November 2013

Living in Alabama, one of the more frequent pieces of trivia I hear mentioned at social gatherings has to do with ridiculous state and city laws that are so ludicrous as to be unbelievable. The thing is, these laws exist, and not just in the great state of Alabama.

In her creative and humorous photo series I Fought the Law, photographer Olivia Locher exposes some of the most ridiculous ones you'll find across the US.

It took a year and a half, but the folks over at SmugMug have finally managed to bring their much-loved camera app, Camera Awesome, over to the Google Play store for Android users to take advantage of and enjoy.

Sure, Instagram has provided some folks with a ready-made market for selling illegal items or doing unsavory things, but the photo sharing services has also expanded the boundaries of how incompetent a crook can be.

The last time we wrote about the Nikkor 2000mm f/11 C Reflex lens was in 2010 when a working version of the behemoth was up on eBay for the not-so-affordable price of $19,950. Given that information, how much would you pay for a broken, beat-up version of the same lens 3 years later? Well, someone on eBay thinks it's worth $25K.

A strongly worded letter has gotten a surprising amount of attention in photograpy circles recently.

It was written by UK musician Whitey (aka. NJ White) in response to a TV producer who requested to use his work for free, and it's gotten popular because, even though it was written by a musician, photographers really seem to love Whitey's no BS response to a request many of them are familiar with.

"Here, boy! Go fetch the camera! Good dog!" Such conversations could become commonplace as panoramic camera balls threaten to become the next offbeat photography meme. Squito appeared on the scene in July, Bubl Technology is already well on its way to producing the Bublcam, and now comes the Panono, which launched its Indiegogo fundraising campaign today.

If you've been paying attention to the professional photography industry, you no doubt understand that times are tough and likely to continue getting tougher for newspaper photographers.

Instagram has recently been forced to add a number of drug-related terms to its growing list of a banned hashtags in an effort to cut down on illegal drug sales via the photo sharing site.

We've heard a lot about the Leica M (RED) edition created by design gurus Mark Newson and Jony Ive, but up until now it's all been press release information. Now, we have a video in which both Newson and Ive talk a little bit about the creations they've put together for the upcoming Sotheby's (RED) auction on November 23rd, including a section about the aforementioned camera.

The very first GoPro was sold by company founder and CEO Nick Woodman out of his van all the way back in 2004, and it took 35mm film. Fast forward 9 years and now Woodman is a billionaire whose creation is officially the best-selling camera in the entire world.

Back in July, we shared a viral "Dance-Lapse" video put together by former Microsoft exec Karen Cheng that showed the amazing progress she made learning to dance in one year.

Since that video came out, she's received countless requests to help others create similar video time-lapses of their own journey towards personal goals. And so she decided to start a website dedicated to that very thing.

Top editors at the Associated Press slammed the White House -- or, more specifically, the Obama Administration -- last week for restricting photographers' access to the president in favor of staged "propaganda."

When you hear that a stop motion video depicts the process of aging, death and reincarnation, your mind probably goes straight to digital manipulation. After all, how else do you make someone look older? Or dead for that matter?

But London-based makeup artist Emma Allen didn't use Photoshop to create her video "Ruby," she used face paint instead.

If you've been following news about the Sochi Olympics today, you probably stumbled across one of the many reports that journalists would be banned from using non-professional gear and, in fact, stripped of accreditation on the spot if they broke the rules and pulled out their smartphones to take pictures. Thankfully, however, those reports seem to be false.

Want to get more likes on Instagram? Make sure your images are predominantly blue, spaciously cropped, bright and mildly desaturated.

One of the more controversial forms of government photography involves traffic cameras, which wind up in privacy-related news so often we've actually never written an article about them. This Chinese intersection, however, warrants some attention if for no other reason than to give you a good chuckle.

If you're already of the opinion that Instagram has infiltrated too much of your life, we suggest you stay away from London for a little bit, because Brazilian artist Bruno Ribeiro is bringing the familiar filtered frames into the real world with his project Real Life Instagram.

At the end of last week, Canon Korea teased a new camera in an ad that showed what seemed to be a DSLR hidden behind a semi-see through sheet. Now, adding fuel to the fire (albeit a small fire) that the Korean branch of the company started, Canon Japan has released a teaser video (embedded below) about the same camera.

In the history of mankind, the Olympic torch has made its way up to space a total of two times: once in 1996 and another time in 2000. Now we can add another year to that list: 2013 -- only this one is even more special, because for the first time in history, the Olympic torch actually went out on its very own spacewalk.

There are only a few words that adequately describe photographer Perttu Saksa's series A Kind of You. Many news outlets chose "haunting" and we decided to go with "disturbing," but we could have just as easily have characterized them as "gripping."

