After his Beijing studio was destroyed in 2005, artist Liu Bolin (AKA "The Invisible Man") began a project titled "Hiding in the City" that show him blending into various locations around Beijing. The photographs aren't Photoshopped -- Bolin carefully has his body painted to blend in with each landscape.
Photo enthusiast Chris Malcolm needed a better way to aim his 500mm lens at fast moving subjects (e.g. birds in flight), so he upgraded his lens with a DIY sighting aid by attaching a non-magnified red dot sight: …
Imagine a world in which cameras are as connected to the web as cell phones and purchased with contracts from wireless service providers such as AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint. That world may not be too far off. Last week we reported that both Samsung and Panasonic are considering Android-powered cameras that would offer third-party apps and many of the same things offered by mobile phones.
After finding toys from his childhood in his grandparents' attic, photographer Julien Mauve decided to create a series of photographs that imagines what those toys would look like in our serious adult world. The series is titled "Back to Childhood".
Here's a simple tip by photographer Benjamin Von Wong for traveling abroad: you can make recharging your devices overseas a breeze by building a charging station using a single power adapter and your own power strip.
Here's what Henri Cartier-Bresson, the father of modern photojournalism, said about his concept of "The Decisive Moment" in an interview with The Washington Post in 1957.
Photographer Mario Zanaria created this contact sheet portrait of a model named Francesca by planning out each of the frames on a roll of film.
At CES 2012 back in January, Casio showed off a 2D to 3D conversion service that turns photos into sculptures. Now a new Portland, Oregon-based company called BumpyPhoto is bringing the technology to the masses. With prices starting at $59, BumpyPhoto will take your standard photograph, turn it into a 3D model using their special software, and then create a color 3D relief sculpture for you.
Photographer Andrey Pavlov's images of ants may look like they were computer-generated or created with dead insects, but they're actually real photographs of living ants. Pavlov spends hours setting up his fantasy scenes and then waits for his ant subjects to interact with his miniature props in just the right way.
Here's the first leaked photo of the upcoming Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF5. It was shared on Instagram (and quickly taken down) by Hong Kong-based model Angela Baby, who was likely working on a commercial for the new Micro Four Thirds camera when she decided to snap a photo using the iPhone app. 43 Rumors writes that the camera will have a 12 megapixel sensor, ISO 12800, snappy autofocus (0.09s), a revised touchscreen, and improved low-light performance.
If you go to Google Street View and type in "rue de londres, paris", you can visit the location where photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson captured his famous street photograph Behind the Gare St. Lazare in 1932. It's an ordinary location that became an iconic photograph through Cartier-Bresson's "decisive moment" style of photography. Cartier-Bresson notes, …
Being able to concentrate is a great quality to have as a photographer, but make sure it doesn't make you tunnel vision and cause you to miss shots. Photographer Hans Kruse was photographing deer in a park outside Copenhagen, Denmark, when he spotted this wildlife photographer miss out on a close-up of a huge stag because he had his telephoto lens pointed in the wrong direction. He states, …
Trigger Happy is a new product that lets you use your iOS or Android smartphone as a fancy camera remote. It consists of an app and a one-meter-long cable that goes from your phone's audio jack to your camera. Besides acting as a simple remote shutter release for shake-free shots, the app offers bulb functionality for timing long exposures, an intervalometer for timelapse photography, HDR mode, and bramping. They're also working on lightning detection, audio waveform detection, face detection, …
If you were to lose your camera today, would anyone who found it be able to get in touch with you? If not, it might be a good idea to put a couple "digital dog tags" on your camera's memory card. First, add a photo with your contact information onto the card so that anyone looking through the photos on the camera will come across it. Next, add a series of text documents to the root directory of your memory card (the first directory that appears when you access the card on a computer). Give …
For this short titled "Full Circle", Callum Cooper attached a camera to the end of a jump rope and had a number of models use it. In addition to showing a unique point of view, the technique also provides for an interesting way to transition between shots.
Photographers are supposed to document news rather than make it, but a clumsy German photographer had the ill fortune of doing the latter in the most horrible way this past Wednesday. The photographer was shooting at a media event at the Limbach-Oderfrohna zoo in Eastern Germany when he stepped backward and onto a three-week-old earless bunny named Til, instantly killing the little guy.
Cesar Kuriyama spent a couple years saving enough money to take an entire year off from work -- his 30th year of life. He spent that year living frugally, doing all the things he never had enough time to do: travelling, personal creative projects, and spending time with family. He decided to document that special year by capturing 1 second of footage every single day and creating a short compilation video at the end, similar to Madeline's video that we shared back in January. After completing …
NASA has released a gigantic catalog of the night sky that contains more than 563 million stars, galaxies, asteroids, planets, and objects. The images were captured by the infrared cameras of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission, which has been collecting data for the past two years. After capturing more than 2.7 million images of the sky, NASA created an epic panorama showing the entire sky by stitching together 18,000 of those images. You can view the panorama in a zoomable …
Dutch website Focus Media has published several photographs of the upcoming Samsung NX20 mirrorless camera, along with a list of specs. The camera will be slightly larger than the NX11 (there a thicker grip), and will offer a 20.3MP sensor, built in Wi-Fi for uploading images to the web, 8fps continuous shooting, ISO 100-12800, i-Function 2.0, built-in flash, an electronic viewfinder, 1080p HD video recording (with a separate button), and a 3-inch tilting screen on the back.camera/#ixzz1pJPIu4K9
Next Media Animation is a Taiwanese company that regularly creates animations that report on news stories and current events (here's one they made after the death of Steve Jobs). Earlier this week they released the animation above that explains the rise of Instagram and it's impending arrival on Android. The style is very... unique.
