Trey Ratcliff is the well-known and well-loved HDR photographer behind the travel photography blog Stuck in Customs, and in this behind-the-scenes video he talks you though his gear and how he sets up a few shots of this rocky beach in the Virgin Islands. The video offers some great insight into Trey's thought process as he composes the resulting HDR images, one of which you can see in higher resolution (including some 100% crops) here.
This fascinating video by Hayley Morris for Hilary Hahn and Hauschka's "Bounce Bounce" is both a very creative use of stop motion, and a testament to her skill as a craftsman. She actually created the entire underwater world, sketching and creating the characters herself.
Many a photographer would love to have a medium format camera gracing their camera bag, but not everyone can afford to drop anywhere between twenty and forty thousand dollars on a Hasselblad. Fortunately, the price of owning one just dropped by 22.9-percent. In an attempt to make medium formats more affordable and commonplace, Hasselblad is launching a global marketing initiative that will significantly drop the price of many of their cameras, including the entry-level H4D-31 (down by ~$5,000), …
If you've ever wondered how a professional moving still is put together, this behind-the-scenes video of Dave Hill's shoot for Fiat should shed a little light on the matter. The final product is a composite mix of stills shot using a 5D Mark II and a Hasselblad H3D-50, and high-speed video shot using a Phantom Flex and a Phantom Gold.
You might remember the Olympus marketing stunt from a few weeks ago when they sent a box complete with two walnuts and a note that simply read "coming soon" to a few different tech blogs. Since then we've seen the release of the new TG-1, but apparently Olympus isn't done with either their new releases or the marketing stunts that go along with them.
If you haven't seen Kirsty Mitchell's Wonderland series yet, then you're bound to start running into it everywhere. Inspired by the fairytales her late mother used to tell her before she passed, the series wasn't actually shot in exotic locations. In fact, some of the photos took months of planning to get right.
Earlier today Amateur Photographer reported that the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) in Glasgow, Scotland is set to impose a series of bylaws for the cities transport, including a ban in section 12.1 which would prohibit riders from "take[ing] photographs, or make[ing] video, audio or visual recordings on any part of the subway." In fact, the only way around the ban would be to get express written permission from the SPT and show it to any officer that may request to see it.
Some strange news from Nikon today: the company published a press release detailing some decisions made at a meeting of the Board of Directors that was held today. The directors were discussing some proposed amendments to the company's Articles of Incorporation that will be discussed at the general shareholders meeting on June 28th. Under the section that spells out Nikon's business activities, they're proposing the following amendment: …
The Friends of Anton is an organization that has come together over the past year to ensure the future of slain South African photojournalist Anton Hammerl’s three children; and 3 days ago the organization in partnership with Christie's held the latter's first ever auction of contemporary photojournalism prints, raising over $100,000 towards their touching cause.
A new patent application by Apple is showing off some of the technology we may be finding in the next generation camera. The application, which you can read in its entirety here, mentions a few new features, among them the ability to select multiple focus points, allowing the the phone to take over and adjust the aperture, exposure and even post-process to get the best possible picture for those points.
Here's a 10 minute photography lesson by Karl Taylor on the four main types of light: transmitted, reflected, soft, and hard. Understanding these concepts can revolutionize the way you see and shoot scenes.
Thus-far rumors about the Canon Rebel T4i/650D have been relegated to the "it's definitely coming" category, but yesterday Canon Rumors posted a short spec list that they believe to be fairly accurate. The rumored specs as they now stand would have the new Rebel sporting an 18MP sensor, 9 cross-type AF points, a touchscreen LCD and, most impressively, continuous AF during video recording and in live view.
You've probably seen photographs similar to the image above before, but this one is special in that it wasn't created digitally. Photographer Matthew Spiegelman shot it with a 4x5 camera and 180mm lens using a two-way mirror. The photo is titled Portal {Matthew Spiegelman in his studio with mirror, two way mirror, c-stands, clamp with suction cup, two geared tripod heads, three strobes, 4x5 camera, 180mm lens} [Variation 6]" 2010.
If you've ever wanted to know what the Fuji X100 looked like on the inside, without breaking your own apart that is, then you can benefit from James Maher's misfortune. On a recent fishing trip, the dry container Maher used to store his camera gear turned out not to be watertight and soaked all of his equipment. Rather than doing what most of us would do (assume the fetal position and cry uncontrollably?) he took it as an opportunity to take the whole thing apart and document the process in …
Well, lets just say I've gotten better at this over the last couple of years. The left image was one of the first I've "scanned" with my DSLR, and the one on the right I've just rescanned using the techniques described below (higher resolution available here). Right now I can get higher resolution and better image quality that what street labs give you on CD.
There are many different levels of camera, ranging from point-and-shoot compacts to medium format behemoths, but what if there was something much more powerful than even the highest end Haselblads? What if someone other than space stations could get their hands on a camera that could shoot, say, 112MP photos with enough dynamic range to capture the sun and the stars... in the same exposure... in broad daylight? Well, if we play our cards right, we may just get to see that.
