Snapping a photograph while driving isn't the smartest, safest, or easiest thing to do. How then should one go about snapping pictures of the interesting things you drive past without breaking the law or putting people at risk? …
Dutch website Focus Media published this reader photo of an Italian camera dealer ad showing the Nikon D600 -- a camera that doesn't officially exist yet. This new sighting comes after first photos of the entry-level full-frame camera leaked back in June.
Basketball superstar Kobe Bryant is one of the most graceful players in the NBA, but put a camera in his hands and he becomes a mere mortal. Bryant was spotted by television cameras at a Roger Federer Olympic tennis match having trouble with his Canon DSLR and telephoto L lens. He is seen asking someone -- presumably a photographer -- for help, only to be told that the lens cap was still on.
Satellite photographs of Earth are often abstract and artsy, filled with strange colors, shapes, and textures. Some resemble the paintings of old masters, while others look like microscopic slides studied in biology classes. NASA's LandSat has snapped images from space for 40 years now, with many of the images going into a special collection by the U.S. Geological Survey called "Earth as Art". NASA recently decided to run a photo beauty contest to find out which of the satellite images in its …
There are some interesting murmurings in the world of camera rumors. Photokina is just around the corner, and if the rumors are to be believed, we'll be seeing some pretty earth-shattering unveilings at the German trade show.
This advertising photograph for the new Mini John Cooper Works GP looks like a piece of CGI artwork, but it's a lot more photo than render. It also looks like it was shot at high speeds, but it was actually photographed at a crawl. Shot during a top-secret nighttime photo shoot at the Circuit Paul Ricard in France, the photo required long exposure photography, fake smoke, gigantic lights, and a fancy moving camera rig.
Ever since Instagram began its meteoric rise into social media superstardom, companies have sought to use the photo sharing platform to promote their brands. The New Yorker magazine has spent the past six months using the service to broadcast images found in its issues.
Nate Jones over at Metro was recently looking through Getty Images in search of Olympic beach volleyball photos, when he came upon an interesting/"gross" discovery: some of the photographs focused on the body rather than the athlete or the sport. While other Olympic sport photos focus on action and emotion, it seems that certain beach volleyball photographers are intent on snapping images of behinds.
A few weeks ago, some friends and I went on a rafting trip. Not wanting to put an actual camera at risk, I decided to simply bring my iPhone along in a Zip-Loc freezer bag. A pretty ghetto solution, I know, but it turns out that many rafters do the exact same thing.
Photoshopping gets a lot of bad press due to the fact that it's often used to "make skinny models skinner and perfect skin more perfect", but there are also people out there using it for good. The video above is a recent TED talk given by retoucher Becci Manson on how Photoshopping was used to bring joy and memories back to those affected by the devastating 2011 tsunami in Japan.
Update on 12/18/21: This video has been removed by its creator.
Freelancers often have to deal with the difficult challenge of trying to satisfy vaguely stated requests from clients, and also the frustration of meeting new requirements that aren't revealed until after the work is "completed". The video above is an interesting social experiment by Don't Get Screwed Over that attempts to show people what these freelance horror stories feel like to the people getting "screwed over".
The World Wildlife Fund created this beautiful commercial with the message "We Are All Connected". It shows scenes from the human world juxtaposed with strikingly similar scenes from nature.
Have you ever wondered how Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson made Frodo Baggins the hobbit so much smaller than Gandalf the wizard? Aside from using CGI and child body doubles, the filmmaking team also employed brilliant forced perspective techniques that tricked viewers with optical illusions.
If you ever need to remove a photograph that has been glued to paper or cardboard, you can try using the same trick that stamp collectors use: soaking in water. Amateur photographer Michael T. Lauer writes on Quora, …
Scott Lamb of BuzzFeed created this exceptionally moving video that asks the question, "what makes a great photograph great?" Lamb's voice narrates a slideshow of some of the most powerful photographs captured throughout history -- photographs that capture life, love, death, sacrifice, joy, and suffering. Captions accompany the images, so we recommend watching the video twice and pausing on each photo to make sure you catch all of them (otherwise it may be hard to know what's actually …
We've seen some very heavy-duty gear lugged out to cover the Olympic games in London this year: some robotic rigs, an 800mm lens that could easily weigh more than the average lady gymnast, and of course, the usual suspects in a packed camera bag. But Guardian photojournalist Dan Chung is traveling light: he's covering the games with a simple iPhone setup.
Ever wonder what the most viewed photograph of all time is? One leading candidate is Bliss, the photograph chosen by Microsoft to be the default wallpaper of Windows XP. Showing rolling green hills in Sonoma County, California, the image was shot by the side of a highway by professional photographer Charles O'Rear using a medium format camera. It has reportedly been viewed by over 1 billion people since it first emerged in 2002.
It seems like everything is cooler in super slow motion, and fire-breathing is certainly no exception. Vancouver-based still photographer and filmmaker Chris Bolton used a Weisscam HS-2 to capture people breathing fireballs at 2,000 frames per second.
The photography industry isn't the only one transitioning away from film and into digital; Hollywood's undergoing the exact same thing. Side by Side is an upcoming documentary film produced by Keanu Reeves that offers a look into this major transition that's underway …
In this guide, you will find out how you can save money on film photography. I will go over five basic ways on how any film photographer can pursue their artistic dreams and develop their creative outlets without having to spend a fortune.
A photographer's worst nightmare happened to YouTube filmmaker Casey Neistat recently. After taking a taxi after a long 18-hour work day and flight, Neistat accidentally forgot all of his luggage -- and $13,238.86 worth of camera gear -- in the back of a New York City taxi cab. Among the equipment lost was a Canon 5D Mark III kit ($4300), a 24-70mm lens ($1600), and about $550 worth of memory cards -- equipment necessary for Neistat to make a living.
