2012

Wedding photographers are supposed to stealthily document unique moments, not become part of them. Unfortunately, the latter is what photographer Jacki Bruniquel did last month while photographing a wedding in South Africa. As the bride walked down the aisle with her father, a wedding photographer's worst nightmare unfolded for Bruniquel: her head got too close to a burning candle, kindling a small blaze in her hair. In a few short seconds, the entire room was staring and gasping at Bruniquel rather than the bride.

Imagine a photography exhibition in which all the photographs on the walls are being captured by their respective photographers in real-time around the world. That's the kind of show Sony put on this past Thursday in London: the world's first real-time digital photography exhibition.

Tom Brinckman is a Belgian-based freelance photojournalist and wedding photographer. Since he works one deadline every week for his local newspaper, he's able to do most of his image editing work from his home office. Recently he decided to upgrade his workspace, and not just with new equipment or a new arrangement: he decided to put a good deal of effort into building a completely customized home office with an emphasis on functionality.

Ever wonder where those gritty posters promoting hyped boxing matches come from? Check out this behind-the-scenes video in which New York-based photographer Monte Isom offers a brief glimpse into how he recently photographed boxers Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Márquez for their upcoming fight (Pacquiao vs. Marquez IV).

Back in 1998, PC World magazine published a review of the Sony Mavica …

Update: The deal is now over. If you’re in need of an extra memory card or two, check out …

As we're exiting one camera announcement season, rumors are starting to heat up about the next. Canon reportedly has some major announcements just around the corner to announce three new cameras: a second mirrorless camera and two DSLRs.

Photographer Caleb Charland is well known for his projects that mix science and photography. Recently he has been working on photos showing "alternative batteries," or using things like fruits and coins to power lights. His latest image in that series is the above photo that captures the energy contained in a single orange.

Photographer Jeff Cremer recently captured the highest-resolution photo ever shot of Machu Picchu, the most popular tourist destination in Peru and one of the New 7 Wonders of the World. Unlike other gigapixel projects that we've shared here in the past, this one is very well documented, offering an interesting behind-the-scenes look at how these gargantuan images are made.

Dutch photographer George Maas has been working on a series called "Rummy Couples," which features photos of random couples spotted on the street who are dressed alike -- a fashion faux pas. Over the past 5 years, Maas has managed to capture 70 such photographs.

We've known since last month that Lytro is planning to roll out at least one fancy new feature for its light field cameras (parallax-based 3D), but now the company has taken the wraps off the feature to give us a sneak peek at what they'll offer. The two new features that will soon appear in Lytro's Desktop software are called Perspective Shift and Living Filters.

If the movie Jaws gave you nightmares, then you're probably not well-suited to do the kind of photography that photographer Michael Muller spends his free time doing. Muller dives into the ocean and snaps close-up portraits of deadly sharks, often without a cage for protection. The video above is a short feature on Muller's pastime by the TV show "Last Call With Carson Daly."

Yesterday we shared an old school mirror self-portrait from 1917, captured by a young Australian fight pilot named Thomas Baker on a Kodak camera. After seeing that image, photographer Sam Cornwell decided to shoot his own old-school mirror selfie... using a 12x15-inch wet plate camera!

The mid-1800s was a busy time for photographic firsts. In 1838, daguerreotype inventor Louis Daguerre captured the first ever photo of a human being. One year later, in 1839, photograph pioneer Robert Cornelius stepped in front of his camera and created the first self-portrait. 1840 held yet another interesting development: the first hoax photograph.

Photographs are usually captured through viewfinders, not of viewfinders, but photographer Meggan Gould has a photo project featuring the latter. Aptly named "Viewfinders," Gould's series turns old analog camera viewfinders into the subject of photos, documenting both the variety of viewfinder designs and the inevitable wear and tear that results from decades of use.

This past October, Canon addressed a big complaint photographers had about the 1D X by releasing a firmware update that introduced AF illumination (kinda) for shooting in dark environments. However, it wasn't only 1D X users that were complaining about the AF point visibility... 5D Mark III users were -- and are -- as well. If you own a 5DMk3 and have been waiting patiently for your own AF update, there's some good and bad news for you: Canon is reportedly working hard on the issue, but it might not be possible to implement the same feature given the way your camera is designed.

