Here's a great photo series by artist Sonia Rentsch that quite literally takes the "fire" out of firearms. Dubbed "Harm Less," the series consists entirely of weaponry made out of only organic materials.
PetaPixel turns four years old today. As the blog continues to grow at a healthy clip, we’re slowly looking to …
The most common files stored on Microsoft's SkyDrive (and, we'd guess, just about any cloud storage service) are photos. As such, the company has decided to give its cloud storage service a facelift by providing a couple of highly-requested photo-centric features.
Dr. Neal Krawetz, a computer science PhD who specializes in non-classical computer forensics, online profiling, and computer security, made some pretty damning claims in a blog post recently. After taking a close look at Paul Hansen World Press Photo 2012 winner (seen above), he concluded that it was "a digital composite that was significantly reworked."
Hasselblad's luxury Lunar mirrorless camera is set to arrive in June 2013, but hands-on reviews of the camera are slowly trickling onto the Web. Photography blogger genotypewriter managed to get his hands on a Lunar recently, and published a short article sharing his thoughts.
The company LUMA Partners has gotten in the habit of occasionally mapping out various industry landscapes to show how a product or service gets from Point A (i.e. the creators, marketers, businesses, etc.) to Point Z (i.e. the buyers, brands and publishers), going through the rest of the alphabet in between.
Taking a leaf out of their book, director of kbs+ Ventures, Taylor Davidson, decided to borrow their format and do the same thing for the photography industry, mapping out how content gets from the photographers out into the world of consumers, brands and buyers.
In order to shoot the best Rolls Royce Wraith launch film possible, Angus Elliott and company pulled out all of the stops. In addition to using some very nice video cameras and all-around great filmmaking, they also wanted to shoot a bullet time sequence, for which they set up a 100 DSLR array. By their reckoning, that's the largest DSLR array shot in Europe.
Fortunately, filmmaker Jack Flynn was there to capture the process in action, and in the video above he gives us a behind the scenes peek at the making of the Rolls Royce Wraith launch video.
The iPhone has evolved in leaps and bounds since the smartphone first burst onto the scene in 2007, and one of the most impressive ways it has evolved is in its capability to take pictures. In the original iPhone, a camera was something of an afterthought; the current model has entire commercials dedicated to the camera.
But knowing intuitively that the camera has improved exponentially is a far sight from seeing it with your own eyes. And so, just like they did in 2011, the folks behind the popular iPhone app Camera+ got every model of the iPhone together took a set of comparison shots for your perusing pleasure.
Canon today officially announced its new 200-400mm f/4L IS 1.4x extender lens. No, that's not two products mistakenly smashed into one name -- the lens features a built-in 1.4x extender that can be activated with the flip of a switch.
"Aerialscapes" is a series of photographs by German photographer Jakob Wagner that was shot from the sky. The images in the project are sweeping landscapes of various locations around the world, showing formations that are both manmade and natural.
One World Trade Center was finished in New York City last Friday after the final section of the spire was hoisted up and installed. The skyscraper is now the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere and the third tallest building in the world based on pinnacle height.
To document and celebrate the completion of the tower, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey decided to fix a GoPro camera to the final spire section as it was hoisted up and installed. With its fisheye lens pointed straight down, the camera managed to capture some crazy footage (shown above) of what it looks like to be hanging 1,776 feet in the air.
Waterproofing is one specialization that compact cameras have had that smartphones (and their cameras) haven't, but that's about to change. Sony has launched a new phone called the Xperia ZR that will help smartphones further erode the point-and-shoot market by opening the door to underwater smartphone photography.
I know there are a few guides out there for home processing, some of which were instrumental in helping me get over my fears. All of these other guides seemed to be a little incomplete and that lack of detail made me wait longer than I should have before taking the plunge. In reality, it’s easy to do your film at home. Let me show you!
Want to play around with lens filters that add splashes of color to your photographs? Stanford design students Olivia Vagelos and Martin Bush want to help you out. They've designed a new line of color-splashed lens filters that can transform "the feel" of your photos.
One of the advantages of digital photography is having information about how each photo was shot embedded within the photograph's file itself. This EXIF data is something photographers commonly jot down in notebooks as they walk around and shoot with their analog cameras.
Photographer Oriol Garcia wanted a better solution than manually writing down shot times and details. Since most people have smartphones now, why not make an extremely easy to use app that can document the info of every photograph taken? He ended up creating an app called PhotoExif that can do just that.
If you make your money unscrupulously as an identity thief, you might want to refrain from sharing about your life through photographs online. Two identity thieves in South Florida found that out the hard way earlier this year after they were busted thanks to an Instagram photograph of food.
Last Friday, Nokia launched its new Lumia 928 smartphone that has a strong emphasis on photography. The device features PureView technology, optical image stabilization, a Carl Zeiss lens, and a xenon flash.
It was exciting news for photo-lovin' Nokia fans, but sit tight: there's more to come. Nokia will reportedly have a major launch event tomorrow to unveil a phone that has some serious photography chops.
