Culture

The Human Safari: When Tourist Photography Goes Wrong

As children, we often assume different roles while re-enacting grand fantasies. All hail to Cesar, riding atop a palanquin, or to the astronaut floating above the world looking down at it. The doctor saving lives, or the war photographer documenting the rawness of the human condition and the horrors of society as it fails. Then, we grow up. We settle into our role within our socio-cultural strata and send subtle ripples across the fabric of the society that surrounds us.

As tourists, we recapture some of that wonder. We gain the opportunity to stand in the midst of the coliseum, to stride casually down the halls of grand empires and to snap photos of exotic peoples, destinations, and in some instances candid moments. These rich experiences add to the substance of who we are and let us get back in touch with the beautiful sense of exploration which defined our youth. They are, for many, what make travel wondrous, expansive and oh-so addictive.

Don’t Confuse Honesty With Negativity Regarding the Photo Industry

When my children were little they would collect things in their pockets. They were little pack rats; the kid version of hoarders. Anything that caught their eye would go into their pocket for safe keeping: a colorful leaf; a Skittle, a Happy Meal toy. And, like most moms, I would have to carefully search their pockets before putting their dirty clothes into the wash.

But, now and then, I would miss something, like the time I missed the rock.

Instagram Star Quits, Reveals How Photos Are Edited, Contrived, and Paid For

Update: O'Neil has apparently deleted all of her social media content, including the video and photos that were originally in this post.

18-year-old model and Instagram star Essena O'Neil has the world talking after posting the 17-minute video above on why she's quitting Instagram and social media (warning: there's some explicit language). She says that posting photos to her hundreds of thousands of followers consumed her and made her miserable, and that the luxurious life she showed online was all "edited and contrived."

Man Pens Open Letter to Woman Who Reported Him for ‘Taking Pictures of Children’

The problem of photographers being seen as "pedophiles with cameras" is widespread and is a subject we've reported on and written about many times over the years. One of the latest victims is David Updike, a Harvard-educated photographer and writer.

While sitting in Cambridge's Dana Park on September 23rd, Updike found himself suddenly surrounded by police officers and questioned about what he was taking pictures of. It turns out a woman had reported him for "taking pictures of children," and now Updike has responded to the incident by writing an open letter to that woman.

Old Shooters Never Die, They Just Ride Off Into Cyberspace

Nestled at the base of a red rock cliff just north of the Utah/Arizona border, Goulding’s Trading Post offers a commanding panorama of Monument Valley -- it’s every photographer’s dream vista. It also invites travelers, through prominent signage, to visit “John Wayne’s Cabin”. Now, to a sucker for kitschy Americana like me (who also just happened to be moseying through on a recent 1700 mile southwestern photography trip), that sign was magnetic.

Woman Spotted Without Phone Camera Out, Is Now an Internet Sensation

This simple photo is a fascinating portrait of what smartphone cameras have done to our culture. A single woman is seen enjoying the moment with just her eyes while a sea of smartphone cameras surrounds her.

The photo has been going viral over the past week, and this lady is now an Internet sensation.

New Tony Hawk Video Game Asks Players to Destroy Camera Drones

There's a good deal of hatred toward camera drones these days, and there are regularly stories of people destroying other people's drones in crazy ways. In July, another man was arrested for shooting down a drone with a shotgun. The following month, a man was filmed hooking a drone with his fishing line.

It seems the video game developer Robomodo doesn't care much for drones either. In Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5, the popular franchise's latest installment that was released this week, there's a challenge called "Attack of the Drones." Players are tasked with destroying camera drones as quickly as they can.

Ads: One Shot with a Smartphone Camera Can Kill

UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, recently launched an ad campaign in Chile that speaks out against cyberbullying with smartphone photos. Titled "One Shot," each of the three ads shows a group of teenage students pointing their mobile cameras at one of their peers, firing squad-style.

Baseball Announcers Roast Sorority Girls Over Selfies

During the MLB baseball game yesterday between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies, a cameraman spotted a group of sorority girls who were apparently more interested in snapping the perfect selfie than watching the game. The announcers for the TV broadcast took notice, and the whole thing turned into a strange case study of what Instagram has done to our culture.

23 Famous Movie Poster Photos Without Text

Famous movies often have iconic movie posters that are easily recognizable at a glance. We've collected text-less versions of 23 different posters to offer a closer look at the photos that are used to create them.

Selfies Cause More Deaths Now Than Shark Attacks

Here's a crazy but true statistic: selfies are now a bigger cause of death in the world than shark attacks.

Shark attacks are extremely rare: only about 5 people die from them every year around the globe. By comparison, there have already been 12 confirmed cases of people accidentally getting killed while trying to take a selfie.

Did I Just Give My #Permission? Hashtag Consent for Photo Usage is Trending

The New York Times published an article about brands using user generated content (UGC) without explicit permission. When a woman named Shereen Way posted a photo of her daughter to Instagram with the hashtag #crocs, Crocs pulled the photo and posted it to their website with other user photos.

It was only much later that Crocs sought explicit permission from Ms. Way, which she declined. And how did they ask for permission? “Please respond with #CrocsOK.”

