to express my artistic vision."

In the 3-minute video above, by COOPH, Ballen offers 7 thoughts to help you become both a photographer and an artist.

The Macbook Selfie Stick is Now a Thing

Tablet selfie stick not ridiculous enough for you? Check out the Macbook Selfie Stick. It lets you mount a Macbook (or any laptop, for that matter) at the end of a long telescoping pole for easy self-portraits with the built-in iSight camera.

Sigma to Unveil a Crazy Fast 50-100mm f/1.8 Art Lens

Whoa. Sigma is on the brink of shaking up the camera lens industry yet again with another groundbreaking Art lens. Next week, on February 23rd, 2016, Sigma will reportedly announce a new 50-100mm f/1.8 DC HSM Art lens -- a zoom lens with an unusually large f/1.8 fixed aperture.

Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei Recreates Photo of Drowned Syrian Refugee Toddler

In September 2015, Turkish photographer Nilüfer Demir came across the body of 3-year-old Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi on a beach. Her photo of Kurdi's body spread across the world, drawing the world's attention to the migrant crisis and becoming a symbol of the widespread suffering.

This month, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei decided to recreate that haunting photo by posing for a picture while lying face down on a pebbled beach in Lesbos, Greece. The resulting photo, captured by photographer Rohit Chawla for India Today, is now drawing both praise and criticism.

Portraits of a Man Blending Into World Landmarks

"Lost in Wonder" is a new project by New York-based artist Trina Merry, who's known for blending body art and photography to depict the human body in creative ways. Merry visited major "modern wonder" landmarks around the world and blended her model into each of the scenes.

Hands On with the Sigma 20mm f/1.4 Art Lens: Super Fast and Ultra Wide

I have yet to be let down by Sigma's highly respected Art series of lenses. Sigma is now set to release the widest f/1.4 lens on the market, with the upcoming 20mm f1.4 DG HSM Art lens to be released in the latter part of the month.

Sigma is courting the wide-angle photographer in all of us with this new lens, and we were given a rare pre-production model to get a feel for what is now the fastest 20mm lens on the market.

The Minimalist B&W Self-Portraits of Noell Oszvald

Noell Oszvald is a 25-year-old visual artist from Budapest, Hungary. "I'm not a photographer," she says, but she does use a camera to create her art.

Among her recent works is a series of striking self-portrait photos. Each one is a surreal piece that focuses on black-and-white minimalism.

Opinion: Lomography, an Alternative Perspective on Traditional Photo Standards

Lomography began as an art movement in the early 1990s after a group of Viennese students discovered the LC-A, a camera manufactured by Russian imaging company LOMO. The fixed lens 32mm f/2.8 compact camera produced unique images that were off-color, vibrant, and soft. On a mission to advocate the use of these creative cameras and experimental film, photographers quickly formed the Lomographic Society International in 1992.

Despite the movement producing wonderfully interesting images that have been exhibited in both Moscow and New York City, it has received substantial criticism from self-dubbed “real photographers.” This opinion piece aims at breaking down the wall of prejudice, and opening minds to the possibility of creative photography outside of normal standards.

The $10 IKEA Piece: An Interesting Social Experiment on the Value of Art

When Peter Lik sold a print to a collector for $6.5 million last year, people balked at the news. Lik is known to be a savvy businessman who has raked in over $440 million by churning out and selling his "collectible" prints to deep-pocketed people who want to invest in his art, so why should his prints be worth so much?

The Internet media channel LifeHunters recently did a social experiment that explores how people perceive and value art. They placed a $10 IKEA print in the Museum of Modern Art in Arnhem, The Netherlands, and asked "art experts" what they thought about it.

Sold Out: Alec Soth Snapchat Photos That Disappear After 10 Seconds

Renowned Magnum photographer Alec Soth is experimenting with a new way of delivering photos to art buyers and a new way for art buyers to experience photos. One of his latest projects takes a page from Snapchat's book, using the social photo sharing service to sell photos that disappear after just 10 seconds of viewing.

Fine Art Photography Exhibition Features Portraits of LEGO Figurines

Update on 12/16/21: This video has been removed by its creator.