Last month some retailers had short sales that heavily discounted Adobe Lightroom 3, selling it at $70 and $80. If you were one of the people who jumped on those deals, here's some even better news for you: you might qualify for a free upgrade to the newly launched Lightroom 4! Adobe's upgrade policy offers complimentary upgrades to people who purchase an old version shortly after a new one is announced, but it can also apply to you if you purchased shortly beforehand. Here are instructions on …
Director Jason Bognacki had a Contessa-Nettel Piccolette German folding camera from 1919 sitting around on his shelf for ages, and decided one day to bring it back to life by attaching it to his Canon 5D Mark II.
German photographer Michael Wesely has spent decades working on techniques for extremely long camera exposures -- usually between two to three years. In the mid-1990s, he began using the technique to document urban development over time, capturing years of building projects in single frames. In 1997, he focused his cameras on the rebuilding of Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, and in 2001 he began photographing the Museum of Modern Art's ambitious renovation project. He uses filters and extremely …
Wolfram Alpha has added a new in-app purchase option to its knowledge engine app that brings advanced image analysis and manipulation to iOS devices. The $0.99 add-on allows users to use photos taken on the fly or from their Camera Roll as input. They can then use the app to do things such as analysis, sharpening, edge detection, and apply various effects. You can find a list of available commands here.
Last year we shared a table listing the various hazards National Geographic photographers experience while on the job. Of the 45 members surveyed, 8 of them had been attacked by wild animals. Here's a video in which Nat Geo photographer Mattias Klum describes an experience in which he went face-to-face with a lioness, and escaped with both his life and an amazing photograph.
We've seen quite a few videos lately by people who send cameras up to the edges of space on weather balloons. Here's the big-budget version of that: footage from a camera attached to a NASA Space Shuttle's booster rockets. Lift off from Earth occurs at 0:27, separation from the shuttle occurs at 1:57, and splashing into the ocean occurs at 7:21. The sound captured by the cameras has been remastered by George Lucas' Skywalker Sound.
Every photographer probably has at least one story of a photo opportunity they missed simply because they decided not to press the shutter. Photographs Not Taken is a new book by photographer Will Steacy that offers 62 stories told by photographers around the world about moments that never became photographs. Sean O'Hagan of The Guardian writes that the decision is often an ethical one: …
For his project Couples, Spanish photographer Nacho Rojo made portraits of himself and his girlfriend mimicking the stereotypical looks of various social groups.
Protobooth is a creative photobooth by design firm Digital Kitchen that captures 3D photos rather than static images. Comprising 3 Canon 5D Mark II DSLRs, 4 Macbook Pros, and some fancy software mojo, the Protobooth simultaneously captures three photos at the push of a button, saves them to a networked hard drive, stitches them using Automator, applies a Photoshop filter action to the image, and then saves it as a GIF.
Based in New York, 46-year-old Chris Arnade is a banker by trade and a passionate photographer in his free time. While those attributes may seem pretty commonplace, it's Arnade's subjects that make his work stand out: Arnade focuses his "hobby" on sharing the faces and stories of drug addicts in the Bronx. He writes, …
Here's a crazy rumor floating around: an upcoming M-series camera by Leica may feature a sensor that can only capture black and white photographs. According to a tip received by Leica Rumors, the camera will offer B&W digital photography with no LCD display on the back -- a unique toy for nostalgic film photographers who have deep pockets. Phase One offers a similar B&W medium format back that captures monochrome images by eschewing the traditional color filters found on cameras.
There's a subgroup of film photographers who are dedicated to coming up with inventive new ways to distress film in order to achieve unexpected -- and occasionally beautiful -- results. Last year we shared that soaking film in rubbing alcohol does strange things to your images. Here's another crazy idea: put a roll of film through the dishwasher. Photographer Tom Welland did just that and ended up with some vintage-looking photos.
The Extreme Ice Survey (EIS) is a multi-year project by National Geographic photographer James Balog that aims to make show climate change in action through time-lapse imagery of glaciers. Balog has 27 Nikon D200 DSLRs pointed at 18 glaciers around the world snapping 8,000 photographs each year while powered by solar panels. His custom-designed rigs -- created through months of trial and error -- also include heavy duty tripods, waterproof cases, and wind-proof anchors. He has also created a …
Back in January, Polaroid unveiled its SC1630 Smart Camera that's powered with Google's Android operating system. Now, more manufacturers may be gearing up to have the popular smartphone OS built into their cameras: Samsung and Panasonic are both reportedly exploring this idea. Regarding what this means for consumers, Engadget writes, …
DEVELOP Tube is a video channel on YouTube and Vimeo that's geared towards photographers and curated by NYC-based photographer Erica McDonald. Each channel features interviews, profiles, lectures, and films about photography that are carefully selected from each website.
