April 2012

For his project titled "Good Morning!", photographer Levi Mandel shot stealthy photos of unsuspecting strangers, printed out the faces, crumpled them up, and then re-photographed them.

Here's a wonderful cartoon drawn by John T. McCutcheon back in 1912 that's just as true today as it was back then. It's a great explanation for why the "vintage film" look offered by the likes of Instagram has become so popular.

A group of garbage men in Hamburg have figured out a way to combine their love of photography with their work of hauling trash, turning large dumpsters into giant pinhole cameras to photograph their city. The dumpsters are converted by drilling tiny holes into the fronts and then hanging large sheets of photo paper inside. Although framing a shot with the giant rolling cameras takes only a minute, exposing it can take up to an hour of waiting. They've dubbed the experiment the "Trashcam …

Afghan photographer Massoud Hossaini won the Putlizer Prize yesterday for his Breaking News photo showing a 12-year-old girl screaming after a suicide bombing in Kabul. His images of the mosque attack were so powerful that the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal all published them on their front pages on December 7, 2011. However, each one ran a different image captured at the scene, and only the New York Times ran the Pulitzer Prize-winning shot that showed the full extent …

An American tourist traveling from Beijing, China to Pyongyang, North Korea pointed his camera out the train window to capture this rare 1-hour-long look at what North Korea looks like on the interior.

Argentinian photographer Alejandro Chaskielberg started as a photojournalist before turning to documentary photography and developing his trademark style of shooting under moonlight and using strobes and long exposures to illuminate his subjects. His portrait subjects are asked to remain motionless for long periods of time as he photographs them using a large format film camera. He recently applied his style to a series on residents of Northern Kenya -- a location that's typically photographed …

You may have heard that digital cameras can be made sensitive to infrared light by removing the IR filter found inside, but did you now that something similar can be done with the human eye? People who have aphakia, or the absence of the lens on the eye, have reported the ability to see ultraviolet wavelengths. Claude Monet was one such person.

Want to attach your smartphone to your tripod without buying a special mount? Two large binder clips can do the trick. Simply attach the clips to your tripod and then use the handles to cradle your phone. playstationfive has uploaded a step-by-step tutorial over on Imgur.

"Doggie Style" is a cute series of fashion photos shot by photographer Emily Shur for Paper Magazine. They're pretty different from ordinary fashion photos: Shur had her human models face backwards while holding dogs facing forwards.

The Nero Multi Trigger is a nifty camera triggering device that can make your DSLR and external flash unit respond automatically to sight, sound, and motion. It has built in optical, audio, and laser sensors, allowing you to shoot everything from lightning flashes to balloon pops. There's also an intervalometer for time-lapse photography. The device mounts to your DSLR's hotshoe and is powered by a pair of AAA batteries. They cost $200 each and are available for both Nikon and Canon DSLRs from …

When German image sensor scientist Joachim Linkemann gave a talk called "Advanced Camera and Image Sensor Technology" at Automate 2011 back in March 2011, he tried to boil things down to terms people could understand and ended up using beer to illustrate the concepts. If you want to learn about how things like signal-to-noise, dynamic range, and dark noise would work if a glass of beer was the pixel on an image sensor, check out the PDF slideshow.

Here's a revolving self-portrait created back in 1865 by French photographer Félix Nadar (real name Gaspard-Félix Tournachon). Nadar was the first person in history to take aerial photographs (he was a balloonist) and was one of the pioneers of artificial lighting (he photographed in the catacombs of Paris).

A quick update on the "light leak phenomenon" on the 5D Mark III that Canon confirmed last week: after emailing Canon about the issue recently, photographer birdbrain received the following response: …

New York-based production company Variable traveled to India and pointed a Phantom Flex high speed camera at the Holi festival celebrations.

The 2012 Pulitzer Prize winners have been announced, and both winning photographers focused on the unbearable trauma of war. Massoud Hossaini of Agence France-Presse won the Breaking News award for his "heartbreaking image of a girl crying among a pile of dead bodies after a suicide bomber's attack at a crowded shrine in Kabul." Craig F. Walker of The Denver Post won the Feature Photography prize for chronicling "Colorado resident Scott Ostrom's struggles with severe post-traumatic stress …

Nikon shooters: Nikon Camera Control is a new open source Windows application that lets you remotely control your Nikon DSLR using a PC and a USB cable. Features include tethering, remote control over camera's basic settings, remote shutter triggering, an intervalometer for time-lapses, and fullscreen review.

Facebook may have been the victor in the race to acquire Instagram, but it wasn't the only runner. The New York Times writes that Twitter had been interested in snatching up the service in the months leading up to the $1 billion buyout.