Fashion photographs are generally shot to make the clothing and the models look attractive, but British photographer Neil Bedford chose not to go that route when shooting a series for clothing label Neighborhood's lookbook. He had his models press their faces against invisible panes of glass, resulting in quirky and humorous fashion photos featuring smeared faces.
Here's an interesting TED talk by photographer Rachel Sussman, who undertook an interesting photo project idea: photograph living organisms around the world that are 2,000 years old or older.
Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey's living grass portraits are a testament to creativity. Created by exposing patches of seedling grass to the sun through custom-made negatives, these portraits are grown rather than taken. And just like the regular pictures and the subjects inside them, over time, the images on the grass will fade and disappear.
Earlier we reported on two separate cases where video evidence of police shot by random citizens wound up being crucial in the exoneration of photographers arrested while doing their job. Well, appropriately enough, the US Department of Justice just recently came out in defense of the right to record police while they are on duty.
Here's a skateboarding video by Joe Pease that shows a creative point of view, riding along with the shadow rather than the skateboarder.
Two photographers from opposite ends of the country found themselves in similar situations over the past few weeks. Although the charges leveled against each were different, both photogs were ultimately exonerated after video evidence was presented on their behalf. Amateur photographer Joshua Garland from Seattle and photojournalist Alexander Arbuckle from New York were charged with third-degree assault and disorderly conduct, respectively. After YouTube and Ustream videos by others in the area …
The 120° panoramic image (and its crop) you see above is titled "Daguerreotype View of Cincinnati" and was captured in 1848 by Porter and Fontayne from Newport, Kentucky. It was created with eight full-plate daguerreotypes and shows a two mile stretch of the Cincinnati waterfront.
Here's a leaked photo of an upcoming DSLR by Pentax, the K-30. It's the replacement of the K-r, and features a 16MP sensor, ISO that goes up to 25,600, HD video, weather sealing, a 3-inch LCD screen, 4fps (or possibly 6fps) continuous shooting, and a price tag of around $800-$1000.
Photographer Tadao Cern has an awesome project titled, ahem, Blow Job that consists of portraits of people having their faces blown by extremely strong blasts of air.
This past Monday, stock photography behemoth Shutterstock filed documents with the SEC to have an IPO and list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange. The process requires Shutterstock to reveal its financial details, so the document provides an interesting look at how the company ticks and the state of the stock photography industry.
How do you go about demanding payment from a local newspaper if you discover that they've infringed upon your copyright? Blogger Duane Lester of All American Blogger recently found an article of his reprinted nearly verbatim, typos and all, by the Oregon Times Observer in Oregon, Missouri. He then decided to pay a visit to the newspapers offices with a letter in hand to demand payment from the editor face to face. The video above shows how the confrontation unfolded.
After the massive leak of pictures showing these exact cameras on April 30th, their official release isn't as exciting as it probably should be. But nevertheless, the new NEX-F3 and A37 are now an official part of the Sony lineup, complete with a new 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 lens.
Foam Sculptures is a project by Dutch photographer Suzanne Jongmans, who recreates the look of old 16th and 17th century Flemish and Dutch paintings using clothing and accessories created from foam packing and insulating materials. It reminds us of Nina Katchadourian's airplane lavatory portraits, except with higher production values.
If you've ever felt like there's a camera shaped gap in the clothing market that needed filling, then the new clothing company Dodge & Burn may be exactly what you were looking for. Created "out of a passion for analogue photography and classic cameras" and established last year, the Dodge and Burn brand pays hommage to some of the classic cameras of old, allowing you to keep a little bit of the past with you as you dive further into the digital age of photography.
While we're on the subject of world records in photography, did you know that the world's longest photographic negative is 129ft 6.69in (~39.5m) long? It's a giant panorama of the streets of Buenos Aires, exposed by Argentinian photographer Esteban Pastorino Diaz using a homemade panoramic slit camera that was attached to the top of his car.
A rare Beatles photograph taken in the same shoot as the iconic Abbey Road album cover is set to go up for auction on May 22nd, and is expected to fetch up to £9,000 (~$14,300). The photograph by Iain Macmillan was one of seven photographs captured while the band walked back and forth across the zebra crossing. A police officer held up traffic while the photographer was given 10 minutes to do the shoot while standing on a ladder. Only 25 copies of this "wrong way" photo were ever printed.
A couple of weeks ago two concepts for a "real-life" Instagram camera rolled across our computer screens -- one fake and funny, one real and kind of cool -- but we were pretty certain that neither of them would become a reality any time soon. It seems, however, that we're being proven wrong by ADR Studio's Antonio De Rosa and the crowdsourcing site Indiegogo.
