If you have an unwanted silk scarf lying around, you can combine it with some key rings to turn it into a stylish camera strap. All you need are some key rings and a sewing machine (and some leather if you want extra style points). Stacie over at Scarves.net has written a step-by-step tutorial on how you can make your own.
Social Lights is a project by photographer Seymour Templar that's like a nighttime version of Joe Holmes' Texting series that we featured earlier this year. Templar documented social life in NYC by snapping portraits of people interacting with others through their cell phones. Each individual unwittingly helps out by lighting their own faces with their phone displays.
CNN created quite a stir yesterday after laying off a dozen photojournalists due to the rise of citizen journalism and the availability of cameras. Here's a humorous response to the story by Stephen Colbert, who gives us a glimpse into the "uncompensated future of news".
Want to made giant prints of your tiny phone photos? Instead of doing the enlargement purely with Photoshop, Photojojo suggests using a scanner for high-quality enlarging. Simply resample the small photo at 360dpi, print it out on high quality matte paper, and then re-digitize it using a scanner at 360dpi and the print size you want. It'd be interesting to see a side-by-side comparison of this technique versus simply resizing in Photoshop and printing that image directly.
Nikon has announced the new SB-910, a top-of-the-line flash unit to succeed the SB-900. Instead of increased power -- the guide number and zoom range haven't changed -- Nikon has chosen to focus on usability. The new flash features a new MENU button and improved LCD user interface that are designed to make operating it a breeze. It also automatically detects spiking temperatures, and slows down the recycle rate to automatically prevent overheating. The price fits the SB-910's place in the …
Wondering whether or not the shutter speeds on your camera are accurate? Instead of taking it to a shop or buying expensive testing equipment, you can use an old television or CRT monitor as a simple shutter speed tester! Camera enthusiast Rick Oleson has an easy to understand diagram showing what you can expect to see from the screen at different shutter speeds. For a more technical explanation and tutorial, check out this article that appeared in a 1967 issue of Popular Science.
Photographer James Loveday has a portrait project documenting the people who use Craigslist. Over a period of several months, he placed ads on Craigslist offering free portraits to anyone who stopped by his Brooklyn studio.
Roughly 50 staffers at CNN were given pink slips today, including nearly a dozen photojournalists. In an email to the staff, Senior VP Jack Womack cited the accessibility of cameras and the growth of citizen journalism as reasons for the terminations: …
What if all advertising photos came with a number that revealed the degree to which they were Photoshopped? We might not be very far off, especially with recent advertising controversies and efforts to get "anti-Photoshop laws" passed. Researchers Hany Farid and Eric Kee at Dartmouth have developed a software tool that detects how much fashion and beauty photos have been altered compared to the original image, grading each photo on a scale of 1-5. The program may eventually be used as a tool …
The first known light painting photographs were made way back in 1914, when Frank and Lillian Moller Gilbreth used small lights and long exposure photos to capture the motion of workers. Subjects ranged from handkerchief folders to bricklayers. The photos weren't meant as art, but were instead made to help develop ways to increase employee output and simplify job tasks.
Olympus has been in the photography game since introducing its first camera back in 1936, but its future as a major player is at risk now that the company is caught up in one of the largest corporate scandals Japan has ever seen. According to Reuters, the company is reviewing its business structure, and there is speculation that it may be forced to sell off assets to survive.
Always looking to upcycle her old things, entrepreneur Heidi Lehto came up with the idea of turning VHS cassette cases into 3D picture frames that have a secret storage compartment. She drilled the case into the wall using a couple of screws, and uses it as an easy-to-access business card holder.
During a 2001 launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis, NASA photographer Pat McCracken captured this amazing photograph of the shuttle's smoke plume casting a shadow across the full moon rising in the horizon.
With the introduction of iOS 5, Apple finally turned the iPhone's volume up button into a shutter button and its headphones into remote shutter releases. However, did you know that many Bluetooth headsets can now be used as wireless shutter releases? As long as your device can wirelessly increase the iPhone's volume (and not just its own) it should work. This means that even Bluetooth keyboards can be used as wireless remotes! …
If you have a potato chip tube lying around, you can convert the tube into a super simple DIY snoot. All you need to do is cut an opening in the closed end that's the size of your flash head (tip: use some duct tape to prevent it from scratching your flash).
