December 2011

QR codes have become an extremely popular way of linking to digital things from the physical world, and more and more businesses are displaying them in order to direct customers to their websites. Photographer David Sykes (whom we previously featured here) decided to take advantage of the craze to promote his new website and blog. Instead of an ordinary QR code, however, he decided to create an 8-foot square model of the code using things such as boots, calculators, briefcases, boomboxes, and …

Polaroid and Chase Jarvis teamed up to create this "Will It Blend"-style advertisement for the the Polaroid Z340 instant digital camera. It's a clever idea, but poor cameras!

Christmas is almost upon us, and for the second straight year PetaPixel's gift guide comes incredibly late. Think of it as a general guide to nifty photo-related gifts that have emerged over the past year rather than a Christmas gift guide -- after all, gifts are great to receive year-round, right?

Gav of The Slow Mo Guys made this interesting video comparing different high-speed camera frame rates. Using a Phantom HD camera, he films coffee mugs shattering on pavement at 500, 1000, 2500, 5000, and 10000 frames per second.

Want to go beyond using ordinary wrapping paper for your Christmas gifts? You can make some DIY wrapping paper out of photographs. Print out your favorite photos at home onto ordinary copy paper for smaller presents, and tape multiple sheets together for larger packages.

Beauty dishes are pricey, and so are dedicated cases for carrying them around. If you want a cheap and simple way to protect your dish, LA-based photographer Mariusz Jeglinski suggests buying a Christmas wreath bag for less than $10. The shape works nicely for dishes, and you can add some extra padding to the case if you want added protection.

Here's a neat idea for photographic experimentation: create a pinhole camera out of photographic paper by folding it into an origami box with the light-sensitive side on the inside. The hole that is used to blow the box into its shape is also used to expose the inside to the outside world. After exposing it, simply unfold it and process it using standard developer and fix.

16-year-old photographer Jules Mattsson has won a settlement from the London Metropolitan Police after being stopped and detained last year while photographing the Armed Forces Day parade. Here's Mattsson's account of what happened: …

Here's a brief video in which Los Angeles-based photographer Mike Kelley shares his technique for lighting large architectural spaces using small flash units. Kelley captures hundreds of photographs of each scene and the combines them afterwards in Photoshop. Back in September we shared an interesting time-lapse walkthrough by Kelley showing how he shoots home exteriors with the same technique.

Now here's an absolutely bizarre statistic if it's actually true: 76 percent of Facebook photos with tagged Britons show the subjects in some state of drunkenness. Photo book service MyMemory.com surveyed 1,781 Britons over the age of 18, asking them to estimate the percentage of their pics that showed them under the influence of alcohol. A quarter of those respondents also said that their privacy settings allowed the general public to view their tagged images.

Light painting master Dennis Calvert (whose work we featured back in October) created this interesting time-lapse making of video showing how he created one of his epic photographs, titled "Thermodynamic Engineering".

Hyperspectral cameras are capable of collecting and processing information across the electromagnetic spectrum and beyond what the human eye can see. The technology ordinarily costs a fortune to get a hold of, but scientists at the Vienna University of Technology have figured out how to create a hyperspectral camera using an ordinary DSLR (the Canon 5D) and an adapter made of off-the-shelf parts (PVC pipes, a gel filter, and three camera lenses). The camera still has a ways to go in many areas …

You probably already know that it's not a good idea to include your expensive camera gear with check in luggage, but what if you have no choice? If you must, then putting your gear inside a hard-sided "spinner" suitcase with four wheels is your best bet. The Huffington Post has published an interesting interview with an anonymous baggage handler, who gives the following advice: …

The US is following the UK's lead in banning advertisements for having too much digital manipulation. The National Advertising Division, a US watchdog that imposes self-regulation on the ad industry, has banned a CoverGirl mascara ad by Procter & Gamble because Photoshop was used to make the girl's eyelashes thicker than they were in real life. Even though the enhancement was disclosed in the ad itself, NAD wasn't satisfied, saying, …

Want to turn your room into giant camera obscura? Photographer Justin Quinnell (whose work we featured back in June) has created a Camera Obscura Kit that makes the conversion easy. Each kit contains a projection lens, a mount template, velcro tape, a projection sheet, and a handheld screen. They cost £25 apiece over on Quinnell's website.

If you're curious as to which prime lenses Canon has marked for refreshing, recently filed patents may hold the answer. The lineup consists of a 50mm f/1.4, 85mm f/1.2, 85mm f/1.8, 100mm f/2.0, 135mm f/2.0, and 200mm f/2.0. There are also rumors that a 35mm f/1.4 Mark II is already floating around in the wild, which suggests that it will be officially announced in the near future.

