May 2013

Beware of Weak Docks When Shooting a Wedding Party Over Water

If you're ever photographing a group of people on a dock or pier, be sure the structure can support the full weight of your subjects. The video above shows what happened to newlyweds Frank and Tricia Fearon and their 29-member wedding party a couple of weekends ago after they decided to pose on a dock for a photo.

Google Expands Street View to Let Users Visit Three Historic NYC Locations

In partnership with Historypin and the Central Park Conservancy, Google has decided to expand its Street View repertoire once again, this time letting out-of-towners experience three of The Big Apple's most historically significant locations: Central Park, The 9/11 Memorial and places affected by Hurricane Sandy.

Olympus Slated to Supply Sony With Lenses in Two-Way Alliance

Olympus is slated to begin developing and supplying Sony with lens parts and lens units in the near future as part of what has been called a "mutual parts supply". The news comes months following a formed alliance between the two companies in September 2012.

"The imaging sensor has already started to source from Sony to Olympus. And the lens [parts] and lens units will start to source from Olympus to Sony," said an Olympus Japan spokesperson in a recent statement.

Mesmerizing GIFs Created by Looping Moving Subjects in Static Settings

Perhaps best described as mesmerizing, Turkish photographer and artist Erdal Inci has created an interesting set of animated loops in GIF form that has the web abuzz.

The effects, which are done by cloning sections of footage of a moving subject within a static setting, provide for hypnotic never-ending animations in rather banal locations.

A Look at How Eric Paré Creates His 360º Bullet Time Stop Motion Light Paintings

We've featured the work of Eric Paré, Patrick Rochon and Timecode Lab before. Using a 24 DSLR fully circular bullet time rig developed by Rochon, Paré and Timecode put together some really cool light-painting projects. One of these was LightSpin: an art project that captured dancers using an awe-inspiring combination of light painting, bullet time and stop motion.

In the past we had only a few behind the scenes details to share with you. Fortunately, Paré recently decided to release the 8 minute "documentary" above in order to explain exactly what all goes into shooting his creations.

The Sanity of Craziness: How Your Wild Imagination Can Be Good for Business

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last couple of years shooting personal projects as a way to get hired by the companies with whom I really want to work. When I began this process, my images were fairly tame. I assumed that mainstream and technically-correct images were better than free-form zaniness.

But then I started attending portfolio reviews, where I had the opportunity to sit down with industry buyers to find out what it is they really wanted to see. It was surprising to discover that my loopier ideas resonated more, even if they weren’t necessarily in the style of the company to whom I was pitching.

Photo Archive Raking in $120K per Week Selling Old Newspaper Photos on eBay

The Rogers Photo Archive is the largest privately held collection of still photos in the world. Having spent years on a buying-spree, offering cash and digitization services to once-dominant newspapers in exchange for their prints, the Rogers Photo Archive has amassed tens of millions of photographs, pulling in a healthy profit by putting a couple million of those images up for sale via various eBay stores.

Flickr Storage Hack

How to Use Flickr’s 1TB of Free Space to Store More Than Pictures

With the availability of a whopping 1TB of storage space now available to users on Flickr, it wasn't long before someone out there found other ways to put 1TB of storage space to good use. That is to say, the uploading of files other than images.

That's just what Redditor rlaw68 has done, allowing the user to upload packaged files by essentially tricking the Flickr servers into thinking you're merely uploading an image. The process involves putting two files in one folder, a GIF image (though some users have been able to do this with other image file extensions) and an archive file (such as a .zip or .rar), followed by combining them to create what only appears to be an image file.

Imagined Kodak Technology Puts Face-Detection on Steroids

Despite the proliferation of SLRs and Micro Four Thirds cameras, “auto” mode isn’t going anywhere. As evidence, consider a recently published patent application from Kodak that assumes the average camera user can’t even figure out which direction to point the thing.

Where’s My Professional Mirrorless Camera?

Let’s take a moment to reflect on mirrors. Mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras, like the Olympus Pen E-P5 or Samsung  NX300, have enjoyed increasing popularity over the past few years, and it’s become clear that they are more than a passing fad.

This motley collection of high-tech cameras filled the gap that existed between bulky DSLRs and compact cameras, but manufacturers are now starting to expand their mirrorless lineups in hopes of attracting a wider cross-section of photographers, including professionals.

Tintype Portraits of Photography Students Created on Their Discarded Film Canisters

Photographer David Emitt Adams experiments with unique metal bases in his experiments with tintype photography. Last week we shared a project in which he used abandoned tin cans found in a desert to create tintype photographs.

36 Exposures is another project of his that uses unconventional materials for creating old school photos. It's a series of tintype photographs that were created using 35mm film canisters.

Does Everybody Get to be a Concert Photographer Now?

"Please turn off or silence your cell phones, and absolutely no photography."

The request at the beginning of Tony Bennett's (Yes, I'm old and I like jazz. Deal with it.) rapturously received concert last week at San Francisco's Davies Symphony Hall was standard stuff. What happened afterward was far from standard, however.

$25 Space Camera: Raspberry Pi Camera Snaps Photos of Earth on a Balloon

Raspberry Pi's new Camera Module is starting to hit store shelves, and we're starting to see some interesting photo experiments being done with the simple programmable camera kit.

High altitude ballooning enthusiast Dave Akerman recently decided to send his $25 module up to the edges of space to snap photographs of Earth and beam images back during its flight.

What Averaged Face Photographs Reveal About Human Beauty

A while back, PetaPixel posted some features about image averaging and faces. Richard Prince created a composite portrait of the 57 faces of girlfriends on Seinfeld. This led to Pat David exploring the averaging of faces with Martin Schoeller’s portraits of celebrities.

I’ve long been interested in image averaging as well; as a measure of central tendency, I like that image averaging can highlight similarities and differences across an array of seemingly equivalent images.

Storm Chaser Captures What It’s Like to Sit In the Middle of an EF4 Tornado

During the 2013 Moore tornado last week, a young man named Charles Gafford III stuck his cell phone through a hole in his storm shelter and captured close-up footage of the EF5 tornado as it passed by. If you thought that video was crazy, check out the footage above -- it shows what it's like to get hit directly by a massive EF4 tornado!

Black-and-White Photos That Capture the Feeling of Winter Mornings in Montreal

Lightly falling snow and rain, silent figures walking on sidewalks, a chilly breeze, and the quiet breeze. Those are some of the things captured by photographer Julien Coquentin for his project "Early Sunday Morning." Between 2010 and 2012, Coquentin shot photographs documenting the feeling of winter mornings in the city of Montreal, Canada.

How To Put Together a Beginner’s Light Painting Kit

If you’ve ever harbored interest in trying light painting, there’s no better time than now. Summer is here and the weather is perfect for you start messing around with lights in the late evening, but where do you get started? Luckily I’m here to help!

Leica That Shot ‘V-J Day in Times Square’ Photo Fetches $150K at Auction

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.

Long Exposure Photos of Gunfire at Night (A Memorial Day Memory)

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.

Will Custom Firmware Void My Warranty? Canon, Nikon and Panasonic Respond

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.

Short Documentary Follows the Real Life Adventures of the Instagram Community

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.

Birth Photographer Captures Parking Lot Delivery on Camera, Photos Go Viral

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.

Accidental Double Exposures on a “New” Roll of Already Exposed Film

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.

How The Internet Helped One Photog Find a Mystery Couple Using Only Old Slides

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.