Here's another beautiful example of why you don't need to shell out $100,000 for a pro-grade high speed camera when you can use just a simple DSLR -- in this case it was a Canon T2i -- and Twixtor. David HJ. Lindberg writes, …
For a fine arts project at his university, art student Joel Brochu spent a whopping 8 months meticulously recreating a photograph using tiny nonpareils (the tiny sprinkles used on cakes and donuts). 221,184 individual sprinkles were placed on the 4-foot-wide board, which was covered with double-sided tape and a thin layer of glue. Each sprinkle was placed by hand using jewelry tweezers.
The Apple iCam is a concept camera by Italian designer Antonio DeRosa that imagines a future where cameras are modular and powered by smartphones. Smartphones have already invaded the compact camera market in recent years, but their small lenses and sensors keep them from being seen as suitable alternatives to more advanced cameras. The iCam camera changes that by adding a large sensor and interchangeable lens system to the mix. Simply attach your iPhone 5 to the case and you'll have yourself a …
Shape is a series by French photographer Quentin Arnaud that consists of minimalistic portraits shot with low-key lighting. The stark lighting highlights the shape of the head but completely leaves the face void of any details, giving a creepy and ominous look to each of the photos.
"The Beauty of a Second" is a short film competition asking people to capture "beauty", but with a twist: each submitted video can only be one second long. Above is a compilation of entries submitted during the contest's first round.
Check out this awesome picture frame: it's an old french door that was cut in half, stripped, painted, distressed. Old windows can make for unique frames as well! …
Wildlife photographer Markus Thompson was scuba diving in Deep Bay outside Vancouver recently when he stumbled upon a rusty Canon Rebel DSLR at the bottom of the ocean floor. After taking the SD card out and cleaning it, he was surprised to discover that it still worked, especially because the photos on it revealed that the camera was dropped back in August 2010. Thompson then turned to Google+ to find the owners, writing, …
This video shows a social experiment in which disposable cameras were left unattended in various public locations with a simple message: "Take a Photo". Hidden cameras were stationed nearby to observe how people responded to the cameras, and to provide some behind-the-scenes footage to how the various photographs were captured.
Did you know that Pablo Picasso was a light painter? His most famous light painting image shows him drawing a centaur in the air, but there are quite a few lesser-known photos showing the master dabbling in the art. LIFE writes, …
Here's a Photoshop tutorial by Twin Cities Photography Group teaching how you can use Photoshop's High Pass Filter to soften the skin on a portrait subject without losing the skin's texture.
In this short video, photographer Allen Mowery shows how you can create a super-simple DIY Gary Fong Lightsphere for about $1 using some vinyl drawer liner and some velcro.
Here's an hour-long program from 1981 that featured Joel Meyerowitz and his street photography in New York City.
Canon's 50mm f/1.8 Mark II is a terrific lens for its price, but its build quality definitely leaves something to be desired. Do a quick search, and you'll find legions of broken-hearted Canonites who had their 'Nifty Fifty' split into two pieces after accidentally bumping or dropping it. Flickr user tastygiant is one such Canonite, but he subsequently discovered an awesome use for the broken lens: …
After seeing a video on YouTube of an Indonesian toddler who smokes 40 cigarettes a day, Belgian photographer Frieke Janssens decided to respond to a general smoking ban introduced in her country recently with a series of photos showing children smoking.
Did you know that you can use Photoshop's Match Color feature to turn old paintings into "filters" for your images? James Delaney of Unfocused Brain explains, …
Here's a geeky shirt that's relevant to photography: today's Woot shirt of the day is titled "Everything is Golden", and features the golden ratio! It's available until the end of the day for $10 with free shipping.
Here's a helpful tutorial by Jay P. Morgan of The Slanted Lens on how to mix strobe light with sunlight to make photographs more interesting.
Here's an amazing time-lapse created using NASA's Earth Observatory photographs of our planet. It spans an entire year, and shows how lands change with the passing of seasons. You can download a higher-res version here.