While visiting New York City by himself, Serbia-based art director Marko Savic came up with an interesting way of creating "tourist" photos with himself in the frame. Instead of setting the timer on his camera, asking passers-by for help, or photographing his reflection, he decided to shoot self-portraits by illuminating his face and photographing it in various reflections.

Wal-Mart stores have so many items that occasionally an outdated one will remain on the shelves for years after they're no longer relevant. Case in point: the Sony MVC-FD200 Mavica digital camera. The one above was recently found at a Wal-Mart in Illinois. The camera first hit the shelf back in 2002 and has remained there ever since. It featured a state-of-the-art 2-megapixel sensor and allowed photographers the convenience of storing digital photos on 1.44 MB floppy disks (remember those?). If …

BBC Research has released a new report stating that the digital photography industry has an annual growth rate of 3.8%. Valued at $68.4 billion last year, the global market will reach an estimated value of $82.5 billion by 2016. The study defined the market as a combination of camera equipment, printing equipment, and complementary products. While the photo printing industry is predicted to struggle and lose $300 million between now and 2016, digital cameras and lenses will reportedly do just …

Back on July 1, 2009, artist Kelly DeLay began a personal project titled "Clouds 365" with the goal of shooting a photo or video or clouds every single day for a year. After completing his goal 365 days later, he decided to keep going. He has now amassed over 1000 days of documenting clouds, and his popular website (which receives millions of visitors each year) was recently nominated for a Webby Award. In case you're wondering what DeLay does on cloudless days: not all the photos show actual …

Have trouble figuring out exactly where you need to hammer in a nail when hanging up a picture frame? The Industrial Cottage suggests using toothpaste. Simply dab a small amount onto the end of the picture hook, and gently tap the hook into the wall when you find the desire location for your frame. The mark left by the toothpaste is where you'll need to put in a nail. Just remember to wipe off the toothpaste from the wall and from the frame when you're done!

"Child's Caves" is a beautiful (and nostalgia-inducing) series of photographs by photographer Björn Ewers and STUDIO314 that shows how children turn their play areas into make believe scenes from the world of grown ups. Imagined locations include the moon, the jungle, a pirate ship, and an igloo.

This past Saturday marked the centennial of French photographer Robert Doisneau, and Google celebrated with a creative photo doodle on its home page. Doisneau is considered one of the fathers of photojournalism and street photography, alongside fellow French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson.

After cleaning out his garage, photo enthusiast Drew decided to convert it into a makeshift studio by creating a mount to hang seamless white paper or a muslin from the rafters. He used ceiling hooks, chains, S hooks, and a 12-foot-long dowel.

For her project "The Big Bang", photographer Deborah Bay captured macro photographs of plexiglass sheets that had various types of firearms fired at them. After having professional law enforcement officers fire bullets into the glass, she brought the sheets into a studio and "shot" them again with a Contax 645 and a 120 macro lens. She writes, …

Virtual Lighting Studio is an awesome new free studio lighting simulator that doesn't require any installation -- you use it directly in your browser. It offers a large number of options for customizing your setup (e.g. number of lights, light type, gel, positioning) and the result is updated in real-time on the virtual model's head.

Earlier this month, reports started emerging that Canon's new 5D Mark III DSLR has a "light leak" issue. Photographers found that turning on the LCD backlight in a dark room directly affects the camera's metering system (as seen in the video above). Canon published a product advisory today acknowledging the issue, saying, …

Here's a 35-minute lecture by English actor and comedian John Cleese on the topic of creativity. A couple interesting points: creativity is absolutely unrelated to intelligence and is more a way of operating than an ability.

This might look like a pile of garbage, but it's actually one of the homemade camera used by photographer Miroslav Tichý from the 1960s until 1985. He made his camera bodies from things he had on hand, including plywood, road asphalt, and thread spools. His lenses would be created from toilet paper tubes with custom lenses created from Plexiglas that had been sanded with sandpaper and then polished with toothpaste and cigarette ashes. For his enlarger, he used sheets of metal, two fence slats, …

Photographer Rory White's Rorshak Tape Transfer Series might look like some kind of surreal digital art, but the images were actually created without Photoshop. White shot portraits of his subjects, printed them out, and invited the subjects to paint, tear, and alter the prints. He then covered the image with packing tape, dropped it in hot water, and peeled off the paper on the back (like a Polaroid emulsion transfer). The semi-transparent image would then be hung from a stand, and the subject …

Mailers are a popular way to self-promote as a photographer, but too often the promos go directly from the mailbox to the trash can. When his studio partners suggested printed mailers a few months ago, Derek Shapton instinctively responded, "Forget it. Not doing one. Waste of money. Too bad I can’t just print some shots on Kleenex, that way they’d at least be useful on their way to the garbage..." It suddenly dawned on him that he could do just that: …