A photographer at the London 2012 Olympics was spotted by a television camera making an embarrassing mistake that's usually limited to newbies: forgetting to remove the lens cap. As he tries to photograph Japanese gymnast Kohei Uchimura using his DSLR's live view, the photographer notices that his LCD screen is strangely blank. After a short period of befuddlement, he realizes the errors of his ways, quickly corrects it, and casts a classic sidelong glance to see if any of his photographer …
Last year we shared the work of artist Frank Kunert, a man who builds and photographs extremely detailed tongue-in-cheek miniature worlds that look rather ordinary upon first glance. This short behind-the-scenes video shows how he goes about creating his images, driven both by a perfectionism and a design to not do any post-processing on his analog images. You can check out Kunert's work over on his website.
The Lumi Process is a new print process for transferring photographs onto textiles and natural materials. It's based around Inkodye, a light sensitive solution that uses sunlight to print images onto everything ranging from cotton to wood. Once fixed, the images are permanent and can go through washing machines without fading. Co-founder Jesse Gennet recently launched a Kickstarter fundraising campaign to bring the project to a new level, and ended up raising over $250,000 -- a good deal more …
Here's an interesting TED audition by artist Phil Hansen, who speaks on embracing limitations (both natural or artificial) in order to drive your creativity. While Hansen isn't a photographer, many of his ideas should be very relevant to photographers looking to give their work a kick in the butt.
Photographer Michael Bodiam and set designer Sarah Parker were recently commissioned by NOWNESS to shoot a project called "A Day on My Plate: Athletes' Meals". The goal was to document Olympic athlete meals, but with a twist: instead of standard perspectives, the massive amounts of food were placed onto oversized place settings created with laser-cut MDF, cardboard and paper.
There's a reason that most of the foods you buy never look like the photos used to advertise them. Food photographers and stylists have all kinds of random tricks up their sleeve for making food items look picture perfect. Here's a list of various household products that are commonly used to make dishes look more appealing. A warning, though: you might lose your appetite.
Ascii Street View is a web app by programmer Peter Nitsch that converts Google Street View panorama photos into ASCII art in real time. Load up the app and type in your address to see your location displayed as colorful characters. There's also a "green" option that produces images that are reminiscent of The Matrix.
Sports photographers sitting close to the action occasionally take a beating when athletes leave their field of play. This happened yesterday to Reuters photographer Mike Segar while he was shooting the Olympic basketball game between Spain and Australia. While trying to dive for a loose ball, Spain's Rudy Fernandez slammed into Segar and injured his head. Segar has written up an interesting post on what it was like to suddenly find the cameras pointed at him: …
What would photographs of the night sky look like if other planets in our solar system replaced the Moon? This beautiful video by 3kingAmazing (remixed using a video by Brad Goodspeed) shows the answer.
How's this for a strange camera accessory: the Paparazzo Light is a lighting attachment for iPhones that mimics the look of vintage press camera flashes (yes, the kind the original Lightsaber was made from). The light comes from a 300 Lumen LED that's powered by two dedicated CR 123 batteries, and three modes offer different brightness settings for photos and videos.
Nikon's massive 800mm f/5.6 super-telephoto lens hasn't been launched yet, but English press photographer Leon Neal was given the enviable opportunity to play around with a pre-release copy at the London Olympic Games. After shooting two sessions at the aquatics center with the beastly piece of glass, Neal published a blog post with some sample photos and thoughts on how the lens performs: …
We just gave away a Tamron lens, but now we're back again with another awesome giveaway. This week we're giving away two beautiful camera bags by ONA that'll let you carry your cameras in style. One lucky winner will win both a Brixton camera + laptop messenger bag worth $269 and a Bowery camera bag worth $119 -- a total value of $388.
New parents love sharing photos of their babies with the world, but that doesn't mean the world always appreciates having baby photos clutter up its Facebook news feed. Unbaby.me is a humorous Chrome extension that removes baby pictures from your feed and replaces them with awesome stuff (e.g. pictures of cats, dogs, and bacon).
Photographs of of Syria these days are filled with grim sights of pain and suffering. One Austrian newspaper apparently decided that the photos weren't grim enough. Kronen Zeitung, Austria's largest newspaper boasting ~3 million readers, published a photo this past weekend (top) showing a couple stepping through the rubble of a destroyed building complex with their child wrapped in a blanket. A powerful image... but completely fabricated. The original photo (bottom) published by the European …
The next time you fly, be sure not to forget your camera on the plane -- your camera might make the national news. A United Airlines flight carrying 169 people from New Jersey to Switzerland was diverted to Boston last night after a camera was discovered in a seasickness bag behind one of the seats. In addition to inconveniencing the passengers, two F-15 fighter jets were scrambled to follow the plane. The camera was later discovered to be... an ordinary camera.
Face detection has become the snapshot photographer's invaluable assistant in ensuring tack-sharp faces, but soon it'll be able to add two more job responsibilities to its resume: exposure metering and speedier autofocus. Two patents recently awarded to Apple show that future iOS cameras (perhaps the next iPhone?) will have standard camera features that rely much more on face detection technology. The first patent, titled "Dynamic exposure metering based on face detection", allows the camera to …
Photography enthusiast Sterling Parker created this abstract image by averaging all the photographs he shot in 2007. He tells us, …
Atomic Overlook is a startling series of images by photographer Clay Lipsky that shows tourists enjoying the beauty of mushroom clouds at atomic bomb tests.