For her project titled Marked, photographer Claire Felicie shot close-up portraits of the marines in the 13th infantry company of the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps before, during, and after their deployment from 2009-2010. She then arranged the portraits into haunting triptychs that show the toll war has on a person's eyes and face.

Ashley Ambirge of the middle finger project on pricing your services the right way on your website: …

Singapore-based design agency One Paradox came up with this nifty idea for a promotional handbag for the Canon 500D DSLR. The camera strap handles make it the perfect bag for any photographers' trip to the grocery store.

In August 2005, a UK student named Alex Tew launched a creative project called The Million Dollar Homepage. It was a simple webpage containing 1 million pixels that he sold to advertisers for $1 each. The idea quickly went viral, and Tew became a millionaire less than six months after launching it. The Most Expensive Pic­ture is a new photo website that may make its owners rich in a similar way. Anyone can upload a photograph to the website, but for a price: you'll need to pay $1 more than the …

Consumer affairs blog The Consumerist caused a stir earlier this week by offering the following advice to people looking to earn some extra cash for the holidays.

Eve Johnson of Evalicious wanted to turn some old digital photographs into Instax-style prints for a travel journal, so she decided to make some fake ones. She arranged two photos on each template, saved them as 4x6 prints, had them made at a local print shop, and then cut them out in Instax dimensions. You can find the low down over on her blog.

Cam Crate is a new DSLR camera case that's designed for photographers who shoot in places that aren't friendly toward cameras. While many solutions already exist for keeping your camera safe, most of them are designed for transporting your gear rather than protecting it on the go. The Cam Crate is different: it's waterproof (and floats), mudproof, crushproof, and shockproof, but at the same time a quick action door lets you quickly take out your camera whenever its needed.

Upon first glance, photographer Frank Kunert's photographs may look like they show pretty ordinary places. Look a little closer, however, and you'll start to notice that each one has something wrong about it, and that none of the scenes would actually exist in the real world. They're actually miniature scenes that are meticulously built by hand!

A woman who calls herself "Missy" has launched a new channel on YouTube dedicated to tongue-in-cheek videos on how easy being a professional photographer is. It's pretty funny how much bad advice she can give while staying in character and keeping a straight face. The informative first video above is on using the professional mode ("P") on your camera to take advantage of your professional DSLR.

Photographer Jim Sanborn has a project titled Topographic Projections and Implied Geometries Series in which he casts complex patterns over vast landscapes using a projector, and uses long exposure times to capture the scenes. The projector and camera are, on average, half a mile away from his landscapes, and on moonless nights he uses a searchlight to illuminate the scene.

The New York Times has sent an angry letter to the New York Police Department after video emerged showing photojournalist Robert Stolarik being pushed around and then blocked while trying to photograph officers arresting Occupy Wall Street protestors. The memo itself hasn't be published, but NYT VP and assistant general counsel George Freeman is quoted as saying, …

Freeway Interchange is a series by Canadian photographer Peter Andrew consisting of birds-eye-view photographs of freeways around the world.

Check out these gigantic backlit Polaroid-style photographs, called Polaboys, by Jirko Bannas and Oliver Seltmann. During the day they look like "ordinary" giant photos, but when the sun sets light brings them to life. Details on the website are sparse, but apparently they're for sale and available from a shop in Paris.

Here's something to add to your bucket list of things to photograph: daytime fireworks. Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang created the amazing display seen in the video above using timed detonations and clusters of smoke clouds. The demonstration was held at a museum in Qatar, but hopefully the concept will start spreading soon -- maybe to a place near you!

Olympus' stock price has been recovering quite nicely after an internal probe found no evidence of yakuza involvement (though they did slam upper management as "rotten"). However, rumors of possible takeover attempts persist. An article published by Bloomberg today reported that Fujifilm may be in the hunt for the beleaguered company: …

ONE is a new neoprene camera and laptop bag system that's designed for flexibility. It features multiple inserts and swappable covers that allow you to quickly change both its function and its look. The company behind the bag, UNDFIND, is currently raising funds for the project through Kickstarter, and a $79 contribution effectively preorders you one.

The London Evening Standard has published a fascinating article on a photograph captured by Getty photographer Oli Scarff, which shows a near-fatal stabbing that occurred during London’s Notting Hill Carnival back in August. After being published around the world, the photograph changed the lives of the subjects seen it it. The fleeing man was identified from the photo and sentenced to 4.5 years in jail, the policeman was criticized for his apparent indifference (a claim he disputes), and the …

As newspapers and magazines struggle to keep eyeballs from turning to the free world of the Web, more and more blogs are rising up to fill the niches once dominated by print. Despite the changing landscape, magazines are still able to command high advertising rates that blogs can't match (yet).