Patriots Day. This Massachusetts holiday celebrates the battles of Lexington and Concord, which were the first battles of the American Revolutionary War in 1775. The day always begins with battle re-enactments. Then the Red Sox play an 11AM game, and during and after the game there is the running of the Boston Marathon, a race that first ran in 1897.
A couple of weeks ago, the Magic Lantern team announced that they had discovered a RAW DNG Live View output on the 5D Mark II and Mark III. At the time, they could only get 14 frames per second for only 28 frames before the camera needed to buffer, but the team was confident that they could eventually increase the speed to 24p and pull a true RAW video feed out of the camera.
A little over a year ago, we shared the story of photographer Bob Carey and his wife, a breast cancer survivor. Over the past year, Carey and his Project Tutu have done a great deal to raise awareness for breast cancer. By going around the world and photographing himself in a pink tutu (and nothing else), he's done a lot to further the cause for breast cancer victims and their families.
You don't have to be high-brow to put together a creative photo series; you don't even need to travel the deserts of Tunisia. Sometimes, all you need is a container full of something, the willingness to toss it in the air, and the skill to capture the result. That's what Belgium-based photographer Manon Wethly has done, shooting various airborne containers filled with stuff and uploading the resulting pictures to her Instagram account.
Thanks to the prevalence of digital photography and the fact that camera stores seem to be closing left and right, it can be hard enough to find film in the first place these days. But if you shoot with ultra large or specialty format films, your job is even more difficult. Thankfully, Ilford is here to help.
Harman technologies Inc. -- the folks behind the manufacture of Ilford film -- are opening their annual window during which photographers can order as much custom-manufactured specialty film as their hearts desire.
For their most recent international foray, the DigitalRev producers decided to send Kai, Lok and Alamby on a 36-hour trek across London to take photos. They were tasked with travelling to and photographing 10 of London's best known landmarks, using old film SLRs on day one, and digital cameras the next.
In September 2010, visual artist and filmmaker Rä di Martino set out on a quest to photograph and document old abandoned film sets in the North African deserts. The project had started when she discovered that it was common practice to abandon these sets without tearing them down, leaving them fully intact and crumbling over time, like archeological ruins.
Martino spent that month traveling around Chott el Djerid in Tunisia, finding and photographing three Star Wars sets in all for her photo series No More Stars and Every World's a Stage.
Nikon DSLR owners who want to control their cameras from their PCs have a few options available to them. But while most of them offer basic functionality (i.e. aperture, shutter speed and shutter release control), the free, open source software digiCamControl seems to offer a bit more.
Relics of the Future is a short documentary that follows Toronto-based fine art photographer Toni Hafkenscheid as he explores the world of once-futuristic architecture through his tilt-shift lens. In the 1960's, these buildings and monuments were considered "visions of the future;" now they stand, as one interviewee put it, "on that fence between futuristic and nostalgic."
The National Socialist Movement held their 2013 national convention in Atlanta, Georgia, protesting undocumented immigration and contemporary political policies. The NSM boasts of being the nation's largest "white civil rights groups" and aligns itself with other like-minded individuals across the nation. Spanning across the majority of the 50 states, the NSM retains its presence through regional and local leaders.
Here's a look at the convention and how I documented it through photographs earlier this year.
This incredible image, which shows a breathtakingly beautiful solar corona surrounding the moon during a total solar eclipse, is actually not one photo at all -- it's a combination of 47 images taken using two lenses.
Buying and selling used photography gear usually involves either driving to your local camera shop or hunting down the right product on website such as eBay or (if you're really brave) Craigslist. But Australian photographers just got a different, photography centered option thrown their way.
Dubbed Digital Camera Exchange, the new website gives photo enthusiasts a place to sell their gear to others in much the same way they would on big auction sites such as eBay.
For the past decade, photographer Douglas Adesko has been creating a photo series that is half photography, half anthropological study. His series Family Meal captures families of all types, cultures and sizes sitting together and enjoying a meal.
Beamr's space-saving application JPEGmini has gone through a few evolutions over time. What started as a web app to reduce JPEG files by up to 5x without losing quality has since spread to the world of desktops and mobile devices with their space-saving Mac app and high-res photo sharing iOS app.
But through it all Windows users have been left in the dark, having to settle for using the web app. Fortunately, that is no longer the case. As of two days ago, the popular JPEGmini desktop application has made its way onto the PC.
According to the Encyclopedia of World Climatology, lightning happens about 40–50 times per second worldwide; that translates into almost 1.4 billion flashes per year. But of the 1.4 billion that happen in 2011, we're pretty sure this was the only one captured at 11,000 frames per second, turning a one second lightning flash into an incredible 6 minute experience.
Photographer Jaime Moore's daughter Emma recently turned 5 years old. Naturally, being a photographer, Moore wanted to commemorate the event for her daughter by putting together a cute photo shoot for her, so she turned to the Internet for inspiration.
Much to her chagrin, however, something like 95 percent of the ideas she ran into were actually the same idea: how to dress up your 5-year-old as a Disney Princess. Moore wasn't keen on that, so she went another way. Instead of dressing her daughter up as a made up ideal, an "unrealistic fantasy" as she put it, she chose to dress and pose her daughter as some of the greatest women throughout history.