Here's some interesting color footage showing the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1939. Tom Pappalardo stumbled upon it after buying some 8mm film from a junk shop. He writes, …
Just launched this week, Lighting Diagram is another simple web-based tool that lets photographers create and share lighting diagrams and the photos created with the setups.
Fujifilm officially unveiled the XS-1 today after details and photos of the camera first appeared last month. Unlike the X100 and X10, the XS-1 isn't a rangefinger-esque mirrorless camera but is instead a beastly bridge camera. The camera packs the same 12-megapixel 2/3-inch sensor as the X10, and features a 26x zoom lens that's the 35mm equivalent of a 24-624mm lens. As if that range wasn't enough, they also decided to include a macro mode that allows the camera to focus from just 1cm away.
For her 3rd year dissertation project Katy Beveridge set out to find a creative way to film animation in real time rather through techniques like stop-motion. She then came up with the brilliant idea of placing paper on a bike wheel and using a video camera's -- and the human eye's -- frame rate limitations to create the animation.
Want a super simple macro lens for your phone without shelling out big bucks? You can use 3D printing to assemble your own! Shapeways user Lens42 has created a 3D model for a slide-on iPhone lens -- all you need to do is have the 3D model printed for $11 and to attach a $4 glass lens from Surplus Shed (part number L4471) using some superglue. If you have something other than an iPhone but know your way around 3D modeling programs, you make some measurements yourself and have a custom 3D model …
Here's an amazing clip from the BBC series Frozen Planet. The film crew used time-lapse photography to capture "brinicle" forming under sea ice. As the beautiful icicle forms, it also becomes deadly -- once it touches down, the resulting web of ice kills the slow-moving life on the sea floor. You can read more about the phenomenon here.
The George Eastman House in Rochester, NY is the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography. A couple years ago, curator Todd Gustavson wrote a book on the history of photography featuring the museum's gigantic collection of historical cameras. This behind-the-scenes video with Gustavson gives a glimpse into the drool-worthy warehouse and a brief tour of some legendary cameras.
You know you’re addicted to analog photography if your fridge has more film than food.
Jasna Hodzic, the photo editor of the student run newspaper at UC Davis, has been covering the Occupy UC Davis movement since its inception -- before the pepper spraying incident became international news.
Here's a quick tip for if you ever have a hard time removing a lens filter from a lens (e.g. when it's damaged): use a shoe. Simply take any shoe with a grippy flat bottom, press it firmly against the filter, and then turn it. It's a super simple technique that should work every time unless the threads on the lens itself are badly damaged.
Picture Post is an interesting (and NASA-funded) citizen science project that turns photographers into citizen scientists, crowdsourcing the task of environmental monitoring. Anyone around the world can install a Picture Post: …
In the past week, two different lens dial camera cases have been announced for iPhoneographers: a Holga toy camera case and a more serious lens dial case. If you don't want to shell out cash to add a lens dial to your phone (and don't mind it looking ridiculous), you can make a do-it-yourself lens dial using a jar lid and random lenses scavenged from various devices. The dial is attached to the back of your phone using a suction cup, and can give you magnification on-the-go.
Last week we reported that starting with Adobe CS6, only people who own the previous major release of the software (i.e. CS5 and above) will be eligible for upgrade pricing. Needless to say, Photoshop users are't too happy about the changes, and now National Association of Photoshop Professionals president Scott Kelby is weighing in. In an open letter to Adobe, he writes, …
Photographer Radu Dumitrescu was shooting in an abandoned house in Bucharest, Romania when a couple teens noticed the flashes going off and decided to investigate. When Radu noticed them pulling out their cell phones to document the "paranormal activity", he decided to give them a scare by pretending to be a ghost.
Update: This giveaway is now over. The winner was randomly selected and announced below.
Xerox is showing off a new tool called Aesthetic Image Search over on Open Xerox (the Xerox equivalent of Google Labs). It's an algorithm being developed at one of the company's labs that aims to make judging a photograph's aesthetics something a computer can do.
Fine art photographer Mitch Dobrowner wanted to photograph storm systems, so he partnered up with Roger Hill -- regarded as one of the top storm-chasers in the world -- and was introduced to Tornado Alley. Dobrowner writes, …