If you have two similar photos of two different people, Photoshopping one face onto the other isn't very difficult. Change that to two video clips of two people talking, and you have a much more challenging task on your hands. That's the problem Harvard University computational photography graduate student Kevin Dale decided to tackle. His research project, titled "Video Face Replacement," introduces a way of doing this "digital face transplant" in a relatively automated way. The demonstration video above shows how effective his technique is at doing the 'shop seamlessly.

LaNola Kathleen Stone is a New York City-based professional photographer and dog lover who uses her talents and free time for a very heartwarming cause: Stone visits the dog pound near her home and specifically asks to shoot portraits of the dogs that are the "least likely to be adopted", some of which have been there for over half a year and are likely in danger of being put down.

Sigma has released the first batch of sample photos shot using the company's new 35mm f/1.4, which costs $899 and competes against the significantly more expensive 35mm f/1.4 lenses of major camera manufacturers. The images were all shot by photographer Kimio Yajima using the Sigma SD1.

Photographer Jessica Nichols' most popular photograph on her Flickr account (above left) is titled "Loads of Ranunculus" and has more than 10,000 views. Nichols got a nasty shock a year ago when she discovered that American fashion designer Chris Benz had apparently turned the photo into numerous clothing designs for his Spring 2012 line, without Nichols' knowing and/or permission. Since July of this year, Nichols has been fighting against the infringement in an attempt to get the designer to pay up.

Attention Micro Four Thirds shooters: there's a new speedy "35mm prime lens" headed your way. Okay, it's actually a 34mm equivalent lens in 35mm terms, but it still boasts a f/1.8 aperture. It's the new Olympus M.ZUIKO 17mm f/1.8, a lens that designed for street photography, landscapes, and shooting in low-light environments.

Snapping mirror self-portraits may have gotten a huge boost from the introduction of digital photography and smartphoneography, but it is by no means a new activity limited to our era. The photograph above was created back in 1917 -- nearly 100 years ago! It was snapped by an Australian flying ace named Thomas Baker when he was 20 years old.

A Canadian woman named Karen Gwillim was driving through the village of Craven, Saskatchewan back in September when she came across a cormorant (perhaps like the one above) standing in the middle of the road. Seeing that it was struggling, Gwillim got out of her car to take a closer look, and found that there was a silver digital camera hanging from the bird's neck. After taking the camera off -- or stealing the camera from the bird, depending on how you look at it -- Gwillim took the gear home to investigate.

During the Iranian election protests back in 2009, a 26-year-old woman named Nedā Āghā-Soltān (above right) was shot and killed while standing around and observing protestors. After footage of her death went viral online -- Time says it's likely the "most widely witnessed death in human history" -- Neda's portrait became the face of the movement, as countless protestors around the world held large prints overlaid with statements like, "Neda did not die in vain." The problem is, one of the main photos used wasn't actually of Neda.

Photography isn't even 200-years-old yet, but there have already been over 150 different chemical processes developed over its relatively short lifetime. In this interesting 5-minute video titled "A Brief History of Photography: Innovations in Chemistry," photo conservation scientist Art Kaplan of the Getty Conservation Institute quickly introduces some of the groundbreaking processes that have made a significant impact on the history of photography -- processes such as the daguerreotype, ambrotype and tintype.

The National Gallery in London, the world’s 4th most visited art museum, is currently holding its first major exhibition …

Projecteo is what you would get if you crossed a View-Master with a carousel slide projector and then miniaturized the love child using a shrink ray. It's a tiny LED-illuminated, battery-powered projector that takes in wheels created from 35mm slide film. Each wheel holds 9 photographs, and focusing the resulting image is done by twisting the lens barrel on the tiny gadget.

ABC Denver is very apologetic today after learning a hard (and embarrassing) lesson on why you need to be extra careful when sourcing photos from the web. On Monday, the 7NEWS station aired a segment on ex-CIA director David Petraeus and his affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell. When mentioning Bradwells new book, titled "All In," the station put up a book cover with a lewd title that read, "All Up In My S**tch."

Corbis, one of the largest photo agencies in the world, has agreed to acquire Demotix, a crowd-sourced citizen journalism photo agency that was founded in 2008. Corbis had already picked up a piece of the young agency through an investment last year, but now it has decided to purchase the whole company outright. The acquisition price was not disclosed.

David Talley is a 19-year-old fine art photographer who has attracted a sizable following on Flickr through his dreamlike portraits and self-portraits. He often spends a good deal of time and energy setting up his shots. For the photograph above, Talley and his buddy hauled a huge door nearly a mile to the beach.