Here's an interesting look at the amazing camera being developed at MIT that shoots a staggering one trillion frames per second -- fast enough to create footage of light traveling: …

Nikonian DSLR shooters will soon be able to use their existing F-mount lenses with Nikon's 1 System line of mirrorless cameras. The FT1 adapter launches next week in Japan on December 22nd for ¥23,310, or roughly $300. Most lenses in the mount system will be compatible, and AF-S lenses will have the added advantage of being able to utilize the cameras' autofocus systems. Be prepared for massive crop though -- the tiny sensor on the cameras mean that your lenses will have a crazy 2.7x crop …

After the viral success of The Battle at F-Stop Ridge, making action videos in which camera equipment is used as weaponry has become quite popular. Here's another crazy one that features Canon vs. Nikon: …

Olympus and Panasonic might be cofounders of the Micro Four Thirds movement, but the companies appear to be taking different approaches toward 3D photography. While Panasonic offers a special 3D lens that contains two lenses, a newly discovered Olympus patent shows an even more novel approach: adding a second lens to a camera via its hot shoe. Simply stick the lens on and turn your camera sideways to transform it into a stereoscopic 3D camera!

Here's a simple yet brilliant stop-motion video showing a person sitting at a table plays with shapes. Instead of computer-trickery, cleverly captured still photographs were used to bring the simple materials to life. It was created by animator Steven Briand while he was doing a two-month internship at Partizan.

To capture a behind-the-scenes look at what it's like to photograph a wedding, photographer Jaroslav Repta mounted a GoPro video camera to his DSLR and used it to film his camera's point of view throughout the wedding day. The video above shows this footage along with the resulting photographs that were delivered to the couple.

Talia van der Wel of New Zealand wanted a simple and beautiful way to display instant photos, and came up with the idea of an empty frame in which photos are hung on clothespins from twine. After sharing the idea with her husband, he went and created the frame out of an old wood lattice.

Bill Gates' image licensing company Corbis has collection of more than 100 million photographs, including some of history's most iconic images. CBS was recently given a rare peek inside the company's photo preservation facility at Iron Mountain -- a maximum security cold storage facility in a mine deep underground.

Did you know that in vintage tintype photographs of infants mothers were often present in the photo but hidden by a veil? Subjects needed to remain still due to the longer exposure times required back then, so mothers were often asked to hold their children tightly while the portraits were being exposed. It was common practice back then, but the resulting photos are pretty eerie when you look at them now.

Wanna add some photo-geekery to your Christmas tree this year? Try making custom Christmas ornaments out of strips of film or printed photographs! twinklecat has written up a film ornament tutorial over at Lomography, and Shelley Haganman has an easy-to-follow photo ornament tutorial over at scrappergirl.

Nikon has more than just a 36-megapixel D800 up its sleeve. The company is also planning to launch a Nikon D4 DSLR to rival the Canon 1DX, and specs of the camera were leaked this past weekend by Nikon Rumors. The camera will reportedly offer 16.2MP, 11fps, ISO 102400 (expandable to 204800), support for the new XQD memory card format in addition to CF, integrated ethernet, 51 AF points, face detection/recognition, and improved video capabilities (e.g. uncompressed video output and buttons for …

American cinematographer Louis Schwartzberg, a pioneer in high-end time-lapse imagery, gave this inspiring talk on the subject of gratitude at TEDx San Francisco earlier this year: …

Photographer Zander Olsen creates amazing optical illusions by wrapping trees with white linen, lining up the ends of the material with the horizon line in the background.

Add-on lenses for cell phones are pretty common nowadays, but usually they're specifically made for certain models and are incompatible with others. The Macro Cell Lens Band is different -- it's a stretchable band with a macro lens baked right in. Simply slip the band onto your phone, place the lens over your phone's camera, and voila! Instant macro shots. When you're not using it, you can also wear it around like a gel bracelet. They cost $15 each over at Photojojo.

This might look like some kind of microscopic organism, but it's actually a high-speed photograph of a nuclear explosion. It was captured less than 1 millisecond after the detonation using a rapatronic camera, which is capable of exposure times as brief as 10 nanoseconds (one nanosecond is one billionth of a second). The photograph was shot from roughly 7 miles away during the Tumbler-Snapper tests in Nevada (1952). The fireball is roughly 20 meters in diameter, and three times hotter than the …

Team Detroit came up with a clever series of anti-drug-style advertisements for the College of Creative Studies. Have you talked to your kids about Photoshopping?