December 2014

Mall Turns Customers’ Portraits Into Wrapping Paper for Presents

Here's a neat idea that combines photography with Christmas spirit: the Plaza Ginza shopping center in Tokyo, Japan has been running a fun event called "I Wrap You." Instead of wrapping gifts with generic wrapping paper, the center is snapping photos of customers on the spot to create gift wrap featuring their faces.

The Fujifilm X-T1 Globe-Trotter Kit Costs $14,000 and Comes with an iPad

Want to get started in photography? A camera and a kit lens can help you do that. Want to do so while touring the world on your private yacht? Fujifilm's new X-T1 Graphite Silver Globe-Trotter Kit is designed for you. It's a limited edition luxury camera kit that has everything you need to get started with Fuji X-T1 photography... and then some.

Photographer Creates Grids Showing How People on City Streets Look the Same

Fashion street photographers usually look for styles that are one of a kind. Hans Eijkelboom doesn't. For over twenty years, the Dutch 'anti-sartorial' photographer has roamed the streets of major cities around the world in search for the common -- people showing similar tastes in clothing, accessories, or behavior.

The result is a monumental project called "Photo Notes", which comprises grids of photos grouped together by a common theme.

CameraSelfies: Portraits of Historical Cameras Taking Pictures of Themselves

What if cameras got tired of participating in human selfies and decided one day to start taking pictures of themselves? That's the quirky idea behind a project called "CameraSelfies" by German photographer Juergen Novotny (who also goes by J. Flynn Newton).

The series features photos of various cameras "looking at themselves" in front of contemporary wallpapers that capture the cameras' personalities.

Wedding Photographers Robbed During Shoot, Lose Wedding Photos and $13,500 in Gear

Wedding photographers beware: you could be a prime target for robbers due to the value of your gear. Just last year we reported that photojournalists in California were being targeted for their equipment, and now another crazy incident has occurred: a wedding shoot in Oakland was targeted this weekend by robbers who made off with $13K+ in camera gear... and all the wedding photos.

Creating a Star Wars Themed Christmas Card Photo of Santa in Carbonite

Here's my 2014 Christmas card: Santa in Carbonite! At the end of every year my studio collects all of the cool card ideas that we thought of during the season. I then create a calendar event for the next November, listing out the ideas we thought of. Last year we came up with a Star Wars Christmas card idea with the boys guarding Santa Claus, frozen in carbonite. Call them Imperial Elves.

Nat Geo Photog Says Amazon Won’t Stop Selling His Stolen Photograph

Earlier this month, National Geographic photographer Tomas van Houtryve had one of his photographs selected by TIME magazine as one of the Top 10 Photos of 2014. It was a high honor, but also one that opened an unexpected Pandora's Box for Van Houtryve: his photos began appearing on third-party products on Amazon without his permission.

And that's not all: Van Houtryve says Amazon isn't responding to his requests to have the products completely taken down.

Photos of Beautiful Ice Sculptures That Formed After a Windy Mountain Storm

Mount Javornik in Slovenia was recently battered by more than a week of strong winds and freezing fog. After the storm was safely past, weather photographer Marko Korosec decided to trek up the popular ski destination to see what he would find.

When he got up the mountain, he found crazy and beautiful ice structures formed by the intense weather. Many of the formations reminded Korosec of "extraterrestrial creatures like in the Sci-Fi movies," he says.

Then-and-Now Photos Capture How Illinois Tornado Victims are Rebuilding Their Lives

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Back in November 2013, an EF4 tornado tore through Illinois, killing several people and destroying hundreds of homes. Photojournalists at the Journal Star in Peoria, Illinois captured numerous photographs documenting the devastation from both the ground and the air.

Last month, at the one year anniversary of the disaster, those same photojournalists went out and rephotographed those same scenes. The resulting before-and-after photos document the process the community has made in rebuilding their lives.

CameraBands: Turn Your Junkyard-Bound Camera Gear Into Custom Rings and Bracelets

In Brook, Indiana, a town of about 1,000 people, there's a small business called CameraBands that specializes in recycling camera equipment into bracelets and rings. If you ever break your favorite gear far beyond repair (i.e. it's destined for the junkyard), you can ship it to CameraBands instead of tossing it to have it transformed into very different forms.

Photographer Shares How He Spent Two Years Living on Photos Instead of Money

Back in 2012, we wrote about a project called "Pixel Trade" by Australian photographer Shantanu Starick. The basic idea was simple but crazy: Starick wanted to travel through all seven continents on the globe without ever spending any currency. Instead, he would try to trade his services as a photographer to people willing to provide him with shelter, food, and transportation.

Starick recently appeared at Behance's 99U to give a 20-minute talk on spending the past two years living on photos instead of money.

Heavenly Photographs of Dubai Skyscrapers Poking Through a Sea of Clouds

The city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates is known for its impressive skyline, which features the world's tallest building. Every so often, the city will become blanketed with a thick layer of fog that opens the door to beautiful photos of skyscrapers rising above clouds.

Daniel Cheong is one photographer who's always on the lookout for this particular photo opportunity. Over the years, he has built up an impressive collection of shots showing skyscrapers poking through Dubai fog.

Nikon D750 Owners Reporting a Dark Band Problem That Causes Ugly Lens Flares

The Nikon D750 full frame DSLR has been receiving fantastic marks from reviewers so far, but now an issue has popped up that threatens to damage the camera's reputation. Photographers around the world are reporting a problem with their lens flares. At certain angles, an ugly dark band shows up across the top, separating lens flares from the edge of the frame.

