jawdropping

Jaw-Dropping Footage from the First Spacecraft to Touch the Sun

NASA announced this week that its Parker Solar Probe was the first spacecraft to ever "touch the Sun" by flying through its corona, or upper atmosphere. The probe captured the first photos ever from within the corona, and those images were then turned into this incredible 13-second timelapse video.

What 100 Million Stars Looks Like: NASA Releases a 1.5 Gigapixel Photo of the Andromeda Galaxy

NASA has released the largest and sharpest photograph ever made of the Andromeda Galaxy, the nearest spiral galaxy to ours that contains an estimated 1 trillion stars. The new image (above is a crop showing a portion of it) weighs in at 1.5 gigapixels (i.e. 1.5 billion pixels); it's so big that you would need 600HD televisions to display the entire digital photo.

Explore Pyongyang North Korea Like Never Before in Mind-Bending ‘Flow-Motion’ Hyperlapse

The 'Enter Pyongyang' flow-motion hyperlapse by JT Singh and Rob Whitworth debuted to the public two hours ago as of this writing, and already it has over 3,500 upvotes on Reddit and almost half a million views... ON VIMEO!

But one look at the hyperlapse and you'll understand why. Done in the same style as Whitworth's jaw-dropping Barcelona time-lapse this is these are the kind of status quo-shattering creations that genres like time-lapse ache for.

The Problem of Word Inflation in the World of Photography

It seems every news and blog site that I visit these days in inundating me with stunning photos. Sometimes the photos are labeled “Jaw-Dropping” or “Amazing” or “Incredible,” and to be honest, the pictures are usually great. But just as often they are just above-average pictures with exaggerated headlines.

What’s going on here? When did every picture become stunning? And if every picture is stunning, is any picture stunning really? I mean how stunned can I get?

Mind-Blowing TV Spot Recreates Six Iconic Images in One Uninterrupted Shot

This TV Spot is the height of creativity, and we absolutely love it. In 50 seconds and one uninterrupted flowing video shot, UK directing duo US and advertising agency Grey (the guys behind the amazing exploding spices commercial) pay tribute to six completely unique, culturally iconic images by expertly recreating one after the other.

A Jaw-Dropping Demonstration of Beauty Retouching Done on 4K Video

Beauty retouching on still photographs of faces is both ubiquitous and controversial in some industries. You've likely seen your fair share of tutorials and demonstrations that show amazing feats of Photoshop, but did you know that the same 'shops can be done on video? And not just any video, mind you: 4K video.

Jaw-Dropping Little-Planet Photos That Span the Four Seasons

We've shared examples of stereographic projection (AKA "little planet") photography here before, but none quite like these. Sydney-based visual artist Catherine Nelson creates some of the most amazing "planets" we've seen by stitching together hundreds of individual photographs. Trained as a painter and having worked on feature films like Moulin Rouge and Harry Potter, she uses her visual effects expertise to combine the images in creative and surreal ways.

Jaw-Dropping Time-Lapse Shots of Earth

Between August and October of this year, the crew onboard the International Space Station used a Nikon D3S (at high ISOs) to capture photographs of Earth as they zipped around it at 17,000mph. Michael Konig then took the footage and compiled it into this eye-popping time-lapse video showing what our planet looks like from up there.

Stunning Star Trails Photographed from the Australian Outback

Photographer Lincoln Harrison captures jaw-dropping photographs of star trails. Shooting from the Australian outback, he spends up to 15 hours creating each image of the night sky. Shooting with a Nikon D7000, Nikon D3100, and a wide assortment of lenses, Harrison captures a large number of exposures of the foreground and stars separately. He then combines the images (sometimes hundreds of them) into amazing photographs showing the sky dominated by colorful star trails.

Breathtaking Murmuration of Starlings Caught on Camera

Sophie Windsor Clive was canoeing on the River Shannon in Ireland when she came across one of nature's most beautiful phenomenon: a murmuration of starlings. This is when vast numbers of starlings fly together in giant, cloud-like formations. Luckily for Sophie, she had her camera handy.

“Modern Times” Points to Future Times

"Modern Times" is a short film that offers a glimpse of the future in both the story that it tells and the way it was made -- it's a low/no budget film created entirely against a green screen with friends as actors. Maybe in the future shooting at real locations (or with real people) will be less and less necessary as CGI continues to become more and more mind-boggling.

Beautiful Compilation of Timelapse Clips by Mike Flores

This is a stunning montage of timelapse clips created by Mike Flores during the past year. Many of the scenes are layered beautifully, with the desert in the foreground, clouds whizzing across the sky, and the universe spinning brightly in the background.

Unbelievably Realistic Camera Tour of a Computer Generated Classroom

If you were reading PetaPixel earlier this year, you probably remember the jaw-dropping CGI animation titled "The Third & The Seventh". Here's another extremely realistic and detailed computer-generated animation that simulates a camera traveling through a classroom (with lens flares and all). It was created by Israel-based Studio Aiko.

Crazy 3D Projection Mapping on a Historic Building in Amsterdam

A recent fad in advertising is to use 3D projection mapping on buildings at night to create jaw-dropping effects. The above video shows an ad Samsung ran on a historic building in Amsterdam to promote the Samsung 3D LED TV. A perfect representation of the building is first projected onto the actual building, and then mind-blowing things begin to happen.

14 Powerful TED Talks by Photographers

TED has some of the most interesting talks you'll find on the web, with topics ranging from how diet can prevent cancer to demonstrations of amazing new photo technology. They also have a great collection of talks by photographers, and we've compiled a list of 14 of them here. These short talks are eye-opening, jaw-dropping, and often quite moving.