March 2012

Michael Zhang

Giant Mirrors Placed in Landscapes

For her project titled Mirrors, Swedish photographer Ilar Gunilla Persson photographed various landscapes with giant mirrors placed in them. The mirrors give the scenes an surreal and artificial look, but all the shots were captured on film.

Michael Zhang

55-Hour Exposure of a Tiny Patch of Sky Reveals 200,000 Galaxies

This photo is what you get when you point a massive 4.1 meter telescope (VISTA in Chile) at an unremarkable patch of night sky and capture six thousand separate exposures that provide an effective "shutter speed" of 55 hours. It's an image that contains more than 200,000 individual galaxies, each containing countless stars and planets (to put the image into perspective, the famous Hubble Ultra-Deep Field contains "only" around 10,000 galaxies). And get this: this view only shows a tiny 0.004% of the entire sky!

Michael Zhang

Household Objects with Visual Branding Completely Removed

Brand Spirit is a new photo project by NYC-based branding strategist Andrew Miller, who writes,

Every day for 100 days, I will paint one branded object white, removing all visual branding, reducing the object to its purest form. Each object may be purchased for less than $10, something I own, something another person gives me, or something I find.

See if you can identify each of the objects despite their lack of branding.

Michael Zhang

Colorful Photographs Showing Uniformity

"Mimicry" is a photo project by Dutch photographers Ilse Leenders and Maurits Gisen that's based around the idea of uniformity. They write,

The inspiration of the series Mimicry came from the uniformity of the human beings. People from whom the identity is missing and those who are inconspicuous in our society. Just like animals they adapt to their environment. Visually in this series it is shown by the use of similar costumes, position and sex.

Michael Zhang

Abstract Images Created by Tearing and Layering Photographs

Raleigh, North Carolina-based artist Scott Hazard creates abstract images by tearing shapes into multiple prints of the same photograph, and then stacking the images on top of each other. He uses the technique to create things such as smoke, clouds, and portals in walls. He calls the project "Photo Constructs".

Michael Zhang

Movie Villains in Their Twilight Years

For his project titled "Horror Vacui" (latin for "fear of empty space"), photographer Federico Chiesa imagines what the villains and creepy characters of '80s films would be like if they were "still alive" today.

Michael Zhang

Macro Shots Using a Canon 5D Mark II with a 4×5 Large Format Camera

London-based photographer David Wilman recently did some experiments in which he used a Canon 5D Mark II as a digital back for his MPP 4x5 large format camera. He placed his lens-less 5D at the back of the camera at the film plane and then placed a black cloth over the two cameras to prevent any light from spilling onto the sensor. Light from the Schneider Kreuznach Xenar 4.5/150mm lens entered straight into the open mirror box of the DSLR without any physical link between the two cameras. Wilman was surprised to discovered that this pairing produced quite a respectable macro setup.

Michael Zhang

Canon AE-D Mirrorless Camera Concept

Olympus recently rebooted its OM line of film SLRs with the OM-D mirrorless camera, and many photographers are hoping that Canon will follow suit with one of its film bodies. Industrial designer and photographer David Riesenberg is among them, and recently decided turn what he wants to see into a concept drawing.

Michael Zhang

Adobe Releases Photoshop CS6 Beta: Redesigned UI and 62% More Features

Adobe has launched the public beta version of Photoshop CS6, which features a completely redesigned user interface along with new saving features (auto and background), new content-aware features (move and patch), new blur filters, an updated Adobe Camera RAW, and improved video editing capability. There's a 62% increase in features, with 65 of them inspired by user feedback. ACR 7 also features the same new engine found in Lightroom 4 that improves the performance of sliders.

Michael Zhang

Man Photographs Himself in a Pink Tutu to Fight Against Breast Cancer

After photographer Bob Carey moved with his wife to the East Coast in 2003, he found that life suddenly flipped 180-degrees from what he was used to. He then did what every sane, middle-aged, male photographer would do: he began photographing himself in a pink tutu to express himself. However, the project wouldn't stay random for long.