Are we close to the point at which HD video cameras are so good that professional photographs can simply be extracted from footage rather than shot with a still photography camera? That's a question photographer Kevin Arnold had, and when he finally got his hands on a $65,000 RED camera he decided to seek an answer.
In celebration of the upcoming London 2012 Olympic Games -- or maybe just because she felt like it -- London artist Clare Newton has stitched together 109,000 photos into the (not yet official) world's longest photo. The entire Jump4London project, which consists of one very long composite photo of people jumping, has taken 21 months of Newton's life and will span over one kilometer when it's all said, done and printed. And although it's not official yet, the photo will be inspected and …
Burning House is a series of photographs by artist Carrie Schneider that shows a small white house burning on an island in the middle of a lake. While the subject matter might not be too out of the ordinary, glance through the images and you'll soon find that the house appears to be perpetually on fire throughout the seasons.
Just over a month after making headlines with their $1 billion Instagram acquisition, Facebook have now made another power move towards their now obvious goal of interstellar domination photo-sharing supremacy. This time their target was the seven-person team behind the popular Android photo sharing app Lightbox. Unlike with Instagram, Facebook isn't acquiring the company; instead they're simply absorbing the Lightbox Team. According to their blog, Lightbox is no longer accepting sign-ups and …
Last year we featured a neat little origami camera created using a dollar bill by Won Park. If you've been dying to know how to fold one yourself, today's your lucky day. Be warned though: isn't definitely not an origami project for beginners.
Well, whether or not you agree with the Gizmodo post we featured yesterday, Flickr continues to add improvements to try and make itself more appealing to existing users and, perhaps, some older users that have moved on to other sharing options. Their newest improvement has to do yet again with photo sizes, only this time it's not the maximum display resolution in the lightbox, but rather how Flickr are bringing that same resolution to regular photo pages.
9 out of 10 adults in America believe that people are over-sharing sensitive personal information.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple is planning on becoming more invested in photos and video with the next iterations of iCloud and, subsequently, iOS. The updates, which are expected to be announced officially at the WWDC starting June 11th, will include the addition of video synching similar to the current photo stream alongside some exciting photo-sharing capabilities.
London-based advertising and art photographer Atton Conrad does some pretty interesting mixing of fashion and light painting photography. He has done a number of images for magazines and ad campaigns that feature models wearing dresses manufactured from light rather than fabric. For each fo the images, Conrad paints the dress around the model in a blacked-out studio while remotely triggering the camera.
For those of us who remember it, Flickr was once an amazing place. More than just a website or a bucket of features, it was a vibrant community made up by professional photographers and amateur photo junkies alike. Before Facebook would even allow you to upload anything more than a profile picture, Flickr was the place you went to share your life in pictures. And then, at least according to an article on Gizmodo, Yahoo! happened.
If you've been browsing Facebook on your mobile device today you may have noticed something was different. That's because just yesterday the social-networking giant took a few tips from their recent acquisition Instagram by making the photos on both their mobile applications and mobile website up to three times larger. Individual posts and photos now show up using the width of the whole screen (as seen above) and even photo albums include much larger previews than before, helping you to decide …
Sadly the gravy train has left the station, at least where the Nikon D4 is concerned. In the past, D4 owners were pleasantly surprised when they opened up their treasured new possession to find that Nikon had thrown in a complimentary 16GB XQD card and reader, but no more.
Don't mess with Marc Jacobs. That's the lesson graffiti artists should take from a teensy little altercation between Marc Jacobs and the infamous graffiti artist Kidult. When Marc Jacobs employees awoke to a vandalized Soho boutique the morning after the Met Ball, they snapped a few photos before starting to clean it up. But instead of just stopping there and moving on, Marc Jacobs decided instead to turn the whole thing on its head, slap the photo on a t-shirt, and sell it with the caption …
This music video for the song "Solidified" by Gramatik features an interesting technique: custom bokeh shapes that move. We've featured creative bokeh techniques in the past, but they've all focused on floating words or static shapes. Director Brad Hasse went a step further by having his monster silhouettes in the out-of-focus light points move around and sing along. The technique involves placing tiny monster cutouts directly in front of fast lenses that are racked out of focus.
The image above is one-hundred percent fake. It has no connection whatsoever to the world of things. I created the bolts, lights, textures, and everything else in a free, open-source, relatively easy-to-use software package called Blender. It's easy enough that even a novice user like me is able to make a pretty convincing image. If you are a photographer that makes a living shooting still-life photos, this should scare you.
Beauty may only be skin deep, but apparently it's also scientifically measurable. At least that's what Lorraine Cosmetics was banking on when they put together the Britain-wide beauty contest "Lorraine: Naked." Contestants, who were not allowed to have had any plastic surgery, were asked to send in a photo with no makeup on, and after many different symmetry tests, input from experts and a nationwide vote over the top three, Florence Colgate emerged victorious.
Here's a humorous infographic by social marketing blog Flowtown on some common characteristics of Instagram fanatics.
