Swiss photographer Fabian Oefner calls himself a "curious investigator," and says that his mission is to "harness elemental forms of natural phenomena and capture them in the most stunning way possible." An example of this can be seen in his recent project titled "Black Hole," which features photos showing lines of color emanating from a "black hole."
Yesterday, we shared an interview with a young Annie Leibovitz, in which she discussed some of her most iconic photos. For today's blast from the past, we have this short interview with Greg Heisler, in which a very young version of the Heisler we know and love tells the story behind his photographs of the American Ballet Theatre.
A couple of months ago, we spent some time telling you about CrowdOptic, a company that has been pioneering a way to sift through the millions of photos taken every second of every day and separate the "noise" from the "signal" when it comes to finding newsworthy content.
The company's technology takes advantage of the fact that smartphone photographs today come with both GPS and heading data attached, allowing algorithms to determine not only where a photo was taken, but also what it was taken of. And in the video above, former football player Jim Kovach explains the tech in detail at TEDxSiliconAlley in New York City.
Each year, photographer and cinematographer Toby Lockerbie gets away for a couple of weeks to shoot something challenging and "rediscover the magic" of his art. This year, he went to Norway to exercise his love of "shoot[ing] lights in the dark."
For her project titled "Identities," London-based photographer Ana Oliveira created a series of before and after photos that show the effects of time and aging.
In game theory, a zero-sum game is one in which one side's gain is exactly balanced out by the other side's loss. Regarding photography, the term works well to describe one problem with the ever-more-popular art of motion image photography, or pulling stills from very high-definition video. And in the video above, The Slanted Lens makes this point very well by testing the concept in a photo shoot using Canon's 1D C.
Invented in the early 1970's by cameraman Garrett Brown, the Steadicam has become a staple in the world of motion pictures. But given how frequently it's used, most of us have lost appreciation for the true impact the camera stabilizer has made.
Knowing this (and wishing to change it) the people over at Refocused Media have put together the above compilation using famous clips from almost 50 different films -- clips that may have never been attempted if it wasn't for the Steadicam.
The idea behind writer Manjula Martin's brain child Who Pays Writers has now been expanded to the world of photography thanks to an anonymous editorial photographer and his spinoff, Who Pays Photographers. And like its predecessor, it's a place where photographers can come and anonymously submit reports that detail the who and how much (if any) of getting paid as a photographer.
On November 21st, 2012, Matthew Hartman attempted to pull off an epic marriage proposal that his girlfriend would talk about for the rest of their lives. He led her to a large rock surrounded by ocean waters at Laguna Beach, California, and then sang her a song that he wrote for the occasion. Then he got down on one knee to pop the question. Or, at least that was the plan.
A large ocean wave had other plans for the couple. At just the wrong time, it decided to crash the party and sweep the girl off her feet before Hartman could. The whole thing was captured by friends in the video above.
Diane Meyer's "Time Spent That Might Otherwise Be Forgotten" project isn't so much about what photography can do, but rather what photography can't do. By embroidering pixel patterns into sections of her photographs, Meyer's work focuses on the inability of photography to truly preserve "experience and personal history."
Annie Leibovitz is one of the most iconic portrait photographers of our time, …
Typically, the folks over at DigitalRev are the ones doling out the challenges. Be it a Buzz Lightyear camera or a sub-par tilt-shift replacement, they like to put the pros through their paces.
Since we've been talking about taking pictures of outer space, it only seems right that we share an incredible picture taken from outer space. This photo, taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station, shows the incredible vantage point they were privy to in 2009 when they witnessed an eruption of the highly active Sarychev Volcano.
Photography is an expensive hobby as it is, but if you're interested in astrophotography, you're looking at adding at least one more item to your camera bag. Well, actually, it won't fit in your camera bag, because that item is a telescope.
And when it comes to selecting your first astrophotography-worthy telescope, the tips offered in the above video by Mr. Forrest Tanaka are invaluable and very well presented.
Wildlife photographer Henryk Janowski has an awesome and ingenious way of getting close to his subjects: he swims around in a bird blind that's designed to look like a large white swan.
Facebook is preparing to launch a new smartphone through HTC, and Instagram will be one of the beneficiaries of the partnership. Unwired View has published a leaked list of specs for the "HTC Myst", as it will reportedly be called, which reveals that the photo sharing app will come preinstalled on the phone.
Photographer Alex Bamford's Sleepwalking series is a photo project with a simple idea but beautiful results. In short, it can be described as "moonlit wanderings in pajamas."
