May 27, 2013

Next time a significant other bugs you about how much you spend on photo gear, remind them how much worse it could be if you were into vintage kit.

Such as the 1931 Leica IIIa shown above, owned by the great Alfred Eisenstaedt and used to shoot everything from his iconic V-J Day image of a sailor kissing a girl in Times Square to a portrait session with President Bill Clinton. The camera sold at Vienna auction house last weekend for 114,000 Euros, equivalent to $147,117.

In April of 1970 I was near Phu Tai, Vietnam in the 173rd Airborne Brigade Admin Compound. We were pissed off at taking Viet Cong sniper fire from the mountain above us several nights in a row. The guy would stand up from behind a rock and blow off a clip from his AK47 on full-auto. The sniper was shooting at such a high angle that most of his rounds came through the sheet metal roofs of our hooches. We decided to use a "heavy" response the next time(s) the sniper hit us.

Installing custom firmware on your DSLR is becoming more and more standard. Like jailbreaking an iPhone, the new firmware often offers much more customization and features you couldn't otherwise have. Magic Lantern in particular has been on a rampage lately, unlocking RAW video in cameras as cheap as $500.

But before you jump on the bandwagon and install Magic Lantern on your Canon or Nikon Hacker on your Nikon, it would probably be a good idea to get in touch with those companies and find out if installing third party firmware voids your warranty. Thankfully, Udi over at DIY Photography did it for you.

Instagram is a lot of things: a photography app, a social network, a way to express yourself and a cause for headaches for the photographers who aren't trilled by the concept. For the most adamant of Instagram users, however, Instagram is a community.

And it's that community that filmmaker Paul Tellefsen sought to connect with when he chose to create the above short documentary Instagram is.

Professional birth photography is a growing niche, as more and more expectant mothers are hiring photographers to document the first first few moments of their new child's life. Miami, Florida-based photographer Emily Robinson offers birth photography services, and is accustomed to photographing deliveries as they happen in hospitals and homes.

Yesterday was really no different from any other day, except for the fact that I was developing a roll of 35mm film -- that usually doesn’t happen. My husband Evan was sitting outside the door of our “darkroom” (read: spare bathroom) as I was hanging my film to dry, when I exclaimed, “These aren’t my photos!”

At first, I’m sure he thought that I had just taken some really rancid photos and didn’t want to claim ownership, but really, they weren’t my photos.

Harry and Edna Grossmann's stories ended in 1986 and 1983, respectively. A long-time married couple, they never had kids, and instead chose a life of travel and photography. But none of this was known to most of the world until 30 old boxes containing 1,100 slides of their travels made their way into Chicago-based photographer Jeff Phillips' hands.

A huge anti-gay-marriage protest in Paris turned …

In a recent video, the people over at BuzzFeed decided to put numbers to all of the things that happen online every single minute. And in-between facts regarding how many Google Searches and Tweets go out every 60 seconds, they also included a few really interesting photo facts.

The Magic Lantern team deserve some sort of award ... or a ribbon ... or at the very least a hug. That's because, lately, they've been making ground-breaking RAW video announcements almost weekly. From the very beginning of the story -- when they discovered a RAW DNG output in live view -- to the breakthrough when they began pulling in that stream at 24fps and full 1080p HD, it's been nothing but good news out of the Magic Lantern camp.

But get ready, because the celebration is only just beginning. Before now, taking advantage of Magic Lantern's RAW video capability would have required you to have a 5D Mark III or II, but EOSHD forum user Julian Huijbregts has demonstrated that the same is now possible out of Canon's 5-Year-Old $500 50D!

(I won’t lie to you, I have no sources I can cite for the positions I intend to take in this post. These are simply my opinions from having lived on this planet. And, of course, you know what they say about opinions…)

I think we can all agree that photography is an art form. (At least I hope we can, because that’s one of the central premises with which I’m working.) But what, then, is art? Why do we aspire to make it in the first place?

After Yahoo! announced and implemented its major Flickr redesign, the company invited users to give their feedback on Flickr's help forum. Of course, the company was probably hoping for constructive feedback -- as in questions and polite suggestions. What it got instead was a tidal wave of negative comments bashing the new layout and, in some cases, the staff themselves.

Last Wednesday, at the age of 94, former Magnum president and photographer Wayne Miller passed away at his home in California. For decades, Miller had photographed the human condition at its best and worst, with a stated goal to "photograph mankind and explain man to man."

The above video, posted by photographer Theo Rigby a couple of years ago, serves as a reminder of the life and work of this phenomenal photographer.