Unless you're constantly staring at photos of yourself, the image that comes to mind when you think of your own appearance is most likely not what other people (and cameras) see, since mirrors show us a flipped image of ourselves. With this in mind, Los Angeles-based photographer Juan Luis Garcia is working on a project titled Face Value: …
Albert Kahn was a wealthy French banker who launched a project in the early 1909 that aimed to create a photographic record of the world. The first commercially successful color photography process, Autochrome Lumière, had just arrived two years earlier, and Kahn decided to use the medium to both document human life and to promote peace. He sent out an army of photographers to 50 different countries, amassing 72,000 photos and 100 hours (183,000 meters) of film that became one of the most …
If you've always wanted to be an astronaut photographer shooting images of Earth from a window of the International Space Station, Stratocam is an app for you. Created by Paul Rademacher, it allows you to snap your own photographs inside Google Maps' satellite view of our planet. You can also view and rate other people's photos, and browse the highest rated images from around the world.
36 of American photographer William Eggleston's digital pigment prints were auctioned off at Christie's on Monday, fetching a whopping $5.9 million -- far more than the $2.7M they were expected to sell for. Eggleston is credited with helping making color photography a legitimate artistic medium for galleries, which had previously favored B&W prints. A print of Eggleston's "Memphis (Tricycle)" (shown above) was the top seller after being snatched up for $578,500.
The Pink & Blue Project by South Korean photographer JeongMee Yoon started seven years ago after she photographed a portrait of her 5-year-old daughter sitting next to her beloved pink possessions. She then began creating portraits of other girls who loved pink things, and then other boys who loved blue.
In the old days, affordable consumer cinema cameras used the same film as high-end ones, allowing everyday folk to capture high-quality videos. All that changed when digital video rolled around. However, there's a new camera in development called the Digital Bolex that aims to bring us back to that: …
One of the most important things I’ve learned during my ongoing adventure as a small-town, self-employed photographer is that nothing is more important than the relationships I’m building. So when I decided sometime last year that I was going to do a 2012 promo I wanted to create something that looked elegant, something that the recipients could be a part of and most importantly, something that could start building long-lasting relationships.
YouTube filmmaker Casey Neistat's DSLR recently took a tumble, breaking a piece off of the built-in lens hood of his Sigma lens. Instead of sending the lens in for repairs, Neistat decided to do a thrifty repair himself. After finding a similar-sized jar lid on some peanut butter at a local grocery store, he created a replacement hood himself by drilling a large hole and a couple small screw holes into the lid. He calls the project "The Peanut Butter Solution".
The KillShot is a rifle-shaped digital camera that's designed to let hunters shoot photographs instead of bullets without losing the feel of working with a rifle. Designed to look just like a standard hunting rifle, the camera features a scope with crosshairs on top that serves as the viewfinder. The resulting photographs serve as trophies for your kill that offer proof of your skill at stalking and outsmarting your prey. While it's only a design at the moment, there's currently a Kickstarter …
Sony has announced the Alpha A57 pellicle mirror camera, the successor to its A55 released a year and a half ago. While the sensor resolution is still 16-megapixels -- no megapixel war here -- the new camera has an increased ISO limit of 16,000 (up from 12,800), a faster continuous shooting rate of 12fps (up from 10), and an improved 15-point AF system with enhanced object-tracking and snappy AF during HD video recording. It can also capture full HD video at 60p, 60i, and 24p. It'll be priced …
Here's a helpful video that shows how you can optimize your Canon DSLR for video recording based on Vincent LaForet's recommendations. It's geared towards the 5D Mark II, but is applicable for other video-capable DSLRs as well (e.g. 5D Mark III and 7D). There's also an article over on LaForet's blog that explains the reasoning behind the various settings.
Sigma made a bold move with its SD1 DSLR camera last month, slashing $6,400 off the camera's list price to drop it from $9,700 to $3,300. The "street" price -- how much the camera is actually priced in stores -- fell from $6,900 to $2,300.
Physics guru David Prutchi recently came across a line of professional grade gyroscopic camera stabilizers by Kenyon Laboratories. They cost thousands of dollars each, but Prutchi noticed that the designs hadn't changed much since they were first patented in the 1950s. He then set out to create his own DIY version using low-cost gyroscopes from Gyroscope.com. His finished device (shown above) actually helps stabilize his DSLR when shooting video or when photographing with non-image-stabilized …
Daylight saving time started this past Sunday. Unless you've been operating an hour off from those around you, you probably remembered to change the clocks around your home and in your car... but did you remember to change the clock in your camera? …
Bart Zoni of Leica Boss made this short video explaining the main differences between DSLR and mirrorless cameras. He discusses flange focal distance and sensor size, and how the cameras' differences in those two things affect image quality.
