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.
Musician Chris Bray was 13-years-old when he and his father attended the first ever launch of NASA's Space Shuttle program on April 12th, 1981. His mother snapped a photograph of the two standing ready with binoculars and a Super 8 camera. Last Friday, Bray (now 44) and his father (now nearly 70) were also in attendance at the final launch of the Shuttle program, and decided to recreate the photo they had taken together 30 years earlier.
On Saturday, the Leica store in Moscow was targeted by two masked men who used a sledgehammer to break through the door and shatter all the windows. Apparently the thieves didn't know too much about Leica gear: they stole a $300 flash unit but left a $23,000 Leica S2 medium format camera sitting on the shelf. Leica has published a list of stolen items and their serial numbers here, and is asking customers to compare serial numbers when buying gear from unauthorized sources.
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? …
Last Thursday, three Georgian photographers including Irakli Gedenidze, the personal photographer of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, were arrested on suspicion of spying for Russia by taking photos of secret documents. On Saturday, Georgian TV aired a clip of Gedenidze confessing to selling the information to someone he thought was a Russian agent, but claimed to be the victim of blackmail. The Moscow Times suggests that this may simply be an attempt by Georgia to "chill the media".
Want to see how instant film for Polaroid cameras is made? How It's Made recently paid a visit to The Impossible Project's factory in the Netherlands (purchased from Polaroid a few years ago) to give us a neat behind-the-scenes look at the processes that go into making the popular film.
The New York Times has a powerful piece about photographer Giles Duley. Duley was covering a patrol in Afghanistan back in February when he stepped on a bomb and lost an arm and both legs: …
Did you know that the original Star Wars lightsaber was made using antique camera parts? If you have an old Speed Graphic press camera, you may even have a replica lightsaber sitting on your shelf without knowing it.
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.