More and more cameras are being launched with touchscreen interfaces these days, especially as mobile operating systems are starting to appear in point-and-shoots and turn them into smartphone look-alikes. For those of you who live in a colder environment and often find yourself wearing gloves that aren't compatible with touchscreen cameras, there's now a way to make those gloves touchscreen compatible that doesn't involve sewing conductive thread into them.
It's called AnyGlove, and is a special capacitive gel that can be applied to -- as the name implies -- any glove or clothing item.
Tom Carter may have seen more of China, its lands, and its people than any other Westerner on record. The American photographer spent two years backpacking across all 33 provinces of China, traveling over 35,000 miles, seeing 56 different cultures, and shooting over 10,000 portraits of the people he met.
What kind of imagery results when you mix photo paper and fireworks? That's a question photographic artist Ross Sonnenberg has been exploring for the past few years. He creates one-of-a-kind camera-less photograms that look like abstract images of galaxies, but are actually random and colorful patterns created by the light of firecrackers.
The ACLU writes that there’s a 100-mile-thick buffer around the borders of the …
If you're a fan of Leica's digital rangefinders and have been skeptical of DxOMark's ability to determine sensor quality through its rigorous tests, you might want to skip over the lab's newly published test results on Leica's M series sensors.
In celebration of its 125th birthday, National Geographic has launched a new Tumblr focused entirely on sharing long-lost photos buried deep within its archives. The brain-child of Nat Geo's photo archive curator William Bonner, "Found" already features 13 photos that may never have seen the light of day had it not been for this website -- with many more to come.
This is a photo of Winston Churchill by Yousuf Karsh, captured in 1941 during the early years of World War II. It is said to be one of the most widely reproduced photos of all time.
It's a legendary portrait of a legendary man by a legendary photographer. There's also a legendary story about how it was shot.
Founded in 2011, interior mapping startup Matterport is planning to bring detailed 3D mapping to your home, office and beyond very soon. Using a special camera rig designed by Matterport co-founder Matt Bell, the system promises to help users "create accurate, photo-realistic 3D models -- quickly, easily and automatically."
Photographer Samuel Orr shot 40,000 photographs over 15 months (between 2006-2008) to create the time-lapse video seen above. It shows the view he had from his front window at the time, from his home in a wooded region just outside Bloomington, Indiana. The short is titled, "Forest Year."
Snapsort has been helping folks pick out the right camera for a while now, but the team behind the useful camera comparison site wanted to do something different. And so, they've launched Camera Showdown, a "Pepsi challenge for cameras" that lets you compare models based on real world performance alone.
Template and Photoshop action maker The Shoppe Designs has been making a humorous series of posters called Shoppe Satire. Each graphic pokes fun at some aspect of the photography business, with inside jokes that certain types of photographers will be able to relate quite well with.
Dustin McLean of DustFilms creates extremely low-budget remakes of Hollywood trailers and movie scenes using items and equipment that you may already have lying around at home. The above is a shot-for-shot remake of the Iron Man 3 trailer that was created at home without any computer-generated visual effects added in. McLean simply used good ol' fashioned creativity to remake shots that cost Hollywood millions of dollars to create.
Here's a thrifty DIY idea courtesy of Netherlands-based photo enthusiast Rob Gipman. After getting rain on his lens a while ago, Gipman decided to take an unwanted piece of water-resistant fleece and make a do-it-yourself covering for his Canon 100-400mm lens.
Some broadcasters around the world are starting to experiment with a new camera angle: the referee cam. By having refs on the field wear special high-definition cameras on the side of their head, the broadcasters are able to capture intense in-game footage that bring fans into the middle of the action.
Facebook announced major changes to its News Feed today, revamping the look and feel of the feature that first shook up the web back in 2006. Its stated goal with the changes is to reduce clutter and draw more attention to the stories that users care about. From the changes, it's clear that the company is focusing on improving the experience of sharing photos with family and friends.
William Eggleston didn’t invent color photography, but his landmark 1976 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art gave it dignity, and began the four-decade process of acceptance by curators and collectors as an art form to rival oil painting.
Shot in 1970, “Untitled (Memphis)” – shown above – was one of the 75 photos in the show, and also featured on the cover of the catalogue. Now it’s included in a retrospective of Eggleston’s early work at the Metropolitan.
About a month ago, photographers Shawn Heinrichs and Kristian Schmidt's revolutionary whale shark fashion/conservation shoot went viral on the internet -- using incredible photography to draw attention to the plight of the whale shark.
Following in the footsteps of that project, Heinrichs and Schmidt teamed up again, this time putting together a mesmerizing set of photographs alongside the above video as part of the conservation effort Manta Ray of Hope.