Paris-based photo enthusiast Alexis was passing a thrift store near his home recently when he noticed some strange looking optical equipment. Upon entering the shop for a better view, he discovered that it was an old stereograph viewer with ground glass in the rear. The store owner informed him that the viewer came with a box of roughly 50 glass plates made in France in the 1930s. Alexis jumped on the deal and, upon returning home, was pleasantly surprised to find that the images were beautiful …

Had an interesting conversation the other evening with the delightful Raina Kirn, the “Raina” half of the famed Raina + Wilson photo team (Wilson – worry not, you’re delightful too). The occasion was a west-end Toronto photographer’s pub night, and we were bemoaning the loathsomeness of sorting and organizing images digitally, the endless toil and drudgery of file management, the indentured servitude photographers must now endure as pawns in the palm of the evil god that is Computer.

Double Identity is a neat project by photographer Caroline Briggs in which she photographs portraits of identical twins wearing the same clothing and striking the same poses, and then overlays one on top of the other to show their similarities and differences. She writes: …

Touchy, by Hong Kong-based artist Eric Siu, is one of the strangest concept cameras we've seen.

HandiZoom is a new camera accessory that adds a special grip to your DSLR that allows you to hold and use it like a camcorder. The device adds ENG-style zoom controls by connecting directly with the zoom ring on your camera lens. Videographers who've transitioned to DSLR shooting may feel much more at home with their hand around an ergonomic grip and a zoom rocker under their fingertips.

Vaults is a photo project by photographer David Stephenson that documents the beautiful kaleidoscopic patterns found on the ceilings of ancient houses of worship.

When recording video, a camera's frame rate can produce some pretty strange effects. If matched up with a helicopter's blades, a helicopter looks like it's hovering in midair with motionless blades. YouTube user mrbibio found that the same thing can be done with falling water. His technique is brilliant: by pressing a water tube against a speaker, mrbibio was able to control the vibration frequency of the water flowing through the tube. He then adjusted the pulses of the water to match up with …

Washington Times video producer Drew Geraci created this amazing time-lapse video of an asylum that was abandoned decades ago.

During the past week, a new meme called "Texts From Hillary" has been taking the web by storm. It involves two photographs of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton checking her phone on a flight while wearing sunglasses. By combining the images with other photographs and witty captions, the creators imagined what her texts conversations with other famous individuals might be like. Not everyone found the meme hilarious: the Washington Post writes that photographer Diana Walker wasn't amused when …

Brian McCarty is a photographer who specializes in photographs of toys. He integrates concept and character and is a prominent photographer in the "Art-Toy" movement.

Canon has officially announced its new EOS-1D C 4K cinema DSLR, a camera that offers the same body and still photography features as the 1D X but is more geared towards high-end motion picture and television production. It records 4K at 24fps and 1080P at 24/25/30/50/60fps, shoots 1080p uncompressed with 8-bit 4:2:2 Clean HD via HDMI, and offers a headphone jack instead of the PC socket found on the 1D X. The 18MP full frame sensor inside has ISO 100-51,200 for still and a max of 25,600 for …

This past Monday was the 182nd birthday of photographer Eadweard Muybridge, who became famous for his high speed photographs of galloping horses. In 1965, the US Department of Defense commissioned this short documentary titled It Started with Muybridge, which tells the story of how Muybridge's early photography experiments contributed towards the advancement of science and technology during the Atomic Age.

Alex MacLean is a Massachusetts-based photographer and pilot who uses his dual interests to create epic aerial photographs.

Filmmaker Casey Neistat (whose peanut butter jar lens fix we featured recently) was recently commissioned by Nike to create an advertisement for its new FuelBand.

Berene Campbell of Happy Sew Lucky has a nifty cut-and-sew fabric design that lets you make a camera bag that looks like a Diana camera of the sixties: …

When it was announced that Facebook would be acquiring Instagram back on Monday, the web balked at the $1 billion price tag and started shouting "bubble". Is it really indicative of another tech bubble, or was it a smart move on Zuckerberg's part? Andy Baio -- the founder of Upcoming.org, which was purchased by Yahoo -- has written up an interesting article over at Wired that takes a look at the numbers. For a billion bucks, Facebook snagged a startup with a whopping 35 million users and just …

Update: We're hearing that Walmart is no longer offering medium format film development.

Skycatcher Wallpaper is a monumental display created by artists Jonathan Puckey and Luna Maurer. It's composed of a whopping 88,000 individual photographs of the sky above Amsterdam captured over two years with the camera snapping a photo every five minutes. Each vertical strip contains 144 photographs and shows exactly one day. The gradual change in the number of daylight hours results in fluctuations in the shape of the blue daylight sections of the wallpaper.