February 2014

If you walk into the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center right now, you'll very quickly find your jaw on the floor alongside the reason for its gaping state. Stretched across the entire promenade of the theatre is a large-scale photo installation that has well-dressed ballet-goers so enthralled they're laying down on the floor, striking poses and climbing up several flights of stairs to get a better view of the massive photograph.

While it's not often a patent filing for new lenses can make your jaw drop, it's certainly not out of the question, as Olympus is demonstrating with two particular pieces of glass in their latest patent filings published February 20th.

While planning to originally write up an article about an infographic sent to Nikon Rumors that showed every camera created by Nikon from 1948 to 2005, we came across an even more thorough collection of Nikon cameras in the form of a poster, created by none other than Nikon itself.

We're unfortunately accustomed to bad news in the photo industry. That's not to say there's not great news and exciting new products and a bright future ahead, all of those things are there too, but slumping sales and discontinued products are becoming all-too-common reports.

Case in point: it seems flash trigger king PocketWizard is struggling of late, with reports claiming that the company has had to lay off as many as 20 of its 50 employees due to low sales figures and increasing competition out of China.

Have you ever accidentally deleted or lost a folder full of master images in Lightroom? If you have a backup you should be okay, but even backups fail, and what then? Are you really out of luck? Are those images gone forever? Maybe not.

The folks over at PDN recently sat down with National Press Photographers Association attorney Mickey Osterreicher to talk about photographers' rights, police intimidation and how to handle yourself around cops who don't understand what you are and are not allowed to photograph.

Here's an interesting video that offers a perspective we don't often get on the whole "anti-Photoshop," "what really is 'Beauty'" debate. In this short interview, former supermodel Paulina Porizkova gives her take on an industry she left behind in the mid-nineties.

Controversy over the World Press Photo organization and the way they handle their judging aside, most people were in agreement that photographer John Stanmeyer deserved the award he received this year. In the above video, the World Press Photo winner shares some insight as to how his widely-praised photograph came to be.

I’ve not long been back from a trip which took myself and my family back to the UK via a few other places, this wasn’t a photography trip but I’ve included a few of my favourite images picked up along the way. The are more images along with a more extensive write-up on my blog here -- The Reluctant Tourist.

DIRE Studio has released an application for photographers and cinematographers alike that they've aptly named Mark II Artist's Viewfinder.

Reddit user Nasdaf created this moving composite photograph using images of Kiev's Independence Square captured before and after the havoc wreaked by violent clashes between the government and protesters.

Editor's Note: This video is a tiny bit NSFW. All nudity has been censored, but the models are at times very scantily clad so you may want to wait until you're at home to watch it.

While The Body Issue of ESPN Magazine usually keeps the focus on bodies in a sporty sense, Fiat wanted to make an impression in its advertising pages as well.

And so, taking the Fiat 500C's motto "Made of Pure Muscle" to its most literal sense, Fiat used 15 circus performers, acrobats and artists to turn human bodies into a car without the help of Photoshop.

It seems as though with each passing day the eagerly anticipated and highly touted Fujifilm X-T1 is garnering more and more attention. We've already shared The Camera Store's thoughts after they got some hands-on time with it, and today it's our favorite face from DigitalRev, Kai, taking the X-T1 for a spin.

Human photographers aren't the only ones dragging their cameras to every corner of the globe in search of the decisive moment. As it turns out, a little LEGO man spent a year doing the same thing as part of life-sized human photographer Andrew Whyte's fun 'The Legographer' series.

When the Samsung NX30 and Galaxy Camera 2 rang in the New Year as some of the first major announcements of 2014, Samsung declined to reveal detailed pricing or availability info for either shooter. Today, that changes, and one of the cameras is already ready to ship.

A couple of days ago, National Geographic released this fascinating look inside the magazine's vintage photo archive and introduced us to the dedicated man who runs the whole thing, Bill Bonner.

Each year, the breakdown of gear usage statistics by some of the largest news agencies and associations makes itself public; and this year is no exception, thanks to this infographic provided by hastalosmegapixeles.

Looking through the infographic, we get a great look at what gear the press photography pros prefer when they're out in the field shooting World Press Photo award-winners.

Actual 3D footage can be a pain, both to capture and to watch, which is why we fell in love with this super simple technique when we ran across it. It turns out, all you have to do to turn a normal photo or animated GIF into a 3D experience is add a couple of white bars...

If the idea hadn't been around for so long, we'd call 'In My Bag' type websites the flavor of the month. First there was InMyBag, which we shared with you at the beginning of last week, and now we have ShotKit, the latest 'in my bag' site turning heads online.

As was inevitable, the more common and generic top level domains (e.g. .com, .net, and even .co) are becoming scarce as more and more domains are registered each day.

Knowing this moment in time would come, ICANN, the authority in charge of managing domain names, has been putting out more and more top level domains in hopes of opening up more options for those looking to grab their own piece of the web -- and photographers are benefiting more directly than most.

Don't expect Canon to come out with any retro-styled cameras. According to a brochure on the design process that went into the recently released Canon G1 X Mark II, the company prefers function to form, which is why it has 'kept its distance' from the retro design movement.

Not all of the women in this year's Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue are made of plastic, and yet the unique Barbie swimsuit shots we told you about a few days back will STILL play second fiddle to a much cooler photo shoot of model and actress Kate Upton... scantily clad... floating around in actual zero gravity.

Alright, the rumor sites are giving this another shot. After getting the announcement date wrong the first time -- it seems that February 11th event was not related to the D4s at all -- Nikon Rumors is confidently reporting that the camera will get its official announcement on February 25th.

Earlier this month, storm Petra battered parts of the French and British coast only days after another storm had smashed its way through the area. And while powerful winds and massive waves were tearing into the French coast, photographer Philip Plisson was in a helicopter capturing the action from a bird's eye view.

Want to know what it takes to photograph the Olympic Games these days? Well, according to Jeff Cable it takes the kind of speed that most photographers can only dream of, because when it comes to the Internet age, people want their photos and they want them NOW.

Buckle up, because this is a copyright battle that has hit rock bottom and started digging with gusto. How much gusto? Lets just say that the he-said-she-said nature of this ferocious back-and-forth between a photographer and a magazine that used her photo without permission makes the whole Color Run debacle look tame.

Sea creatures are out to get your cameras. Don't believe us? Well the evidence is overwhelmingly in our favor. Sharks, crabs and manta rays have all tried to snatch photography equipment from unsuspecting camera men and women in the past, and this video shows that octopuses (octopi? moosen?) are trying to get in on the action as well.

Getting your own commercial camera slider can get a bit pricey, but thanks to Derek Mellott and this great Instructables tutorial, you can build your very own DIY slider in about an hour using only $30 worth of parts from IKEA and a bit of DIY know-how!

Tragedies happen. We weep. We grieve. And then, life moves on. I suppose it’s good that it stands still …

John Stanmeyer of VII won the World Press Photo of the Year on Thursday with this magnificent image of migrants in Djibouti trying to get a cheaper cell phone signal from neighboring Somalia.

It looks like a movie poster, but not for the reasons that I complained about last year.