July 2012

Pictures do a lot for humanity. They compress 1000 words into one simple photo, capture special moments and freeze them in time, put us back in touch with our history and, more recently, when 36.7-million of them are taken every second by one of the world's fastest cameras, pictures can also help cure cancer by catching it early. That last part is due to the brilliant minds in a lab at UCLA who have created what they are calling "The World's Fastest Camera."

Mexican photojournalist Julian Cardona has lived in Ciudad Juarez since 1960 and began documenting the city in the early 1990s as a photojournalist for the local newspaper, El Diario. He says he's seen Juarez shift from an idyllic postcard-worthy border town to the city known as the homicide capital of the world.

If you're human then you've probably looked at a portrait of yourself at some point and been dissatisfied for one specific reason or another. Most of the time, though, it just comes down to an unexplainable "I don't like it" or "I never look good in pictures" or, in extreme cases, a sound effect similar to gagging. But according to this short TED audition, the problem isn't with your expression or your looks, it's in your head.

Photographer Shawn Van Daele has launched a beautiful (and meaningful) photo project called "The Drawing Hope Project" in which he shoots magical photographs based on the drawings of children living with health conditions. The photo shoots take 1-2 hours, but combining the images in post-production takes up to 8.

We'll preface this by saying that this is very dangerous and if you choose to attempt it you do so at your own risk -- we don't recommend anyone try this at home. That being said, this is also one of the coolest "backyard" special effects we've ever seen, and one that would make for some kick-a photography backgrounds or slow-motion video.

What you see here is the first image ever uploaded to the World Wide Web. It’s a graphic featuring …

Niniane Kelley of PhotoboothSF -- the SF photo shop that still shoots tintype portraits -- shot a series of tiny tintype photographs using a 110 camera. The images are likely the world's first 110 tintypes, and the world's smallest tintypes as well (each one is about half the size of a standard 35mm frame).

Getting potential clients' attention in the world of photography can be a difficult task, but photographer Gordon Stettinius has been doing quite a good job at it. So good, in fact, that one studio owner asked him to "never send anything to them again. Ever." His secret? Sending bizarre studio portraits as a follow-up.

Alex Dainis of Boston first recorded herself lip-syncing the song “Aaron’s Party” by Aaron Carter back when she was …

The University of California has agreed to dish out a $162,500 settlement to David Morse, a 43-year-old photographer who …

Canon is sending out the above invitation for a press event on July 23rd (translation, anyone?). This date is …

The "Smashing Booth" is a contraption that shatters objects and snaps photographs at the moment of impact. It was created by designer Henrietta Jadin, who created it as part of a school project titled "Breaking Point." The wooden device catapults an object at the back wall of its box, and a photo is captured by an open shutter, sound sensor (made from an Arduino controller), and strobe.

Here's a top ten list, in no particular order, of Nikon movie roles! Often appearing as uncredited extras, these Nikon SLRs have been present at some of the greatest moments in movie history.

Vince Devlin over at the University of Montana has the fascinating story of …

Vancouver-based photographer Eszter Burghardt creates miniature landscapes using food (e.g. seeds, powders, milk) and wool, and then photographs them using a shallow depth of field. Her images show everything from volcanos to icebergs. The projects are titled "Edible Vistas" and "Wooly Sagas".

Here’s a promotional/educational video by Canon that explains both how digital cameras work and how it manufactures them. Interesting …

While there are ample resources available on portfolios, websites, leave behinds and promotional materials, there’s one important subject that I’ve found little helpful information on: the photographer’s bio.

Almost always found on a professional photographer’s site, the bio can make or break you. In a world where creatives often only have a couple of minutes to view your site, the bio can play a significant role. A biography is a glimpse into your personality and gives the reader a sense of what you might be like to work with. Creatives will often seek out the bio to help them make quick judgements. Therefore, just having great pictures isn’t enough. Many people will quickly abandon a website to jump to the next, so you have to make sure your entire site is not only engaging, but successfully portrays your personality. With bios being one way to express who YOU are, I’m always surprised at just how many dreadful ones I find. So, after reading one too many boring, exaggerated, absurd, grammatically incorrect and simply over the top biographies, I decided to come up with a few Dos and Don’ts.

Here's a cool video that shrinks down the process of building a massive egg-shaped studio (also known as a "full egg cyclorama") down to about 3 minutes and 30 seconds. A cyclorama this size is used to photograph anything from multiple cars to full-sized busses or, in this case, an antique fire truck. And in case you wanna know the exact specs, the dimensions of this behemoth, built by The Good Egg Studio in Sydney, come out to 12m in width, 17m in length and 4.8m in height.

Want to add some custom tints to your photos without resorting to digital trickery? …

There are plenty of stories out there of photographers allegedly being mistreated at the hands of the police; unfortunately, this mistreatment often includes the destruction of any evidence of the altercation. But the New Jersey ACLU is hoping that their new Police Tape app helps people more discretely record these interactions for future use in court.

Postrgram is a new service that turns your Instagram and/or Flickr photo collections into photomosaics, or giant photos composed of tiny photos. The process involves a few simple steps: tell the service your username (make sure you have at least 50 photos in your stream), specify the image you'd like as the main image, and the rest is taken care of.

For the past two years, 37-year-old photographer Tou Chih-kang has been capturing the last moments of dogs at Taoyuan …

After scorching over 18,000 acres and burning down 346 homes, the Waldo Canyon fire near and around Colorado Springs, CO has left scars that are both literal and metaphorical in nature. And while it would be impossible to capture an image of the metaphorical scarring left by the most destructive fire in Colorado history, NASA's Terra Satellite was able to get this false color image (which includes both visible and infrared light) showing the very literal scar the fire left in its wake.

Unlike most photographers, I hate my camera. I have read hundreds of stories on the Internet in which photographers argue about which cameras are the best and why. There are stories trying to prove that Canon is better than Nikon, or that 4x5 film is better than medium format digital. Camera review websites show scientific-style photographs displaying how much detail they have captured in a dollar bill, or pictures of color checkers and skin tones. They will also show “real-world” and studio tests illustrating how camera A is better than camera B and write long narratives about why.

Inspired by his father's obsession with adding new shelves to walls, photographer and furniture design student Darragh Casey decided to shoot some family portraits that featured family members themselves shelved alongside some of their prized possessions. His project spans three generations of his family and is titled "Shelving the Body".

There's good news coming out of the Nokia camp if you live in the US and you've been wanting to get your hands on the 41-megapixel camera in the company's 808 PureView smartphone. Not only is the 808 itself now available to purchase on Amazon unsubsidized for $699, but the camera technology inside it may soon be available without the hefty price tag.

Orrin Hastings spent three months creating this stop-motion music video for the song …

U.S. Army soldier Alex Jansen is currently stationed in Afghanistan, and besides taking …

If you keep up with the world of photography, chances are you have at one point or another read The British Journal of Photography; if it's one of your main reads you may even have their popular iPad app. And now you've been given a smaller, more portable option, because the magazine has officially released its first iPhone app, an app that the creators say will "change your expectations about how a magazine should look on an iPhone."

It doesn't look like Canon's T4i can catch a break lately. Just days after issuing a somewhat entertaining product advisory explaining why some Canon T4is were showing up as EOS Kiss X6is in EXIF data, Canon has had to issue yet another. This one, like the last, only affects certain serial numbers -- in this case those with "1" as the sixth digit (e.g. xxxxx1xxxxxx) -- but unlike the last, it could potentially be both harmful and aesthetically upsetting.