For those of you who often take pictures with your smartphone, but find that you never have a stand or tripod with you when you need one, here's a creative Kickstarter that may solve that problem. Called KeyProp, this ingenious little key shaped smartphone stand fits on your key chain so you always have it with you -- and it comes with a free camera timer/clap-to-snap app to boot.
Platon (short for Platon Antoniu) is a Greek-English portrait photographer who has had the privilege of photographing some of the world's most powerful people. From literal world leaders, to cultural world leaders, to regular people who are changing the world one day at a time, his photography has earned him many well-deserved awards and magazine covers.
Last week, he spoke to the folks at the Wired Business Conference about his work, and Wired was kind enough to share the video online.
A team of researchers led by PhD student Dustin Adams at the University of California at Santa Cruz have created an amazing application that may someday soon help visually impaired photo enthusiasts and photographers take better photos.
Here's an interesting Tumblr we stumbled across that, for all intents and purpose, is trying to do the impossible. The 9 Film Frames Tumblr tries to sum up movies, capture their essence, by pulling out and arranging just nine frames.
Pi.pe is a file synching service that came about as a way to move photos and other media between the may cloud storage and sharing services out there. In the year or so since it launched, over 50 million files have passed through Pi.pe's servers as users took advantage of the service to backup, transfer and share thousands of photos. And now, we can add "print" to that list.
CollegeHumor -- the folks behind such photo parodies as the Nickleback Instagram spoof and the overly-specific stock photos parody -- are releasing an iOS game today. The game, dubbed Bout, gives you and your friends the chance to battle over taking the most creative or laughter-inducing photo when given a specific prompt.
Back in early 2010, we received an e-mail asking us to join an up-and-coming photography blog that was trying to bring all of the best contributors, content creators and experts from the world of photography under one roof. It was described as a "photography website that should have been around for the last five years or more" and it was called Pixiq.
At the time we decided to stay independent, but many big-time photographers and photo bloggers took the offer and jumped on the train -- a decision many are undoubtedly regretting: Pixiq was suddenly taken offline today by its owner, Sterling Publishing, just days after the company sent its contributors a warning.
Professional photographers using their smartphones is just a fad, I thought, but it all came to me sooner than I expected. Some 3 weeks ago I was diagnosed with central serous retinopathy in my left eye and was hospitalised for 3 days. In the process, I finally discovered smartphone photography!
For those of you that were disappointed when you saw the price of Olympus' newly-announced E-P5 earlier, the company has another camera up its sleeve to help ease the pain. Although it's only been given a release date in Japan -- lending credence to rumors that it may never sell anywhere else -- the much rumored and leaked Olympus PEN Lite E-PL6 has also arrived.
When people living in the same city look up into the sky, they likely see the same clouds and colors, albeit from slightly different perspectives. Exactly how different are these perspectives? In a recent project called Same Sky NY, photographers living in New York City came together to find out.
After working with standard photography and digital cameras, Brooklyn-based artist Phillip Stearns decided to experiment with creating works of art using old photographic technologies. He ended up studying the effects of high voltages and household cleaning products on instant pull apart color film. The results are pretty wild.
Want to see what London looked like back in the year 1926? Check out this beautiful color footage shot in various London locations by Claude Friese-Greene, an early British pioneer of film. Frisse-Greene created a series of travelogues nearly 90 years ago using a color process developed by his father William Friese-Greene.
If you feel feelings of wanderlust and jealousy easily, you might want to stay away from the story of Alex Chacon. He's a guy who recently completed a 503-day solo journey on a motorcycle. He rode 82,459 miles across 22 countries in both North and South America. Chacon also captured photos and videos throughout the journey in order to document his experience.
Pictures like this drive me nuts. I call it Meanwhile, Back at the Supreme Court. It captures the boisterous scene outside that building as right and left wing demonstrators clashed after the contested election of 2000. While all this was happening, President George W. Bush was delivering his first inaugural address in the background over loudspeakers. It was an exciting and historic experience to witness and document, but until now, I’ve never shown this image to anyone. As a matter of fact, it didn’t even exist until last night.
The reason? It’s fake. The moment it depicts never happened.
Some photographers enjoy chasing storms; Miles Morgan enjoys "chasing" volcanos. The Hawaiian landscape photographer has spent years risking life and limb to capture beautiful photographs of molten lava.
Snapchat has been a huge success since it was first introduced in September 2011. Competing with the likes of Instagram, Facebook and other photo sharing platforms, Snapchat set itself apart by offering the fleeting experience of disappearing photos. When you send a photo, you set a time-limit of up to 10 seconds. After that, the photo allegedly disappears.
But unfortunately for the app's user base, which is currently sharing a whopping 150 million photos daily, it turns out those photos aren't quite so fleeting. A Utah-based forensics firm has discovered that the photos are still stored on the receiving phone.
After weeks of rumors and leaks, Olympus' new PEN E-P5 finally became official today. It's the company's new flagship Micro Four Thirds PEN mirrorless camera, and features both retro styling on the outside and powerful specs on the inside.