Samsung created this humorous ad a couple years ago teaching how you can take better self-portraits of yourself for social media profile pictures. It all has to do with harnessing the power of angles.

This advertisement might not seem too special or difficult to do at first glance, until you find out that it was done completely in Photoshop.

Our original plan: traditional animation in flash, still art in illustrator. Boy did that change. As we went through look development, everyone was feeling the wonkier hand drawn feel. Goodbye Illustrator. As we talked through the pipeline process with our new animator buddy Ben, he suggests “just do it ALL in Photoshop”. With a flurry of keystrokes, the animation timeline was opened, and we were animating… right there… all in one program. ZOMG. [#]

Did you know that Photoshop is capable of animation? Check out the Window->Animation panel.

(via John Nack)

Here’s a neat blast from the past — a Kodak Instamatic commercial from the 1960s, when the latest technology was the ability to take four flash photographs without changing bulbs. “Four full power flashes in one tiny cube!”. The camera set was priced at $18, which is about $131 when adjusted for inflation.

Olympus has a new “Spokesman Series” of commercials that try to convey the different strengths of their compact cameras in creative ways. They remind me a tiny bit of the Old Spice Guy commercials.
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This creative time-lapse video (a commercial for Volvo) shows a beautiful outdoor scene transform from one season to another through time-lapse photography. If computer trickery wasn’t involved in the creation, then this video must have required a whole lot of patience and hard work.

Thanks for the tip, Joakim!

What do 225,000 watts of light get you when shooting with the high-speed Phantom camera? Not much. Just ask Vincent Laforet who shot this commercial using the uber-expensive camera. Even with that much light, he still needed a 2.0 aperture. That only created more problems of staying in focus while using dolly moves in slow motion.
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“Freeze Tag” is an award-winning commercial by Canon in which people play the popular children’s game using Canon DSLR cameras instead of the boring act of tagging. Too bad magical cameras like these don’t actually exist in real life. If you’re interested in how this commercial was made, check out this behind-the-scenes video.

(via Photoxels)

Back in August a photo from a commercial shoot leaked onto the Internet showing a mysterious white camera rumored to be the Samsung NX100. The rumor was later confirmed with further leaks and eventually the official announcement. The commercial that was being filmed finally became public recently (seen above), and shows the new i-Function lens system in action.
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Here are a couple informative videos in which Yuri Arcurs — the best selling microstock photographer in the world — shares some advice on working with models, with everything ranging from choosing the right model to how to get the right smiles. Many of the tips (e.g. tricks for posing the head) can be helpful even if you don’t do commercial or stock photography.
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Here’s a pretty clever ad by Panasonic promoting their Lumix G2 camera. It’s fun seeing photographic terms appear in a commercial, and understanding what the terms mean make the commercial even funnier for photo enthusiasts.

Thanks for the tip, @mondostic!