Amateur Photographer magazine is doing something about all the stories in the news of photographers being stopped and harassed by police in Britain. They’ve created a special lens cloth that has guidelines that were issued to Metropolitan police officers last year printed on. The lens cloth set will be bundled for free in the July 10th issue of the magazine, which hits newsstands on July 6 and lands in the hands of subscribers on July 3.

Now who’s going to step up and make one for photographers in the United States?

Image credit: Photograph by Amateur Photographer

Earlier today, photographer Chase Jarvis announced his partnership with creativeLIVE, a free, live online class site. Each class presentations is filmed live, to an in-person audience in Seattle, and streamed on the creativeLIVE website.

“The goal here is to help democratize creativity,” Jarvis wrote on his blog.

Jarvis said that he had been working on the site for the past year, in order to create a live, interactive classroom.  As an innovative model, Jarvis is offering the actual live, streaming footage for free, but the recorded versions of past classes must be purchased. The revenue goes towards supporting the site and the instructors.

The growing list of instructors boasts some pretty big names: Vincent Laforet tweeted that he will be leading a live three-day HDSLR workshop at the end of the month, and Zack Arias said he will be leading a studio class.

The calendar of upcoming webcasts and course list are available on the creativeLIVE site.

Instructor John Greengo is currently leading a 10-week Fundamentals of Digital Photography class, which began today.

Update: Here’s a short video announcement by Jarvis:

British newspaper The Guardian has teamed up with Canon on a new app for the iPad that features the most recent 100 photographs from their award-winning Eyewitness series. In addition to simply viewing the photographs, they’re also including “Pro tips”, or short blurbs written by the photography team on the “technical and artistic merits” of each image.

If you love good photography and would like to have a steady stream of photography tips (as well as have an iPad), you can grab the app for free from the App Store.

No word on whether the pro tips will ever be available for those who don’t own iPads.

Update: The pro tips are available online on the Eyewitness website.

If you’re yearning to take photos of the great outdoors, the BBC Wildlife Magazine website now offers free downloadable Masterclasses.

Each PDF contains a simple, topical lesson written by a pro wildlife photographer who provides tips and photo techniques, gear recommendations, and beautiful example photos.

The Masterclasses are archived pages from past issues of the magazine, but the tips they offer are timeless. These lessons are an inspiring read for photographers of any level.

(via Nature Magnified)

If you’re looking for a way to “upgrade” your flash unit without spending money on real gear, the Los Angeles Digital Imaging Group (LADIG) has a nice bounce card cutout you can use to create your own free bounce card. Simply download the template (link to PDF below), print it out on cardstock, follow the instructions for cutting, and attach it to your flash with a rubber band (or velcro if you’re feeling fancy).

Download the Whacky Hack Bounce Card PDF (via Make)

Image credit: Photograph by Adam Flaherty and used with permission

Fotobabble is a newly launched service that allows you to add a short audio clip to photographs via either your computer or iPhone (using their free application).

Here’s the description on their website:

Fotobabble lets you create talking photos in two clicks. Simply upload a photo and then record your voice directly through your computer to create a talking photo. You can easily share it by e-mail, Facebook, Twitter or embed it into a blog or website.

It’s free and all completely web-based. No software to download, just register and get started in seconds.

Here’s an example Fotobabble found on the website that we embedded into this post:

(via PhotographyBLOG)

Update: It looks like many of these courses are no longer available.

In a well known scene from Good Will Hunting, the main character Will drops the following gem as he defends his uneducated friend against a cocky Harvard student: “[...] you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a f**kin’ education you coulda’ got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the Public Library.”

If you’re looking for some education in photography, another school in Cambridge, MIT, is offering the material of quite a few photography classes for free online. This includes everything from reading lists and assignments to full downloads of course materials and student projects. Here’s a quick list:

4.341 Introduction to Photography

This course also offers practical instruction in basic black and white techniques, digital imaging, fundamentals of camera operation, lighting, film exposure, development and printing. Course provides opportunity for continued exploration.

