stealthy

How to Shoot Portraits of Strangers on the Street Like a Ninja

While teaching a street photography workshop in Chicago recently, photographer Chuck Jines saw an opportunity to teach his students how he's sometimes able to shoot portraits of strangers from extremely close distances without them noticing.

"I had the opportunity to demonstrate just how much a photographer can get away with when people are lost in thought or occupied with a task," Jines says. His unusual demonstration is seen in the 1.5-minute video above.

COVR iPhone Case Helps You Take Better Candid Photos… Or Be a Creeper

The best camera is the one you have with you, and most of the time that camera is part of a device that also makes phone calls and serves as a platform for whatever Flappy Bird clone stole your heart when the original app was pulled.

The problem is, if you're a photographer using your phone you're probably capturing a moment that's about to pass... a moment you often destroy that second you take out your phone and point it at someone. That's where the COVR iPhone case comes in.

New Yorkers Upset Over Photographer’s Secret Snaps Through Their Windows

Photographer Arne Svenson lives on the second floor of an apartment building in the Tribeca neighborhood of New York City. For his project "The Neighbors," he pointed his camera at a luxury apartment building across the street and secretly photographed its inhabitants through open windows.

Those photographs are now being sold for thousands of dollars at a gallery in NYC, but it turns out the subjects aren't very happy with having their images stealthily snapped and sold.

Photographing Undercover in the World’s Most Secretive Nation, North Korea

Tensions are running high again on the Korean peninsula. As international observers watch closely for what move the North will play next, I thought it might be a good time to revisit some of my work from photographing in North Korea, undercover on-assignment, for the Globe & Mail in 2009.

This post is an extract from an article I contributed to the Digital Journalist the same year, recounting some of my experiences whilst photographing in this reclusive state. It was an experience I shall never forget…

A Demonstration of the Silent Shutters in the Fujifilm X20 and X100s

When Fujifilm announced its latest wave of X-Series cameras earlier this year, the company stated that the big area they're focusing on is "speed". The new X20 and X100s feature extremely speedy autofocus, burst speed, and startup time. The 's' in X100s may officially stand for "speed," but it could just as well stand for "silent" or "stealth". Both cameras feature extremely silent shutters that won't attract attention while you're snapping away.

The video above by nycphotog2006 shows how silent the X20 is even while the leaf shutter is fluttering at a staggering 12fps.

RIM Patents Phone Feature for Preventing the “Inconspicuous Use of Cameras”

When consumer electronic products have photographs leaked to the world prior to their official announcements, they're often blurry shots that appear to have been taken with a quick snap of a smartphone camera by some not-so-loyal employee or factory worker. Blackberry maker RIM wants to help companies who value privacy plug up these leaks, and has created a smartphone feature that is meant to make snapping stealthy shots a much more difficult thing to do.

Photographer Snapped Photos During Dates with Married Men

For her peculiar photo project titled "Married Men," London-based photographer and lecturer Natasha Caruana spent a year going on dates... with married men. She ended up going on 80 dates with men found through a dating website geared towards people looking to have affairs. At each meeting, Caruana used a disposable camera and a digital recorder hidden inside a small red purse to snap photographs and record the conversation. The images were all captured without the mens' permissions, but do not reveal identities; the faces are carefully omitted from the frame. Caruana limited herself to a few pictures per encounter to avoid arousing suspicion.

Photog Accidentally Captures Proposal While Snapping Pictures of a Sunrise

Can you believe the proposal photo above wasn't planned? In fact, the photographer wasn't even aware of what was going on. It was snapped this past Sunday by 20-year-old Sydney University student Michael Keane, who visited Sydney's Bondi Beach early in the morning to capture photographs of the sunrise. After returning home to post-process the images, Keane zoomed into his photos and was surprised to find that he had accidentally captured a very romantic moment happening way in the horizon.

Stealthy Photo of Marriage Proposal Goes Viral on the Internet

Photographer Patrick Lu always carries around his Olympus OM-D EM-5 camera around. "Every day. Everywhere," he says. That came in handy last week, when Lu and a friend were at the capital in Austin, Texas. His eagle-eyed friend somehow noticed that a man nearby was about to propose, and Lu was able to snap some stealthy photos of the event, including the beautifully framed one above.

Pool Party: Google’s Photo Sharing App

Facebook can't be too pleased with Google right now. In addition to releasing a Facebook competitor called Google+, the company has also beaten Facebook to the mobile photo sharing space with a new app called Pool Party. Like Google+, the app is currently invite-only, but if you can score an invite it's a free download for both iOS and Android. The app is based around collaborative group albums called "pools" that allow you to share pictures with friends and family in real-time.