Photographer Shannon Bileski of Signature Exposures captured this beautiful photograph last Friday at Patricia Beach in Canada. It shows a bright meteor streaking through a sky filled with the green glow of the aurora borealis.
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The photo above is the winning photograph in this year’s National Geographic 2012 Traveler Photo Contest. It’s a photo by Brooklyn-based photographer Cédric Houin titled “Butterfly”, which shows a Kyrgyz mother and daughter using a sewing machine in their dwelling. His caption reads,
This image was shot in the Kyrgyz lands of the Wakhan Corridor. The intimacy of this everyday life moment, shot inside of a family yurt, is in total contrast with the harsh environment these nomadic tribes live in. On the right we notice a television and a sound console. These tribes live weeks away from any village by foot. In spite of being located at an altitude of 4,300 meters in one of the most remote areas of Afghanistan they are equipped with solar panels, satellite dishes and cellphones. Ancestral ways of living, with touches of modernity.
The image was submitted into the category Sense of Place (the other categories were: Travel Portraits, Outdoor Scenes, and Spontaneous Moments).
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NASA has released another Blue Marble photograph of Earth. It calls this one the “most amazing, highest resolution image of Earth ever”. The image is a composite created from a number of photos of Earth’s surface captured on January 4, 2012, and weighs in at a massive 64-megapixels (8000×8000). You can download the full-res version here. Be warned though — it might crash your browser.
Behind the Gare St. Lazare is one of French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson‘s best known photographs, and is frequently cited as an example of his “decisive moment” approach to photography. The photograph was made in 1932, but the oldest known print is dated 1946. That print will be sold at a Christie’s auction on November 11th along with 100 other signed prints, and is expected to fetch up to ~$250,000.
(via Christies via Foto Actualidad)
Earlier this week, a Reuters photograph showing a Libyan rebel firing an RPG caused a stir after people on a number of sites suggested that it might have been Photoshopped. Well, it turns out the photo is 100% real — not only did Reuters confirm this with us, but forensic expert Neal Krawetz arrived at the same conclusion after analyzing the image:
By using a suite of analysis methods, it becomes extremely difficult for a fake image to pass unnoticed. While an intentional forgery might pass one or two tests, it takes a level of skill that most photographers and amateur graphic artists lack. This picture easily passes every test (including a whole slew that I didn’t include here). I have no reason to question the authenticity of this picture.
Typically, amazing photos come about through digital modifications. However in this case, Anis Mili has truly captured an amazing photo. And he did it without using a crutch like Photoshop.
You should definitely give Krawetz’s blog post a read — it’s an interesting look at image forensics.
Without a Crutch [The Hacker Factor Blog]
As Space Shuttle Atlantis left the International Space Station to head back to Earth for the final time, one of the astronauts on the ISS captured this beautiful image of the shuttle’s glowing re-entry. Any guesses for what shutter speed this was shot at?
Station Crew Views Shuttle Landing (via Popular Science)
Update: Someone from the Photo Operations Group at the Johnson Space Center was kind enough to leave a comment with the answer: 1.6 seconds, f/2.8 at an ISO of 10000.
Now here’s a photograph you don’t get to shoot everyday: the White House Flickr stream published a photograph of the most powerful man in the world having dinner with the most powerful people in Silicon Valley. In terms of photography-related technologies, what you see is Picasa on the left, iPhone and Facebook Photos on either side of the President, and Flickr in red on the far end.
Being present at meetings like this is yet another reason why it must be awesome to be Pete Souza, President Obama’s photographer.
Image credit: P021711PS-0705 by The White House
Freelance photographer Marc Feldman lost his job when Getty Images discovered that he had sent in an altered golf photo for distribution. But Feldman says that it was all an innocent mistake.
Feldman says he was in the press tent after the event, reviewing some photos. The golfer in the image, Matt Bettencourt, and his caddie came by to look at photos as well. The caddie had suggested that the photo would look better without him in it, and Feldman demonstrated how easily he could be removed.
The photographer said he thought he saved the altered image on his desktop, but somehow accidentally transmitted the image along with his final images to Getty.”I certainly did not mean to send both of them to Getty,” he told Guy Reynolds, the Dallas News photo editor who originally blew the whistle on him. Read more…
Here’s a photograph of paparazzi taken back in 1932. Looks like some things never change (paparazzi), while others do (check out those beastly cameras!).
Image credit: Photograph from the Wikimedia Commons.
Last week we reported that a photographer was in hot water after photographing public art and selling it as stock photography. It just so happens that a new case has arisen involving just the opposite: sculptors basing work off a photograph without permission.
The above image, “Sad Vader”, is a popular photograph made by New York City-based photographer Alex Brown that has become ubiquitous on the Internet and sometimes published without crediting Brown. UK-based sculptors Craig Little and Blake Whitehead of littlewhitehead created a sculpture based on the photograph titled “Spam” due to how the photograph can seemingly be found everywhere on the web. Here’s a photograph of the installation:
When emailed by Brown, the artists replied,
On all the blogs we found it on, none of them mentioned the maker of the image. We never knew the image had been taken by a professional photographer.
In an email to Photo District News, Brown states,
My main objection to all of this is that I exhibit this image in galleries and sell limited edition prints, [...] By appropriating it, they directly undermine my ability to do so.
What are your thoughts on this situation? What action should be taken?
(via PDNPulse)
Update on February 10th, 2010: Dave, a reader, tells us that the British Journal of Photography got in touch with littlewhitehead and received a pretty lengthy statement. Here’s a snippet:
We contacted Alex immediately after hearing of his concerns and asked if there was anyway we could deal with the situation amicably. We assured him it was never our intention to upset him, nor was it merely to copy what he had already done. However, instead of replying to us, he has selected certain parts of this email and posted blogs slandering us plagiarists. He has also contacted galleries we’ve worked with also slandering us plagiarists. We do not really believe this is an appropriate first step towards dealing with the situation amicably.
Image credits: Sad Vader by Alex Brown. Spam by littlewhitehead.