Sometimes, the right shot requires a beautifully minimalistic approach that subtly tugs on the heart strings... other times, you throw the freaking kitchen sink at it and come out with something that defies adjectives. The video above falls into the latter category.

Flipping through the pages of National Geographic might give aspiring shooters the impression that the magazine's photographers never run into issues. Many years of experience and incredible talent combine for a seamless photo experience where accidents never happen, right? Not really...

Most of you have seen this video, of that we have no doubt. In the 5 days since it debuted it has acquired over 9 million views, and so we're not sharing it because we're worried that you're missing out on something, or even because we want to give you an excuse to dance a bit today (although that did factor in).

We're sharing it because, as it turns out, this video has a pretty awesome story that involves very little money and oodles of creativity coming together when initial plans fell through.

No matter how good your intentions, any tool can be perverted and used for a negative purpose that was never intended. That is the case with Instagram right now, as reports are coming out of Philly that an anonymous account has been 'ratting out' witnesses of violent crimes by posting photos, police statements and testimonies.

This unbelievable satellite photograph shows the sheer horrifying magnitude of Typhoon Haiyan, the terrible tropical cyclone that caused unimaginable damage to the Philippines yesterday (you can see the full resolution image here).

Veterans Day is right around the corner, so it's nice to see that one of the time-lapses making the most impact online over the past couple of days is one showing a homeless US Army veteran being given a makeover and, in some ways, a new lease on life.

Forget storm chasing, that's a cinch when you compare it to what former NASA photographer Ben Cooper and some colleagues of his did last weekend: eclipse chasing. Cooper captured the shot above from a chartered jet going 500mph at 44,000ft in the air, but it was a near miss.

The weekend is coming up, and while many of us will spend it watching football, napping and otherwise lazing about, some people seem to make much more productive use of their free time. Take the hacker group Hackerloop, for example.

They recently equipped a miniature version of the house from the Pixar movie "Up" with a camera, hacked Instagram so it could automatically upload shots, and then sent it flying over Paris attached to 90 helium balloons... now that is a weekend well spent.

Filmmaker Matthew Vandeputte has spent the last year traveling the globe and shooting more photographs than ever. From Belgium to Australia, he's shot well over 100,000 photos of countless sunrises, sunsets, cityscapes and star-filled skies. And now, we get to be the beneficiaries of that work for a glorious minute and a half.

Just when we thought we were done with all the teasers, it looks like Canon is picking up where Nikon left off. To be fair, the teaser released by Canon Korea today is an ad, not a video. And chances are there won't be another ad every other day until the camera comes out... but who knows.

Either way, we have another camera to anticipate, and Canon is teasing this one with the words, "Canon will start from the white world."

There are a few good reasons why you should go about getting in touch with a photographer before using his or her work. Even if they're okay with blogs and news outlets pick up the work without their permission (not saying they should be, but some are) you might be missing some critically important information about the series.

Such is the case with artist Alain Delorme's series "Murmurations," because these photographs that circulated the web initially as beautiful captures of starling flocks (better known as murmurations) in amazing shapes aren't actually photos of birds at all... the images are manipulations comprising of thousands of plastic bags made to look like starling murmurations.

Way back when, I wrote about the dust problems we were seeing in Nikon D600 cameras. There was enough of a furor about it that when the Nikon D610 was released I assumed that the dust problem would be fixed. But I’m rather the paranoid type, and I never like assumptions, so as soon as the first D610s were delivered I thought it worthwhile to just double-check that assumption.

News coming down the Nikon financial pipeline isn't good. Whether you're talking about official financial forecasts that mirror what we saw recently from Canon or unofficial sales numbers that don't look promising, the camera company may be coming up on some hard times.

Back in July, we told you about a heartwarming Skype campaign called "Stay Together." Inspired by photographer John Clang's viral photo series Being Together, the company got in touch with Clang to see if he would help them create a campaign/contest, the winner of which would be reunited with their distant friend or relative.

Here's a little gear porn to keep your G.A.S. revving this Thursday. Japanese lens manufacturer Tamron has officially announced that it is working on a 150-600mm f/5-6.3 ultra-telephoto zoom lens that will replace the company's current 200-500mm lens and become the longest focal length zoom in its lineup.

The kinds of stunts the rise of action cameras has allowed us to capture in POV are often scary, but more often than not they're also planned. However, for nine skydivers, the footage their helmet mounted GoPros captured recently wasn't planned in the least, and it will likely be the most terrifying thing you see all week... or month... or year.

Photographer Nolan Conway has a gift for finding and photographing people that you or I might never think twice about pointing a camera at. His series of the unique people he ran into at McDonald's took him to 50 McDonald’s in 22 states, and garnered quite a bit of press attention.

