French design duo Zim & Zou (Thibault Zimmerman and Lucie Thomas) these papercraft versions of Polaroid and Leica cameras — they’re super realistic, except the colors are quite trippy!
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Last year map geek Eric Fischer created heat maps showing where Flickr photos are taken in large cities and comparing tourist vs. local hotspots. Now he’s back again with beautiful maps showing geotagged Flickr photos and Twitter Tweets, and the maps aren’t limited to cities — there’s maps for continents (see North America above) and even the whole world! The orange dots show photos, the blue ones indicate Tweets, and a white one means both were found in that location.
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Remember that super realistic Leica M3 paper pinhole camera we featured back in June? You can now print and make your own! Photographer Matt Nicholson has created a 10-page PDF with the printable template and detailed instructions, and is selling it for £1.50 (~$2.5) in his online store.
San Diego-based wedding photographer Aaron Willcox won 1st place in an engagement photo contest with this shot showing a feat of incredible strength. No Photoshop trickery or invisible wires were used in making this image (nor does the guy have Superman-esque strength). Can you figure out how it was done?
(via Photoxels)
Image credit: Photograph by Aaron Willcox and used with permission
Did you know that the original Star Wars lightsaber was made using antique camera parts?
For A New Hope, the original film prop hilts were constructed by John Stears from old press camera flash battery packs and other pieces of hardware. [#] The 3-cell Graflex flashgun was modified and used as the prop for Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber in Star Wars: A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. A black grip was added and the circular bulb housing was obviously removed, but little else was changed to create the lightsaber prop. [#]
Do a search on eBay and you’ll find plenty of people selling these flash units as “lightsabers”.
The Graflex (via Reddit)
Let’s start off this week with something lighthearted and awesome. The folks at 2D Photography spent nearly six months working on building a giant Rube Goldberg machine using photo gear. Like the epic Battle at F-Stop Ridge video, it seems pretty likely that this video will soon be going viral.
P.S. If you’re a Canonite, prepare to cringe at about 16 seconds in.
Thanks for sending in the tip, Kevin!
For photo enthusiasts, Google’s new Google+ social network is something like Flickr mixed with Facebook. It has the social sharing power of Facebook while providing features and tools Flickr users would appreciate thanks to the fact that Google runs a full-fledged photo-sharing service in Picasa (soon to be brought into the Google+ fold and renamed Google Photos). One such feature is the EXIF data section, easily accessed for each photo by Action->Photo Details. Most Facebook users would likely be confused by having a histogram pop up for their images, but for loyal Picasa users using Google+ for sharing and viewing photos, it’s quite a nifty option.
(via Reddit)
Street photographer Eric Kim generated some buzz last month by recording himself shooting on the street with a GoPro mounted to his Leica M9. Now, he’s back again with an even cooler point of view: through the Leica M9′s viewfinder itself. This 10 minute video of Kim doing street photography in Santa Monica was recorded using a HTC EVO 4G smartphone stuck to the back of his camera.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if this kind of footage existed for all the iconic photographs taken throughout history?
As we sign off for this 4th of July weekend, we leave you with this neat experiment by videographer Jeremiah Warren. He recently purchased some small keychain cameras off eBay and mounted them to various fireworks, giving us a glimpse into what it’s like to be a 4th of July firework.
Eli Stonberg created this creative video by recording skateboarder Aryeh Kraus with seven separate cameras, with six of them on Kraus or the skateboard. When they’re all viewed at the same time it’s a pretty unique visual experience. Like the splitscreen short film we shared yesterday, hopefully this one will give you a healthy dose of inspiration.
(via Laughing Squid)