What People Look Like Online Versus in Real Life

People often use social media photos these days to make their lives seem a lot more happy, exciting, and/or glamorous than it actually is. Popular Vine comedian/actor @MelvinGregg decided to poke fun at this fact of Internet culture with a little 6-second-long Vine sketch that's going viral.

When Photographers Become Endorsements

Photographers are used to being behind the camera, but the prominence and rise of photography – particularly through social media – has created emerging opportunities for photographers. No longer relegated to pimping camera gear and workshops, the contemporary photographer has many more possibilities to endorse everything from cars to credit cars.

When Photography Becomes a Weapon

Photography has been used in many ways throughout its history: as documentation, propaganda, keepsake, etc. But never has it been so frequently used as a weapon as in the Information Age. As visual communication becomes the de facto language of social media, we can only surmise that we will see more and more examples of using photography for nefarious purposes.

How Much Do YOU Need to Earn to Do Photography Full Time?

How much would you need to earn to make photography a full-time job? On a recent visit to India, I was strolling through Mumbai's colonial-era neighborhoods when I was approached by a young man with a Nikon DSLR and a backpack. He offered to take my photo against the backdrop of two of the city's landmarks, the Taj Hotel and the Gateway of India.

Instant prints were available, and examples in a clear plastic file were offered for inspection.

One Woman Photoshopped by 18 Countries: Beauty Standards Revealed

Last year, journalist Esther Honig published a viral series of images showing how photo retouchers in 27 countries around the world "enhanced" a portrait of her according to their cultural preferences. Inspired by that project, the UK medical website Superdrug Online Doctor just published a similar experiment that explores body image.

KFC’s New Tray Liners Let You Take ‘Fakation’ Photos

KFC Romania wants to help you make your life appear more exciting on social media. The restaurant chain's new 'Fakation' campaign features new tray liners that display photos from vacation spots around the world. You're supposed to use the photos as backgrounds to create fake vacation photos for sharing online.

Watch as Children Describe What They See in Luxury Fashion Photos

Artist Yolanda Dominguez believes that there is something wrong with the way women are portrayed in fashion photographs. For her recent project titled Ninos vs Moda ("Children vs Fashion"), she asked a group of 8-year-old children to look at an assortment of fashion shots and to describe what they see in them. The reactions can be seen in the 4.5-minute video above.

OpEd: The Failing of Modern Photography Education

At some early point in my 4-year stint as a film student at the University of Miami, in Florida, an advisor explained I’d have to dual-major in a field outside the school of communications. This seemed a perfectly reasonable request of the school to make; after all, the advisor said, as communication students we needed something to communicate about.

TEDx Talk: Babycakes Romero Discusses ‘The Death of Conversation’

Street photographer Babycakes Romero scored a viral hit last year with his project "The Death of Conversation," a series of photos showing people "together" but lost in the worlds of their own smartphones.

Romero was recently invited to TEDxBergamo in Italy to talk about the project and his thoughts on the images. You can watch the 16-minute presentation above.

Mom Goes on TV to Warn About Man Taking Pictures of Her Kids at McDonald’s

Photographer Randall Armor recently wrote an article about the war on photographers in which one scary 'P' word is being thrown around: the accusation of being a pedophile. News stories like the one above don't help the cause.

The 3-minute segment features an interview with a mother who called her local news station's whistleblower hotline. She says she and her family were "disturbed" and "shaken" recently after discovering a man taking pictures of her kids at a McDonald's restaurant.

The Great War on Photographers: A Dispatch From The Trenches

Karl Baden should have known better.

I mean, what was he thinking, casually snapping a few pictures as dramatic sunlight broke through the clouds after one of last week’s late spring rainstorms? From the front seat of his car in a suburban Boston Trader Joe’s parking lot, of all places? What is he, nuts?

The Real Meanings of Common Photographic Words and Expressions: Part II

Well now, it seems my little guide to common photographic expressions hit a chord with a few people. It’s great that people appreciated it and I received some awesome comments. So I decided to put my thinking cap back on and come up with some more definitions. As before, it’s just a bit of fun and I’m in the firing line, just as much as the next guy.

An Imaginary Conversation Between Two Masters of Painting

We often get too set in our ways and our conversation remains in the same context, which can blind us to seeing the pitfalls we create for ourselves. In general, using other photographers’ aesthetics, judgements, and sensibilities should make us think twice, thrice, … Yet, in the rush of creating the next “noticeable” image on the Web, we use presets, filters, brushes, and a whole lot of them without thinking twice.

Gender-Based Photography Groups… Why Do They Still Exist?

The first one I ever saw was "Chicks Who Click." It was years ago and the photography industry was predominantly male. I didn't think too much of it, but wondered (aloud at times) the wisdom of not only creating a gender based photography group, but giving it a cutesy name like "Chicks Who Click."

By naming it that, I felt they had downplayed the seriousness and professionalism of their chosen profession. They seemed to have devalued themselves from "professional photographers" to, well... "Chicks Who Click."

Photo Sharing is Hurting Our Enjoyment of Life, Study Finds

Smartphones and social networks have made snapping and sharing photos extremely easy to do, allowing us to preserve our memories and broadcast our experiences. It's not all positive, though: there are downsides to our snap- and selfie-happy culture.

A new study has found that 58% of people believe that "posting the perfect picture has prevented them from enjoying life's experiences."