Carl Zeiss' legendary glass is coming to Fuji X and Sony E mount cameras. If you have an X series or NEX mirrorless camera, you'll soon be able to purchase a 12mm f/2.8, a 32mm f/1.8, or a 50mm f/2.8 macro. In 35mm terms, these lenses are equivalent to 18mm, 48mm, and 75mm lenses, respectively. Here's a sneak peek at what will soon be arriving for your system.
In an effort to educate the general public on the age-old art of the camera obscura, New York artists Sandra Gibson and Luis Recoder have set up a 10-foot by 10-foot walk-in version in the city's Madison Square Park.
Surrounded by the Flatiron District, the installation offers an inverted look at the neighborhood, as well as the opportunity to learn a little bit about photography's roots.
Time-lapse photographer Samuel Orr has completed a beautiful short film of New York City that shows the passing of a day in the Big Apple in a beautiful way.
In their most recent "Pro Photographer, Cheap Camera" challenge, DigitalRev managed to get world-renowned, Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Vincent Laforet to participate. Known best, perhaps, for his tilt-shift work, Laforet was asked to trade in his 1D X and 45mm tilt-shift lens for a Canon A2e and Lensbaby composer.
Samsung's upcoming NX1100 has been leaked... by the company itself. Samsung Germany published the camera's full manual this week. While that download page has since been taken offline, an English version of the manual still remains on Samsung USA's website at the time of this post. The manual reveals that the camera will be a minor refresh of the NX1000, which hit store shelves less than a year ago in April 2012.
We've seen a number camera-shaped pendant necklaces before, but here's one that's a bit different from the rest. It's a camera pendant that doubles as a small clock that hangs around your neck.
An interesting new video-based interface technology developed in Hong Kong promises to make stop-motion animation more accessible to beginners, while making it that much easier for the pros as well.
It doesn't have an official name, but when used in combination with traditional techniques, the new interface could help take your stop-motion animation to the next level.
When I started planning a series titled DreamWorld, one of the first characters that came to me was a dryad: a nature spirit representing our connection with nature. I saw her as a strong, benevolent queen, keeping watch over the woodland creatures and protecting them. The first concept I came up with that made my heart pitter-patter with excitement was the idea of building a huge crown for her from sticks and branches. I had no idea how I was going to accomplish this, but I had a vision. And I have learned over the years that having a vision will pave the way to making it a reality, regardless of if I know how that will come about.
The Raspberry Pi, the credit-card sized single board computer developed in the UK, just added a visual component to its arsenal. A 5MP CMOS camera, the tiny cam will attach to the mini-computer and allow programmers to use it any way they see fit. And in order to celebrate this new addition to the family, the Raspberry Pi Foundation is sponsoring a little contest for photography-minded programmers as well.
Minneapolis-based art director David Schwen has been generating a lot of buzz lately for his photo project "Pantone Pairings." Shared through his Instagram feed (@dschwen), the photos are recreations of Pantone color swatch pairings done with complementary foods of the same colors.
The advent of smartphone photography and the drop in price of entry-level SLRs have, together, introduced many people to the wonderful world of photography. Ourspot, a new marketplace for buying and selling photographic talent, is targeted at this growing population of enthusiasts and amateurs.
Walker Evans' famous photo book "American Photographs" was first published in 1938. Since then, the book has been released in new editions every 25 years or so. Although the photos contained within its covers have remained the same, the processes and technologies used to print the photos have evolved over time, causing each edition to be every so slightly different from the others.
To view photographer Romain Laurent's Shadows project properly, he recommends that you first properly calibrate your screen. The photos are all dominated by blackness.
You see, they were all captured during the major blackout in New York City caused by Hurricane Sandy in late 2012. When the power went out in the city's financial district, Laurent pulled out his camera in order to do a photographic study of light and shadows in the eerily dark areas of the city.
If you're ever in Malaysia and notice a large group of children walking around with fancy DSLR cameras, you might be looking at a special new 'Big Brother/Big Sister' program called The World Through Our Eyes. The program is designed to bring joy and healthy relationships to the lives of orphans and underprivileged children by opening their eyes to the joys of photography.
Fotodiox has announced a new mount system called the RhinoCam that turns a Sony NEX mirrorless camera into a digital back for 645 medium format photography. The kit allows NEX owners to shoot with classic medium format camera lenses to capture 140+ megapixel photos.
Sick and tired of your white Canon L lens clashing with your black lens hood? No? Oh well, Vello's new line of lens hoods probably isn't meant for you. The maker of 3rd party Canon lens hoods has launched three new lens hoods that come in white to match the color of Canon's high-end telephoto lenses.