February 2013

Jump to articles by year, month, or day.

Year
Month
Day

Year alone opens that year’s archive. Add a month or day to narrow it.

Magnum Photographer Accused of Ethics Breach In Prize-Winning Photo

This striking photo, taken by Magnum photographer Paolo Pellegrin, has been making the award rounds recently, sweeping up first and second place trophies for the photog's mantle. According to the description, the photo portrays a "former Marine Corps sniper," and is part of a series of photos taken in a rough part of Rochester, NY called "The Crescent." …

Who Owns Illegal Public Street Art Found on Private Buildings?

Who owns public art illegally placed onto private buildings? That's a question that came up recently after a famous Banksy work in London was ripped out of the side of a building, shipped across the Atlantic, and put up for auction with an estimated final price of over half a million dollars.

Beautiful Nature Cinemagraphs Created from Wildlife Documentaries

If you're a fan of cinemagraphs, you should take a look at the nature cinemagraphs being created by 28-year-old Netherlands-based visual artist Marinus. He has been using frames from popular wildlife documentaries (BBC's Winterwatch, Wonders of Life, and Natural World), turning them into beautiful animated loops that offer glimpses into the great outdoors.

Samsung Unveils a Cheaper, Wi-Fi-Only Galaxy Camera

While we're on the subject of Android-powered cameras: Samsung announced a new camera model for its Galaxy lineup this past Tuesday. It's called the Samsung Galaxy Camera (Wi-Fi). As you can probably guess from the name, it's simply the original Samsung Galaxy Camera without the 3G/4G capabilities (and with a smaller price tag). In other words, you'll have to rely on Wi-Fi for connecting to the Internet rather than subscribing to a data plan for your camera.

The Face of Bureaucracy: Portraits of Civil Servants Around the World

Bureaucratics is a project by photographer Jan Banning that consists of 50 portraits captured in 8 countries on 5 continents around the world. The goal: to offer a comparative look at the culture, rituals, and symbols of state civil administrations. Basically, Banning wanted to document the face of bureaucracy by capturing portraits of government workers at their posts.

Calvin and Hobbes Photoshopped Into Photographs of Real Locations

If you're a fan of photography and of Bill Watterson's popular comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, you'll probably love what Oregon-based freelance photographer Michael S. Den Beste has been working on recently. He's using his Photoshoppin' skills to blend Calvin and Hobbes characters into photographs of real world locations that match the settings seen in the comics. The results are magical, beautiful, and oh-so-very-fun.

Sample Photos: Check Out the 2/3-Inch X-Trans Sensor Quality in the X20

Fujifilm has released seven official sample photographs shot using the new X20, a slick little retro-styled compact camera with a 12MP 2/3-inch X-Trans CMOS sensor. The X-Trans sensors in Fujifilm's APS-C X-Series cameras (e.g. X-Pro1 and X-E1) are very highly regarded for their image quality and low light performance, so it's interesting to see how the same tech performs on a much smaller sensor size (APS-C sensors are about 6.5 times larger than the X20's 2/3 sensor).

A Complete Professional Photography Kit for $15.35… Back in the Year 1900

Want to buy all the camera equipment you need to start a photography business for just $15.35? All you'll need is... a time machine! Reddit user sneeden found this Sears Roebuck and Co. consumer guide for the fall of 1900. Two of the pages inside the catalog are for view camera kits that can help anyone "start in a pleasant and good paying business."

320-Gigapixel London Panorama Breaks Record for Largest Panoramic Photo

The BT Tower panorama, created by stitching together 48,640 images taken with 7 Canon EOS 7Ds, has officially broken the record for the world's largest panoramic photo. It was taken from atop the BT Tower in London, and you can see a tiny version of it at the top, but the real thing offers a massive, browsable 360-degree view of London in extreme detail.

“Snow Flowers” on the Front of a Lens

Apparently if you shoot in certain environments that are cold enough, beautiful patterns of snow and ice form on the front element of your lens. This is what photographer Alessandro Della Bella's glass looked like as he was shooting at an altitude of around 10,000 feet on Mount Titlis in temperatures of around 1° F.

Near-Earth Asteroid 2012 DA14 Captured in a Gorgeous Time-lapse Video

On Friday, February 15th, 2013, near-Earth asteroid 2012 DA14 did a flyby of our planet -- the closest approach ever of an object of its size (30 meters in diameter). Photographer Colin Legg of Western Australia decided to capture the close pass in a time-lapse video, and set up his cameras after midnight around 220 miles east of Perth.

