Mikki the chimpanzee is now the de facto king of the ape photography world. A selection of photographs by (and of) him fetched a whopping £50,000 (~$78,000) at auction this past week at Sotheby’s Auction House in London.
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(Today is National Doughnut Day. I am of the opinion it should be a National Holiday, but other people in my studio don’t share the belief. They would be wrong.)
(The DH stands for “darling husband,” although in light of the following conversation that took place upon entering the studio this morning, I am doing away with that adjective.)
DH: “Hey, last minute change this afternoon. Got a shoot for two bodybuilders, so I need your help.”
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In a short segment titled “Photojournalists vs. iPhones” on The Colbert Report yesterday, Stephen Colbert weighed in on the Chicago Sun-Times’ decision to lay off its entire photography department. Colbert pulls no punches:
But the paper will continue to have great photojournalism, because reporters are now required to learn iPhone photography basics. But only the basics, like pressing the button. If the Sun-Times is still around in a week, the reporters can move on to the advanced stuff, like using a flash, and asking flood victims to say cheese.
Canadian version here. For a non-tongue-in-cheek view, check out the photographer responses that we published earlier this week.
(via Colbert Nation via Fstoppers)
I was a kid in the early 90s and my brother would often drive me around. One day, on the radio, a song came on by the Squirrel Nut Zippers. My brother turned to me and asked, “Can you believe how popular this song is?” I didn’t understand what he was asking. “I like this song,” I said. “Yeah fine, but it sounds like it’s from the 40’s.” This was one of the first times in my life that I had become aware of time.
Not time, like wristwatch time. The grand idea of time. That long incomprehensible string that was here before me and that’d be here after I’ve gone. A pretty heavy concept to be born from listening to a Squirrel Nut Zippers song.
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Sometimes getting access to shoot concerts or major concert events can be tricky. Dealing with publicists, event planners, and even security. But one band is making it super simple to get into the pit with your camera in hopes of capturing great shots — for a fee.
Well-known American rock band Hawthorne Heights has posted an advertisement of sorts on their website, selling anyone the chance to take photos of them at this year’s Warped Tour. Read more…
We can think of a lot of worse things to call a photograph than “gothic,” but that label was enough to really tick off the owner of a Kansas photo studio.
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There has been a series of devastating tornados in the American Midwest recently, and one of the emerging trends — especially in this social media era — is the hunt for dramatic photographs and videos. Earlier this week we wrote about how one particular filmmaker created a tornado-proof vehicle to capture footage from directly inside funnels.
That filmmaker is backed by the Discovery Channel and has the funds and know-how to do things correctly (i.e. “safely”). On the other hand, there is also a new generation of storm chasers who are getting closer and closer to the storms in ordinary vehicles; the video above is one example of when people take their cameras too close.
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Ben High of Marion, Iowa has two big passions: making jewelry and making photographs. When he’s not designing jewelry at Philip’s Diamond Shop, High loves tinkering with old cameras and shooting instant film photographs.
The two talents sometimes come together for some pretty fantastic results; a number of rings High has created are inspired by camera lenses.
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The Chicago Sun-Times has raised quite a furor talking after unexpectedly laying off its entire photography staff yesterday. Everyone seems to have something to say about it, with some commentators calling it “a sign of the times,” while others are wondering whether the newspaper is trying to pull “a union-busting move.”
Los Angeles-based writer and comedian Jason Sereno decided to weigh in a different way: he created a tongue-in-cheek Craigslist job listing in Chicago.
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When Wellington, New Zealand-based photographer Brady Dyer proposed to his then-girlfriend Emma in Florence, Italy last year, he had her capture her own special moment on camera. Dyer writes,
After having the most amazing day ever, we were on the deck of our penthouse apartment drinking Veuve at which point Emma said “this moment couldn’t get any more perfect”… She was wrong! I told her to do a big 360 degree video of the sunset finishing on me and I would wave and say hello. [#]
The whole thing “couldn’t have gone more perfectly,” the photographer says.