While his newest series isn't taking him all over the country, it again captures a subculture that doesn't really get any attention: people who call Walmart parking lots home.

If you need a laugh this Thursday, look no further: the Student Union of Nottingham Trent University in England has you covered with a viral video they released a couple of days ago. It's a classic that never seems to get old: a montage of people smiling or posing awkwardly for what they think is a photo, when in fact it's video the Student Union was shooting.

Photographer Fabian Oefner's work with paint -- all part of his "Paint Action" or "Three" cycle of photo series -- never ceases to impress. His previous Black Hole and Liquid Jewels series highlighted the effects of centrifugal force and air pressure on paint, respectively.

The final series in the cycle, Orchids, explores the effects of gravity -- and, as always, it does so in the most colorful (and messy) way possible. What's more, this time we have a chance to watch him work behind the scenes!

No matter how much energy you have going into a project, it's likely that at some point you'll run out of steam. When you're hours in to editing your photos and are beginning to have an existential crisis about the real meaning of the words "tone curve," you'll suddenly stop and wonder why you're doing this in the first place.

Then the next day, when it's time to return to editing, you'll stare blankly at your computer screen or come up with any number of excuses or tasks that will prevent you from getting started.

Sometimes, taking a straight-on photograph is exactly what the situation calls for. But what about those moments when you want a more complete view? What happens when you want to capture everything around you, all at once, in a snapshot or video that is as interactive as Google's Street View? Well, that's when you reach for the Bublcam.

News about the Adobe account hack just keeps getting worse and worse. First, 2.9 million users had supposedly been hacked. Then, the number skyrocketed to a much more staggering 38 million. The number is now climbing yet again, and it seems that many of the people who have been hacked have not been notified by Adobe.

It's always nice when we stumble across a copyright case that doesn't lead to wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth, rare as that might be. So when we ran across the news that a photographer pulled in $1.6 million in a copyright lawsuit, we just had to share it.

If you've gone to see the blockbuster hit Gravity in theaters, you'll recall several moments when Sandra Bullock's character nearly lost something into the abyss of space -- be it a drill or a screw, everything needs to be strapped down because the slightest movement will send it careening into the unknown.

Well, that was Hollywood, but the real deal did actually happened to astronaut Sunita Williams back in 2006 when her camera just up and floated away from her during a 7-hour space walk.

Cats might be the belles of the Internet photography ball, but I'm a dog person and I'll be damned if cats get all the recognition. Photographer Carli Davidson's series Shake was a giant leap in the right direction, and now another canine advocate and photographer has stepped forward with his own series of portraits.

His name is Ty Foster, and where Davidson's series captured dogs mid shake, Foster's series Lick captures them in the middle of licking their own face.

We've seen all manner of household items take on the shape of your favorite lens (think mugs, humidifiers and portable speakers), but this is the first time we've seen a full-fledged alarm clock lens. And what's more, this Nikkor-inspired clock is being made and given away by Nikon itself!

This post is prompted by, but not exactly about, the Humans of New York project/phenomenon (Side Note: This is not an anti-HONY rant. If anything, HONY is merely the straw which broke the camel’s back).

I’ve been aware of HONY for a while as it’s been gathering steam and it’s never interested me. I’ve skimmed it a few times but each time I do, I have a gut-level reaction to it as "just another white guy photographing New York."

Susan Dobson is best known for her work on suburban culture, architecture, and landscape. Her photographs have been exhibited across Canada, as well as in the United States, United Kingdom, Belgium, China, Germany, Spain, and Mexico. Her work was included in the Canadian Biennial titled Builders at the National Gallery of Canada in 2012, and she was a contributing artist to the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad. Dobson is Associate Professor at the University of Guelph.

Susan Dobson's series "Sense of an Ending" gives us look at architecture, decay and a literal sense of ending -- reminding us that eventually everything around us will become rubble. Through the use of composite imagery, Dobson crafts scenes frozen in melancholy.

As the overcast skies in each piece forebode cold and rain, and as the architectural styles have begun to weather and collapse, these images, while fiction, portray the inevitable truth of not just homes and buildings, but perhaps cities and civilizations as well.

What better subject for a time-lapse than 700+ colorful bags of hot air rising into the sky all at once, many of them shaped like beloved (or infamous, see Darth Vader) pop culture characters? Well, there's probably something better, but right this second we can't think of it.

In an insightful essay about the "graying" of photography, Kirk Tuck opines about seeing 50-year old men proudly displaying their huge DSLRs while hanging out at the counters at the Photo Plus Expo in New York last month. The generation that obsessed over pristine primes, low noise and 16×20 prints has been supplanted by a gaggle of Snapchatting millennials for whom photography is no different than a text conversation.