Darkrooms are Irrelevant and The Truth Matters

On April 8, 2011, Senator Jon Kyl was quoted on the Senate floor as saying, "If you want an abortion, you go to Planned Parenthood, and that’s well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does." …

Abstract Long-Exposure Photographs of Colored Paper in a Cave

Los Angeles-based photographer Brice Bischoff has a project titled Bronson Caves. Between 2009 and 2010, Bischoff visited the caves in Los Angeles' Griffith Park with his 4x5 large format camera and some very large sheets of colored paper. He then used long exposure times to paint colorful blurs into the photographs by waving the papers around.

Using Noise as Camera Fingerprints for Detecting Image Manipulation

A recent photographic analysis technique developed by Professor Siwei Lyu and his team at the University at Albany - SUNY could lead to better forensic analysis of altered images. The technique takes advantage of the fact that, when splicing two images together, each will bring with it the specific noise pattern of the camera it was shot with.

Wet Plate Collodion Photography from a First-Person Point of View

Here's a video that may be very interesting to you if you've never tried your hand at creating a tintype with wet plate collodion photography. Oklahoma City-based photographer Mark Zimmerman recently strapped a GoPro Hero 3 to his head and went through the entire process of creating a wet-plate photo on aluminum, from flowing the collodion in the beginning, through exposing it using his large format camera, and ending with a finished tintype photo of a camera.

David Burnett: Stories from a Seasoned Photojournalism Legend

David Burnett is a traditional photojournalist whose style and work has remained relevant in an increasingly digital world. You may remember his stunning shots from the London 2012 Olympic Games that were captured, not with a 1DX, but a 4x5 Speed Graphic camera and Aerial reconnaissance lens, both from the 1940s.

Sony NEX-3N Mirrorless Camera and A58 SLT Become Official

After having their photos and some specs leaked this past weekend, the Sony NEX-3N and A58 finally became real today through an official announcement by Sony. The new mirrorless and pellicle mirror cameras were unveiled alongside a set of new lenses, and offer some pretty standard upgrades to current models.

Why Do Photo Contest Winners Look Like Movie Posters?

This is an incredible photo. The range of emotions expressed (anger, grief, despair), the position of the people and bodies, and proximity of the photographer to the subject make it an incredible moment in time. And because of these elements, this photo was deservedly named the World Press Photo of the Year.

Animated GIFs Created with Photographs of Large-Scale Street Art

Animated GIFs are often created with a sequence of photographs, but UK-based artist INSA puts an interesting twist on the concept by mixing the concept with graffiti and time-lapsing. For his GIF-iti projects, he paints large-scale street art pieces on various walls and surfaces (e.g. the side of a truck) over a number of days. Once each version of the piece is complete, it's saved as a photographed with a camera fixed in a certain location.

Shooting a Seasonal Time-Lapse, From Enclosure to Exposure

Shooting a seasonal time-lapse poses several challenges. You have to figure out how to power the camera for a very long time, how to protect it from the elements, how to make sure nobody messes with it, and how to run your set-up for months without needing to check on it very often.

Jazz Singer Esperanza Spalding Sued by Photographer Over Album Cover Art

Grammy Award-winning Jazz singer Esperanza Spalding is currently in the midst of a legal battle with photographer Kevin Ryan over the cover art on her 2012 album Radio Music Society (pictured above). The cover shows Spalding sitting atop a vintage boombox that is actually a sculpture made of pictures attached to a wooden box.

VSCO Film 03 is Like a Desktop Instagram for Pro Photographers

Film emulation software company VSCO has added another offering to its lineup of Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw plugins. VSCO Film offers the same high-end film emulation power as Film 01 and 02, except it's designed for mimicking the look of instant films rather than standard color and black-and-white film stocks.

Photos from the World’s First Underwater Nuclear Explosion

In in 1946, the United States conducted a series of nuclear weapon tests at Bikini Atoll in what's known as Operation Crossroads. A total of two bombs were detonated to test the effects nuclear blasts had on naval warships. The second, named Baker, was the world's first nuke to be detonated underwater. Due to the unique properties of underwater explosions, the Baker test produced a number of unique photographs that the world had never seen before.