Vesa Lehtimaki, Shelly Corbett, and Boris Vanrillaer are three photographers living in three different places (Helsinki, Seattle, and Stockholm, respectively) who share a common photography interest: fine art photos of LEGO figurines. Their passion for LEGOography, as it's known, led them to band together to form a collective known as Stuck In Plastic. In addition to sharing their work online, they've also begun to hold real life fine art photo exhibitions.

Virtual Fracking: Destroying Photos of Rock with the Chemicals of Hydraulic Fracturing

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is a much-debated method of obtaining oil or gas from the Earth that involves injective a chemical cocktail at high pressure through deep rock formations in order to create cracks through which things can flow. Artist Grayson Cooke recently came up with his own spin on the subject through a project called "Virtual Fracking."

Cooke used the exact same chemicals used in fracking to destroy photographic slide images of sedimentary rock, capturing the strangely beautiful effects on camera.

This Camera Will Capture a 1,000-Year Exposure That Ends in 3015 for History’s Slowest Photo

Jonathon Keats wants to set a world record in photography that he won't live long enough to see. Nor will his children, or his children's children for many generations. It's a project that won't complete for a millennium.

Keats plans to capture the world's slowest photograph, a 1,000-year-long exposure of the city of Tempe, Arizona, that will be finished in the Spring of 3015.

An Open Letter to the Artist Support System

Support is a funny thing.

As an artist, 96% of our career is spent dealing with rejection. Rejection from friends, family, other artists, and even the art world itself. Making a living from art can be a very long and lonely, misunderstood journey, especially in the beginning, and having a decent support system can help make that early journey a little more bearable.

But just as we’re often learning the ropes of how to be an artist, we also know that you’re learning the ropes of how to best support us. We need you, and here are the best ways you can help us out.

CameraSelfies: Portraits of Historical Cameras Taking Pictures of Themselves

What if cameras got tired of participating in human selfies and decided one day to start taking pictures of themselves? That's the quirky idea behind a project called "CameraSelfies" by German photographer Juergen Novotny (who also goes by J. Flynn Newton).

The series features photos of various cameras "looking at themselves" in front of contemporary wallpapers that capture the cameras' personalities.

Depict is a Giant and Gorgeous 4K Digital Frame That Does Photos Justice

Digital picture frames often steal attention away from the photos they display -- the quality and resolution on most displays don't always do photos justice and end up detracting from the viewing experience. Depict is a new frame that wants to revolutionize the experience of displaying and viewing art digitally.

It's a giant and beautifully made frame that can display high resolution photographs in 4K.

Flickr Opens Up 50 Million Creative Commons and Licensed Images for Flickr Wall Art

A little over a month ago, Yahoo! revealed Flickr Wall Art, a service that lets you turn your images into beautiful prints to hang... well... wherever you want them. Today, they're kicking that service up a notch by removing that pesky need for these photos to be yours.

No, you can't steal other people's photos and use them, but Flickr is opening up its entire Creative Commons library and some hand-selected collections from its licensed artists for your wall-hanging pleasure.

Engineering Photography Beautifully Reveals the Intersection of Science and Art

From images of graphene flowers and foam to a portrait of a self-taught engineer fixing one of his elephant pumps that is providing clean water for a village in Malawi, the winning images and other impressive entrants in the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering's photography competition beautifully illustrate how art, science, and humanity mesh.

Swift Galleries Lets Clients See Your Prints on Their Walls, Pick an Arrangement, and Place an Order

Swift Galleries is an upcoming platform whose goal is to get your photography work on your clients' walls and, in turn, bring in some extra profit for you.

By leveraging a simple drag-and-drop web app, Swift Galleries makes it easy for you to customize and show off how your photographs would look in your clients' homes, with little to no effort on your behalf.

The Guardian: Photos Don’t Belong in Art Galleries

Does photography deserve a place in art galleries? Jonathan Jones doesn't think so. The Guardian art columnist has caused quite a stir after writing a piece titled, "Flat, soulless and stupid: why photographs don’t work in art galleries."

While Jones acknowledges that photographs can be "powerful, beautiful, and capture the immediacy of a moment like nothing else," he argues that they are, "poor art when hung on a wall like paintings."