July 2013

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Trailer: ‘Everybody Street’ Documentary Chronicles NYC Street Photography

There's no doubt about that fact that street photography is wildly interesting. There's just so much to it that makes it appealing. Real people, real moments -- good and bad. Best of all, there's something new to capture every day. And while many of us don't have the courage to get out there and point our camera at a stranger, it's interesting to see it happen, especially in a metropolis.

Cassini Snaps New Photographs Showing Earth Next to Saturn’s Rings

Were you smiling a lot Friday afternoon? Hope so, because that's when you and your 7 billion planetary neighbors got a rare portrait session from the Cassini spacecraft. Orbiting above Saturn almost a billion miles away, the craft turned its camera towards to Earth to capture some spectacular images of our planet foregrounded by Saturn's rings.

The War Against Photography is Growing Alongside the Use of Security Cameras

The western world was sent into a brief paranoid frenzy when whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked government information about the surveillance of the National Security Agency (NSA). I say brief, because it seems to have been forgotten by a large number of people; it seemed like it was just more news. The revelations, and more that followed, showed how the NSA record phone calls and data and more controversially; that they use information from emails and social networking sites.

Divers Capture What It’s Like to Almost Get Eaten by a Massive Whale

If you're afraid of swimming in the ocean due to a fear of the unknown below you, you might want to skip over the post. A group of divers off the coast of California got a scare recently when they had an extremely close call with large humpback whales. They almost found themselves in the mouths of the feeding whales, and multiple cameras were there to capture what happened (note: the video above contains some strong language).

Sarah Lee Surf Cover Shot

Photographing Surfers Underwater: How Sarah Lee Makes it Happen

We're in the midst of Summer, and if you're one of the many folks who live by coastline, you have access to one of mother nature's most beautiful elements: the ocean. And while the lot of us prefer to purely listen to the waves crash from the comfort of the golden sands, photographer Sarah Lee has been taking her gear into the water and capturing surfers do their thing off the big island of Hawaii.

New York City Photographed Through a Glass Prism

"NYC Prism" is a project by New York City-based photographer Allen Skyy Enriquez (AKA The Zartorialist) that offers an unusual view of The Big Apple. The 6 images in the series might look like composite images created using Photoshop, but they're actually single exposures. The splicing effect seen in them was created by holding a prism in front of the lens to merge two views of each location into one shot.

Review: Leica M Monochrom is Not Quite a Black and White Decision

“Monochrome is the new color” The world was introduced to color photography when Kodak introduced the revolutionary Kodachrome film in 1935. But fast forward to 2012, Leica decided that “monochrome is the new color”, and wants to turn back the clock with a digital rangefinder that shoots only black-and-white for $7,995. At this point, I can hear you screaming, “That’s the silliest way of spending eight grand!”

Stunning Macro Photographs of Animal Eyes

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but in the case of Suren Manvelyan's macro photography, it's just in the eye. After his extreme close-up photos of both human and animal eyes went viral one right after the other, Manvelyan decided to continue seeking out more beauty in the eyes of animals by releasing a part two to the amazing series we shared with you back in 2011.

A Rapid-Fire Animated Tribute to Every Photoshop CS5 Filter

Photographers are intimately familiar with the myriad filters available to them through Photoshop. Nothing like the Instagram-style "filters" we've come to hear about more and more often, these have names like Grain, Diffuse, Ocean Ripple and Pinch.

Incredible Online Gallery of High-Res Film Scans from Every Apollo Mission

The title sort of gives it away, but did you know that there is an online archive that contains high-resolution film scans from every Apollo mission? The gallery contains all of the incredible photos taken during each of the missions -- from Apollo 1 all the way through Apollo 17 -- with some 1,000+ photos from Apollo 11 alone.

Nine Months in Two Minutes: A Creative Stop-Motion Pregnancy Time-Lapse

There's nothing boring about the miracle of life. Growing somebody inside you in nine months is undeniably miraculous, but watching it happen in real time would make for a very long video. That's why the photographically inclined often choose to document the life creation process using some form of time-lapse photography.

The Policy of Banning Only DSLRs from Concerts is Ridiculous

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros are due on stage in 15 minutes and I walk up to the doorstaff ticket in hand. They tear the ticket and ask to look in the camera bag for deodorants and liquids. I'm not too sure why. This is the Trinity Centre in Bristol with a capacity of 650 and normally holds community events.

Fujifilm Discontinues Neopan 400 B&W and Provia 400X Slide Film

Unfortunately, the news that a particular type of film is being discontinued is anything but surprising these days. And even though we haven't had reason to report any such news for a little while, we can once again cue "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen, this time in honor of Fujifilm's Neopan 400 B&W film and Provia 400X slide film.