4.341 Introduction to Photography and Related Media

This course provides practical instruction in the fundamentals of analog and digital SLR and medium/large format camera operation, film exposure and development, black and white darkroom techniques, digital imaging, and studio lighting.

4.343 Photography and Related Media

Fosters a critical awareness of how images in our culture are produced and constructed. Student-initiated term project at the core of exploration. Special consideration given to the relationship of space and the photographic image. Practical instruction in basic black and white techniques, digital imaging, fundamentals of camera operation, lighting, film exposure, development, and printing.

4.A21 Stories Without Words: Photographing the First Year

The transition from high school and home to college and a new living environment can be a fascinating and interesting time, made all the more challenging and interesting by being at MIT. More than recording the first semester through a series of snapshots, this freshman seminar will attempt to teach photography as a method of seeing and a tool for better understanding new surroundings.

11.309J / 4.215J Sensing Place: Photography as Inquiry

This course explores photography as a disciplined way of seeing, of investigating landscapes and expressing ideas. Readings, observations, and photographs form the basis of discussions on landscape, light, significant detail, place, poetics, narrative, and how photography can inform design and planning, among other issues.

21A.348 Photography and Truth

Photographs in anthropology serve many purposes: as primary data, illustrations of words in a book, documentation for disappearing cultures, evidence of fieldwork, material objects for museum exhibitions, and even works of art. This course explores photography as art, research tool, and communication.

Have other links to free online courses? Feel free to share with us in the comments!

(via Your Photo Tips)

Image credit: The Dome at MIT by opencontent

One of the best online photo editors is now completely free to use. Aviary has decided to offer its entire suite of online apps for free, including its popular Phoenix image editor.

The application used to cost $25 per year, and those who subscribed in the past 30 days can request refunds. While there has always been a free version of Phoenix, everyone can now save files privately on Aviary’s servers, watermark their images, and access the tutorials that previously required a subscription.

Offering the service for free should help Aviary better compete with Adobe, which offers its online version of Photoshop for free as well (up to 2GBs).

I wonder if (or when) online editors will rival traditional programs in terms of power and functionality. Any guesses?

(via Lifehacker)

A few times in the past I’ve had to recover data from memory cards. Once it was a friend who accidentally reformatted the card and deleted hundreds of photographs from a recent vacation. Another time I accidentally deleted precious images from the memory card before I had backed them up. What I’ve learned though, is that in most cases, you can easily recover the data you fear was lost, even if you do something drastic such as reformat your card.

When you “delete” a photo from your memory card, it simply goes to that section of storage and marks it as “available” to be used again. The data of the original image is still there on your memory card, though the camera will not display it as an image. Thus, the most important thing you need to remember to do if you accidentally delete data is to stop using the memory card. This is because the only way for the data to truly become unrecoverable is if you delete it, then overwrite it with new data (or even blank data). Thus, to ensure that you can recover your deleted photo, you need to be sure to stop using your card immediately to ensure that nothing is written to that storage location on the card.

To do the actual recovery, you could take the card to a photography place and have a professional recover the data for you, but I’ve always relied on free software that can do the same thing. Here are some popular and free programs to try:

• Recover Files by Undelete & Unerase, Inc.
  Size: 1.16MB
  OS: Windows
• Pandora Recovery by Pandora Corp.
  Size: 3.12MB
  OS: Windows
• Digital Photo Recovery by Art Plus
  Size: 1.29MB
  OS: Windows

Most of the good, safe, and free programs available for recovering photos are available only for Windows users. PhotoRescue is a popular program for Mac users, but costs $29.

Finally, the fact that data is so easily recoverable means that you need to be careful when selling things like computers and memory cards. Simply “deleting” data will not prevent what was on the card to fall into the wrong hands. If you’re selling a memory card that contained data you don’t want others to possibly recover, then be sure to overwrite the card completely, or look online for a program that helps you safely delete data.