March 2013

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Photographer Plays With Her Breakfast to Create Imaginative Artworks

Norwegian artist and photographer Ida Skivenes has made a name for herself on Instagram for her playful photographs of food. While most people may attempt to make their food look photogenic and/or appetizing in photographs, Skivenes chooses to go a different route: she views her plate as a canvas and her food as her medium. Skivenes regularly creates artworks on her plates using her foods.

Fashion a Mold to Cast Your Own Canon Shutter Release Cable Connectors

Here's something that may not be relevant to most of you, but if you enjoy dabbling in do-it-yourself gear hacks you might find it interesting. Milan-based photographer and freelance engineer Andrea Biffi came up with an interesting way of creating a shutter release cable connector for his Canon DSLR. Instead of buying an actual remote and slicing off the plug end, he decided to cast his own out of hard rubber.

Albumatic: Create Social Photo Albums With Friends Near and Far

Social photo sharing, especially where location services are involved, is tricky. As we saw with the Color app debacle, privacy concerns rule all and no amount of pre-release hype and funding can overcome those. Still, as TechCrunch columnist MG Siegler said on his blog, "a killer social photo album service" should exist, and Albumatic is making a bid for that designation.

Fire and Fashion: Behind the Scenes at an Insane Pyrotechnics Shoot

Photographer Benjamin Von Wong likes to push the boundaries of what he does, and lately that pushing has involved playing with fire ... literally. It seems he's taken a liking to working with pyrotechnicians and creating out of this world long exposures doing it, so after a speaking engagement in November of last year, Von Wong put together an open photo shoot with pyrotechnician Andrey DAS and fashion designer Virginie Marcerou.

Photog Who Shot Beatles Concert With a Fake Press Pass Sells the Pics for $45K

In 1965, amateur photographer Marc Weinstein used a fake press pass to get police to escort him stage-side at the historic Beatles concert in Shea Stadium. Now, almost 50 years later, he has sold all 61 of the images he captured there for a whopping £30,000 (or about $45,500). The story involves a little bit of bravery, a little bit of trickery, and a lot of luck.

Trailer Shows Pokemon Snap Turned Into a Live-Action Movie

Here's a bit of silly humor as we're winding down the workweek: if you're a photography enthusiast who has fond memories of playing Pokemon Snap during the days of the Nintendo 64, then you might enjoy this humorous fake trailer by Gritty Reboots, which takes popular movies, TV shows, video games and turns them into cinematic trailers.

Cyber-shot Branding May Return to Sony Phones Alongside Serious Specs

Sony has used its "Cyber-shot" brand for digital cameras since 1996, and from 2008 to 2009 the company also slapped the brand on its Sony Ericsson camera phones. Now, with the smartphone industry investing heavily in camera technologies, Sony may soon be reintroducing the brand to its Xperia smartphones in order to compete against other photo-focused phones.

New Panasonic Sensor Tech Significantly Improves Low Light Performance

The folks at Panasonic just developed an exciting new sensor technology that could significantly improve low light performance in all types of cameras very soon. Calling it a sensor technology is a bit misleading, however, because no improvements have been made to the actual sensor at all; instead, Panasonic has decided to change what sits in front of the sensor: the traditional color filter.

Google Patent Changes Camera Settings Based on Local Weather

Google takes photos pretty seriously. In addition to schmoozing the photography community earlier this week by releasing the entire Nik collection of plugins for only $150, the company also promised to make the cameras in their phones "insanely great." And a recent patent shows one of the ways Google may go about doing that.

Google Takes Street View Cars to Nuclear Ghost Town in Japan

Due to the tragic Great East Japan Earthquake and the tsunami and nuclear disaster that it caused, the 21,000 residents of Namie-machi, Fukushima, Japan had to evacuate their homes. Even now, a little over two years later, the residual radiation makes it impossible for those former residents to return to the homes and businesses they were forced to abandon.

Brewery Puts Together Stop Motion Tour of Brooklyn in 3,000 Photos

To promote the Brooklyn Brewery Mash, filmmakers Landon Van Soest and Paul Trillo put together the impressive stop motion creation you see above. The video, which was created by putting together 3,000 separate stills, takes viewers on a tour of Brooklyn by bike messenger (among other things) showing off some of the borough's highlights.