Memories, Photographs, and the Human Brain

There has been a good deal written about the similarities of the camera to the eye as well as the computer to human memory. What I would like to do is clarify the uniqueness of the human brain from camera technology and at the same time show the similarities between brain function, photography and cognition.

Documentary: The Life and Work of Iconic Photographer William Klein

It's the weekend, which means we get a chance to share something inspirational with you that you might not otherwise have the time to sit down and enjoy in the middle of the week. This week's contender is an hour-long documentary, put together by the BBC One show Imagine..., about legendary photographer and filmmaker William Klein.

Shloosl Will Make a Copy of Your House Key Using Only a Couple of Photos

Photography has made inroads into all sorts of industries. For instance, the Snap Fashion app we shared a couple of weeks ago lets you take photos of clothes and then shows you where to buy them. But the most recent interesting application we've run across comes to us via a company named Shloosl, who will copy your house key for you using nothing more than a couple of smartphone photos.

Photo Series Illustrates Crayon Colors by Using the Objects They’re Named After

Crayola Crayons -- the tools with which many a toddler has decorated many a refrigerator door -- all have interesting real-world names. Some strange colors like 'Flesh' have been understandably renamed. But many equally interesting colors have remained staples in the coloring world, and it's these colors that photographer Daniel Seung Lee and art director Dawn Kim set out to capture in their collaborative series Crayola Theory.

Images of the Hasselblad Stellar Compact Leaked, Official Announcement in 6 Days

At the end of last month, a couple of job listings on Hasselblad's website revealed that the company was working on two new compacts and a DSLR. Part of their partnership with Sony, the hope was that these upcoming models would do better than the Hasselblad Lunar, which fell flat once people discovered it was basically a rebranded Sony NEX-7 with a much larger price tag.

Who’s Your Dada?

Let me say this right at the outset. This is not another high and mighty rant against cell phone cameras, Instagram, "art" filters, Lightroom presets, etc. You’re not about to read another gripe about everything that photography has become in the twenty-first century, even though I was afraid that’s what it would sound like when I started writing this.

These Vintage Photos of Coastlines Were Created Using a Fishtank

Flip through photographer Michael Jackson's "A Child's Landscape" series, and you'll find what appear to be vintage photographs of rocky coastlines that were captured with some old photographic process over a century ago. The images are actually modern photographs captured quite recently in Jackson's studio using rocks in a fish tank.

DSLR Add-On Brings Features Like Lytro-Style Refocusing to Any Camera

Lytro may have made a splash when the company first burst onto the scene with its 'snap now, focus later' technology, but the competition has been growing steadily ever since. In addition to companies like Pelican gunning at the light-field market, a new SLR add-on created by researchers from Saarland University in Germany promises to bring Lytro-style refusing and much more to almost any camera.

212 Instagrammers Join Forces to Create Stop-Motion Car Video

Never underestimate the power of 212 Instagrammers. Now that might seem like a strange thing to say, but vehicle manufacturer Lexus quite literally put over 200 mobile-phone-toting-picture-takers on a lot with a 1,400-foot track and let them go to town on the 2014 Lexus IS F SPORT -- a vehicle we all would probably like to see sitting outside our front doors.

Pitch drop camera

Slow-Speed Photography: Pitch Tar Drop Caught on Camera After 69-Year Wait

There doesn't seem to be any shortage of high-speed cameras out there, doing work to slow down footage of fast moving objects enough for us to study what's happening in that short, short time frame. But what about using a camera to capture what could potentially be the slowest moving substance of all time? Yep -- someone's doing it.

Engagement Photos in the Style of Parody Movie Posters

When planning their engagement photographs, photographer Joshua Watson and his then-fiancee Rachel wanted to announce their engagement and invite family and friends to their wedding in a creative way. Living in La Mirada, California, just 30 minutes away from Hollywood, the couple settled on the concept of movie posters.

Cross Section Photos of Golf Balls Reveal the Diverse Beauty Within

Photographer James Friedman doesn't play golf, but he had a collection of golf balls lying around. One day, he began to wonder what the guts of the golf balls look like, so he cut a ball open to take a peek at a core. Then he sliced open another, and another; after cutting open over twenty different types of golf balls, Friedman found a strange sort of beauty that he began to document through photographs. The resulting project is titled "Interior Design".

Cardiff Camera

Camera Used For Stargazing Helps Detect Common Form of Sight Loss

Here's yet another example of how technology used in space can help us earthlings in other ways. A partnership between scientists at Cardiff University and the UK Astronomy Technology Center has yielded a prototype device that can help detect Age-Related Macular Degeneration (otherwise known as AMD) -- a common form of sight loss -- using camera technology designed originally for use on space telescopes.