Ideas

Shooting Video with a 100-Year-Old Kodak Vest Pocket Lens

A few weeks ago, we showed you how one photographer retrofitted a 100-year-old Kodak Vest Pocket lens onto his Canon DSLR to photograph the rodeo. Now, YouTuber Mathieu Stern has created a similar setup that allowed him to to capture some very unique video footage.

This is the World’s First Solargraphy Timelapse

Solargraphy is a technique for photographing the sun's path through the sky by using a pinhole camera to expose photographic paper for anywhere from a few hours to over a year. Photographer Sam Cornwell has created what he believes is the world's first solargraphy timelapse.

Imitating Hazy Backgrounds with Diffusion Gels

Shooting in a studio has its advantages. But although being warm, dry and convenient are greatly appreciated, shooting between the same four walls can get a little boring if you’re constantly using them as backgrounds for your shots.

This Handmade ‘Ultimate Photography Portfolio’ Took 18 Months to Build

NYC fashion and commercial photographer Dani Diamond recently embarked on a mission to create "The Ultimate Photography Portfolio." By combining his love of photography with his skills as a woodworker and about 18 months of design & development, he was able to create something truly unique: a wooden, leather-bound, laser-engraved, 11x17-inch portfolio that's unlike anything we've seen before.

This is a Modern Car Race Shot with a 1968 Super 8 Camera

A guy named Nick Shirrell recently attended a car race, but instead of shooting it with a modern camera, he brought along a Canon Super 8 camera that was launched back in 1968. As you can see in the resulting 3.5-minute video above, the results were delightful.

Turtle Wears GoPro, Captures Exciting Pond Life

Kyle Naegeli, AKA The Fish Whisperer, recently strapped a GoPro camera to the back of a turtle and let it go inside a small pond. As the 4-minute video above shows, some fascinating turtle's-eye views of the world resulted.

3 Ways to Use Plexiglass for Creative Portraits

As a portrait photographer, it can often be difficult to keep thing interesting in the studio. Adding a unique element to your images can help them stand out while also allowing you to have little fun. The unique element that I added for my most recent shoot was just a simple piece of plexiglass. Here are three ways you can use a sheet of plexiglass and some simple household supplies to unleash your inner creative.

3 Ways to Boost Your Portraits Using Color

We photographers obsess about finding the right light. We understand how to use hard light, when to use soft light, and get excited by directional light. Portrait photographers learn how to control light using flashes and modifiers, and become experts in getting the most from natural light.

Perfect Imperfections: Using a Flawed Camera Lens for Creative Photos

If you were to ask a photographer whether it’s better to invest in a camera or a lens, most would answer lens. After all, no amount of megapixels or camera features can save blurry or ill-rendered images. The lens is the eye of the camera, which is why photographers spend thousands of dollars on them. However, this doesn’t mean that you need an expensive lens to make compelling images.

Arctic Photos Exhibited Inside Blocks of Melting Ice

During SXSW in Austin, Texas, earlier this month, award-winning Canadian documentary photographer Louie Palu held an unusual exhibition titled "Arctic Passage." His large format photos were displayed on a plaza frozen within large blocks of ice.

Slow-Shutter High-Speed Action Photography

With so many ways to be creative in photography, I get really excited with many ideas for a photograph. One area I find very interesting is sports action photography, but with a twist. It's great to capture that split-second moment and have that frame frozen, but I wanted to explore capturing the motion and freezing the action all in one go.

These Light Painting Photos Were Shot by Splashing in Water

Light-painting photographer Denis Smith is perhaps best known for creating giant spheres of light in photos. For his latest series, titled "Liquid Light," Smith brought his light tools into waist-deep water for beautiful photos of light bursting forth from the surface.

Night Skiing Lit by Flares on Drones

Four years ago, Swiss freeskier and filmmaker Nicolas Vuignier had the idea of lighting a night skier using a drone. After a great deal of planning and work, this 4-minute short film titled "Heatseeker" is what resulted. It features beautiful footage of a skier hurtling down the mountainside at night under the glow of a drone-mounted flare.

Shooting Like Bruce Gilden Is Harder Than It Looks

Bruce Gilden is one of the top street photographers of our generation. He’s controversial, talented and he has his own style… so there’s no question as to why some might want to emulate him.

A Multi-Plate, Multi-Lens Daguerreotype Panorama

I’ve been experimenting non-stop with a few new daguerreotype techniques lately, and however promising the results are looking so far, those experiments are slow going. But here’s something I thought up and was able to execute in a relatively speedy manner -- something I believe warrants a look. I don’t believe this method of making a panoramic image has ever been utilized before, so I’m dubbing it the "Antorama."

How to Create In-Camera Effects with a Bride’s Wedding Veil

In this video and article, we’ll show you how you can use a bridal veil to create interesting flares and light leaks in-camera. It can be hard to get the right amount of flare in an image, especially when the sun is overpowering the frame. Here is a simple trick we like to use to block just enough sun to get the perfect shot.

The Pine Cone: Nature’s Memory Card Holder and Display

Every year, a pine tree close to our house produces the most perfect cones, and I often pick up a handful of them on my way home. The cones are undeniably beautiful, but not of much practical use. Or so I thought, until one day it hit me that a cone would make a rather nifty SD card holder.

The Egg Dress: A Photo Rescue Story

I am starting a rescue effort. It has nothing to do with dogs, cats, or dolphins caught in tuna nets. I’m not trying to salvage old buildings nor save the environment. I still use plastic straws, people. I admit it. What I am rescuing is old photos.

Using Slow Shutter Speeds for Street Photography

As with any genre of photography, there is no "one size fits all" solution for exposure in any given situation. There are as many different means of achieving a "look" as there are photographers practicing those methods, and any can be adapted to fit into the kind of photography you want to be doing.

5 Macro Photo Ideas to Shoot at Home

Want to get creative without leaving the comfort of your own home? Here's a 5-minute video by COOPH that contains 5 ideas for macro photographs you can do with a small budget, simple gear, and everyday items.

Getting Creative With One Light

So you have just picked up your first light or you have had one light for a while now, and you are wondering what more you can create with just that one light. Well, you can create loads.

The World’s First Etch A Sketch Camera

Self-taught programmer Martin Fitzpatrick of Two Bit Arcade has created the world's first Etch A Sketch digital camera. It captures digital photos and then outputs them by drawing them onto the Pocket Etch A Sketch "screen" found on the back.

Recreating the Look of 1850s Tintypes in Digital with Math and Science

While I was visiting San Francisco, Kristy Headley, a dear friend and fellow engineer, showed me her studio. There I was lucky enough to sit for her while she did some vintage tintyping. Tintyping was one of the earliest forms of photography, popular in the 1850s.

Drone vs DSLR: Shooting the Milky Way

This was a fun experiment and, to be honest, I’m not sure if it’s been done before. I read about photographers capturing the Milky Way with their phones so I wanted to put a drone to the test and see what it could do while hovering. As it turns out you can not only catch the Milky Way’s galactic core but also meteors and satellites as well.

Breathing New Life Into Old Civil War Photos Using Animation

My name is Matt Loughrey, and I'm an artist based in Ireland. I occasionally work alongside libraries and museums with projects to develop their visitor experiences. Over time I have become familiar with a handful of photographers.

The Problem of Viewing Photos on Digital Displays

In the good old days of analog photography, print aspect ratio was ultimately determined by the paper size. In other words, if you printed an 8x10-inch, you had to crop your negative to a 4:5 aspect ratio. For slide film, the image aspect ratio was determined by the film format, for instance, 3:2 for 35mm film.