Instagram May Soon Turn Paparazzi Into an Endangered Species

In recent years, photographers -- and particularly photojournalists -- have had to compete more and more aggressively with the everyday Joe and his smartphone who happens to be at the right place at the right time. And with technologies like CrowdOptic in the works that will help sift through the plethora of photographs taken every second, news agencies may soon be able to find that Joe in record time.

North Korea Caught Doctoring Military Exercise Photo of Hovercraft

In a recent Photoshop blunder, North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) was caught distributing the above doctored photo of a marine military exercise involving hovercraft. The photo, which was originally distributed to several news outlets, claimed to show the prowess of North Korea's marine force.

From Hot Type to Bottom Feeders: Adapt or Die as a Wedding Photographer

Sometime around the turn of the twentieth century, my great grandfather started a printing and publishing business in Philadelphia, which, for many, many years was one of the finest and most successful letterpress shops in that city. Nearly every male descendant of Charles Jefferson Armor, including my great uncle, my grandfather, and my father, worked there for most if not all of their lives.

Vietnam Veteran Rediscovers and Shares His 45-Year-Old Photo Archive

In October of 1967, at the age of 24, Charlie Haughey received a draft notice from the US Army notifying him that he would be spending a tour of duty in Vietnam as a rifleman. A couple of months after he arrived, his commanding officer put a camera in his hands and asked him to start taking pictures for Army and US newspapers. His only instructions: "You are not a combat photographer. This is a morale operation ... " …

Store Wages War Against ‘Showrooming’ by Charging a $5 ‘Just Looking’ Fee

'Showrooming' is something that's having a big effect in the camera equipment industry and something that many brick-and-mortar retailers are trying to address. It's when consumers walk into a store not with the intention of actually purchasing a camera or lens, but instead to play around with them and evaluate them in person before making the actual purchase for a lower price online.

Modding a Vintage Camera for Digital Use

My name is David Lo, and I am a street photographer who enjoys taking vintage cameras, digitizing them, and then using them for street photography. This is a walkthrough on my process of modifying a camera.

Ex-Olympus Chief Faces Five Years in Jail For His Role in $1.7 Billion Fraud

Former Olympus president Tsuyoshi Kikukawa may soon spend up to five years of his life in prison for his role in Olympus' massive financial scandal that rocked corporate Japan back in 2011. Prosecutors allege that Kikukawa orchestrated a coverup of $1.7 billion in company losses, one of the biggest frauds in Japanese history and the country's equivalent of America's Enron scandal.

Rare Parrot Gets a Little Too Friendly with Wildlife Photographer

This post could also be titled "How Not to Photograph Endangered Male Animals." The video above was uploaded to the Web by the BBC back in 2009 and shows photographer and zoologist Mark Carwardine finding and photographing a rare parrot in a New Zealand forest. Unfortunately for Carwardine -- and hilariously for the rest of us -- he gets closer to the bird than he was planning to.

Photographer Snaps a Horizon Rainbow Alongside the Eiffel Tower

Photographer Bertrand Kulik was standing at his window in Paris last week when he noticed something peculiar about the horizon. Although his view is ordinarily quite beautiful because of the Eiffel Tower dominating the cityscape, this time it had something he was treated with a bright and colorful horizon rainbow painted across the sky in the distance.

How I Busted a Thief Who Tried to Sell My Camera on Craigslist

Sunday morning: time to survey the damage from last night's party. As I walked around the apartment picking up empty beer bottles and cups, wiping up spills, and putting the furniture back, I remember having a distinct feeling that something was amiss. A quick survey of the apartment, and it hits me. My DSLR was missing.

Russian Photographers Sneak to Top of Great Pyramid and Capture the View

Russian photographer Vitaliy Raskalov recently visited the Great Pyramid of Giza with two of his adventuring photography buddies: Vadim Mahorov and Marat Dupri. Unlike most camera-toting tourists visiting the famous site (the pyramid is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World), the trio was not content with sticking to visitor-approved areas: they decided to risk prison time by sneaking to the top of the pyramid and photographing that rarely-seen view.

How to Capture Water Balloons Popping by Hacking a Shutter Release Cable

Here's a tutorial on how to capture an exploding water balloon in the precise moment the balloon pops, while the water still holds the shape of a balloon. I didn’t want to invest any money in laser barriers or something similar, so I built a very simple mechanism. It doesn't give me perfect timing, but it produces acceptable results.