June 2012

Photographs of Deep Fried Gadgets

Brooklyn-based photographer Henry Hargreaves teamed up with food stylist Caitlin Levin on his project "Deep Fried Gadgets", which -- as its name indicates -- shows various electronics deep fried. The purpose of the project is to highlight the wastefulness of consumer culture and its rapid consumption of the latest gadgets.

The Histograms: A Diagnostic Take on Robert Frank’s “The Americans”

We live in an analytical time, where most of the information we receive -- be it about the stock market or the presidency -- comes in way of charts, graphs, and other visual representations of hard (or sometimes soft) data. And it's this dependency on analysis that Sherwin Tibayan's diagnostic take on Robert Frank's "The Americans" -- the second "The Americans" spin off we've seen in two weeks -- focuses on.

SnapFocus: An Innovative Follow Focus With Bicycle Brake Levers

Filmmaker Brandon Davis Cole's interesting take on the traditional follow focus does something that few, if any, products have ever thought to do -- integrate bicycle technology into DSLR cinematography. Cole essentially reinvented the follow focus. By instituting a "brake lever" system, the SnapFocus allows cinematographers to keep their camera steady and pull focus quickly and easily to wherever it's needed, all without ever moving your hands from the SnapFocus handles.

Pantone Color Guide Recreated with Photographs of Models

French artist Pierre David has a project titled "The Human Pantone" in which he recreated Pantone's popular color guide using photographs of 40 different models. The work was commissioned for the Museum of Modern Art in Brazil, so David selected 40 people from the museum to serve as his models. The resulting work is found on paint cans in addition to swatches, and is meant to highlight the issues of beauty, diversity, acceptance, and racism.

Canon Rebel T4i Release Date Revealed Amidst Murmurings of a 70D and 3D

Several major rumors surfaced over the last couple of days about Japanese camera giant Canon, ranging from release dates to specs for cameras that up until now were spec-less for the general public. First up, according to Canon Rumors, the long awaited and rumored Canon Rebel T4i will be released later this week on June 8th. In addition, specs for the T4i should be exactly as the original rumors suggested: 18-megapixel sensor, 9 cross-type AF points, touchscreen LCD and continuous AF for live view and video recording.

The Handcuffs and Temptation of Stock Agencies

Someone finds your work on Flickr. They contact Getty Images to buy it. Getty Images contacts you for permission to sell it to their buyer. Do you do it?

Portraits of Seriously Awesome Facial Hair From Battle of the Beards

When a group of facial hair aficionados got together late last year at the first inaugural Battle of the Beards in Atlanta, photographer Josh Meister took it as an opportunity not just to compete himself, but to take some portraits as well. The resulting photo series, simply titled "Beards," shows off some seriously impressive facial accoutrement.

Independent Filmmaker Becomes Last to Use Kodak Plus-X Film

Perhaps sadder than the moment when a company officially discontinues a film is the moment when the last of that film is used, and that's what has just happen to Kodak's famous Plus-X 5231 movie film. Plus-X was discontinued a couple of years ago, and according to the LA Daily News, independent filmmaker Paul Bunnell's "The Ghastly Love of Johnny X" will be the last feature shot using the film. A film that for many years was a favorite of black and white cinematographers everywhere.

Band Publicly Refuses to Pay Photog, Leads to Facebook Firestorm

It's difficult to ignore the fact that photographers are finding it harder to get paid for their work now more than ever, but a recent altercation between concert photographer Dan DeSlover and the band Alter Bridge took on a different dynamic -- criticizing a photographer for asking to get paid.

Facing The Future: Nine Perspectives on the Future of Photography

Late last year, during the Day of Photography in Amsterdam, PhotoQ interviewed nine photographers about the challenges facing them and photography as a whole from both an economic as well as social perspective. The resulting videos offer nine different perspectives on the business of photography, how it's changed, where it's headed, and how to adapt. Some viewpoints are more negative and others more positive, but in the end you can tell that each of these photogs love what they do, and just want to make sure they keep getting to do it for a long time to come.

Incredibly Difficult Steadicam Shot From the End of the Movie “Hugo”

Over the last couple of weeks we've featured two very impressive cinematography shots, one from the movie "Contact" and another from "Sucker Punch." But while both of those required planning, expertise and, for one of them, some help from the digital age, the final steadicam shot from the movie "Hugo" is impressive in an entirely different way.

What Night Sky Photographs Will Look Like Over the Next 7 Billion Years

NASA astronomers announced today that they are certain that our galaxy is on an unavoidable collision course with the Andromeda Galaxy, the closest spiral galaxy to us. Don't worry though, it won't be happening for another 3.5 billion years or so. What's interesting is that the collision will drastically change what our night sky looks like, and the astronomers released a series of photo illustrations showing what future astrophotographers will be shooting when they point their cameras at the heavens.

Twig is a USB Cable that Doubles as a Tabletop Tripod

Here's an interesting product idea by Oregon-based designer Jason Hilbourne that combines a charging cable and a mini-tripod into an easy-to-use, pocket-sized device. His project, dubbed Twig, is specific to the iPhone and has already gotten quite a bit of attention. With 56 days to go the Twig has already secured $64,000 in funding -- putting it a whopping $14,000 past its goal. But more-so than its iPhone functionality, for us the intriguing thing is to see if anyone takes this idea and runs with it, creating similar products for compact cameras.

Art Students Become Human Cameras by Eating 35mm Film

Kingston University photography students Luke Evans and Josh Lake wanted to do something unusual for their final major project, so they decided to turn themselves into human cameras by eating 35mm film squares and letting their bodies do the rest. After eating and pooping out the film in the dark, they used fixer on the film and then scanned the film using an electron microscope. They are currently exhibiting massive prints of the images that show every detail of what their bodies did.

Complete Visual Dictionary Created Using Photos from Google Image Search

General consensus seems to be that a picture is worth a thousand words, in which case Ben West and Felix Heyes' unique take on the dictionary, complete with 21,000 entries, metaphorically contains closer to 21,000,000 words worth of content. That's because their dictionary doesn't hold a single word, only the first Google image search result for every word you might find in your regular Webster's.