How I Created This Viral Puddle Reflection Picture in Photoshop

My name is Michael Pistono, and I'm a 28-year-old photo enthusiast living in Honolulu, Hawaii. I was recently playing around with a reflection photo when I had the idea of creating another one out of a puddle -- one that featured both tall buildings and an airplane.

The photo I ended up creating in Photoshop (shown above) went viral online. Here's a look at how it was made.

Lens Technologies: Fluorine vs. Fluorite

There are two lens terms that have similar sounding (and potentially confusing) names: fluorine and fluorite. Apparently quite a few people have trouble distinguishing between the two, so here's a quick look at what they each are.

Photographs of Oymyakon, the Coldest Village on the Face of the Earth

Located in the heart of Siberia, the village of Oymyakon in Russia is widely considered to be the coldest inhabited place on Earth. A temperature of −90 °F (−67.7 °C) was recorded there back in 1933 -- the lowest recorded temperature for any permanently inhabited spot in the world.

New Zealand-based photographer Amos Chapple paid a visit to the 500-person village and captured a series of beautiful photographs showing what life is like inside this extreme village.

Google+ Can Now Apply Its Auto Enhance Magic to Your Home Videos

Back in May 2013, Google+ began offering auto enhancement to improve the quality of users' photos. Now the magic has arrived for video as well.

Open a video through the Google+ website or through the Photos app on Android and you'll see a new "Auto Enhance" feature that can automatically help correct lighting, color, stability, and speech.

This DIY ‘Patina’ Leica M2 Was Turned Green Like the Statue of Liberty

Did you know that the Statue of Liberty started out as a dull copper color, but turned green over time due to oxidation occurring on the copper skin? The green patina (also called verdigris) can occur naturally or with human intervention on copper, brass, and bronze.

Know what else is brass? The body of the Leica M2 underneath the chrome surface. Photographer Bellamy Hunt used this fact to create a custom DIY special edition of the M2, the "Patina Edition."

Megatron is Not a Fan of Selfies

Universal Studios in Hollywood recently offered guests a photo op with a performer dressed very impressively as Megatron, one of the main baddies in Transformers. It turns out Megatron is not a fan of selfies.

When Alexandra Trew walked up and tried to snap one, she ended up capturing this video of the villain ranting about selfies and arguing how people need to learn to live in the moment.

How to Harness Your Fear to Become a More Confident Street Photographer

Street photography is one of the most difficult forms of photography out there. Not only do you have to rapidly compose, frame, and approach strangers, but you have to do so with the risk of “injury.” They might injure you verbally (threaten to break your camera, give you a dirty look and call you a creep, or curse at you) or they might injure you physically (try to grab your camera, hit you, shove you, etc).

A Brief Comparison of Canon 400mm Lenses, Mark I Against Mark II

Canon shooters have a bit of 400mm excitement right now. The biggest news, of course, is the release of the 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS II lens, replacing the original version that's had a very long, successful run.

Not quite so much excitement was generated by the release of the 400mm f/4 DO IS II lens. It too replaces a long running lens, but one that has been considered more of a niche lens. (I'll admit, though, it's been one of my favorite niches. I used the 400mm DO a lot over the years.)

Photo Sharing is Big, Big Business: Instagram is Now Reportedly Worth $35 Billion

When Facebook agreed to acquire Instagram for $1 billion in cash and stock back in April 2012, the world balked at the price. Instagram was only a 17-month-old company at the time that had just launched on Android, and there was no income on the horizon.

Well, fast forward two years, and Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg looks like a genius for making the deal: Instagram is estimated to be worth $35 billion now.

Columnist: Prince Harry Photographing Africans with Fujifilm X100 is ‘Arrogant’ and ‘Colonial’

Guardian columnist Jonathan Jones is a master of sparking controversy in the world of photography. As you might remember, he's the guy who keeps arguing that photography is not art... a year after calling it "the art of our time."

His latest target is the above photograph showing Prince Harry shooting with a Fujifilm X100 during a trip to Lesotho in Africa. Jones argues that it's "as arrogant as any colonial portrait."

The Disorienting Beauty of Spiral Staircases in Old Abandoned Buildings

Christian Richter is a fine art architecture photographer based in the small town of Jeßnitz, Germany. A fan of exploring old, abandoned buildings, Richter has often come across tall spiral staircases that look both beautiful and disorienting when viewed from the very top looking down. These staircases form a photo series of his that is aptly titled, "Abandoned Staircases."

Character, Style, and Mood in Photos

In photography, many of us start our journey by studying and learning from the masters of the art. But …

Fan Gets Karate Kicked by Guitarist While Snapping an On-Stage Selfie

Here's a strange incident that's causing a stir online and in music communities: at a recent concert by the metal band Every Time I Die, a fan named Micah Barnes decided to climb onto the stage to try and snag a selfie with the lead singer. Guitarist Jordan Buckley would have none of it, and decided to put an end to the photo shoot with a swift kick that sent the smartphone flying into the air.

The Great Instagram Purge Vaporizes Millions of Spammy ‘User’ Accounts

After announcing that it had passed 300 million active users earlier this month, Instagram warned that it would be cracking down on spam accounts and that users may see their follower counts drop as a result. It has come to pass.

If your follower counts just dropped noticeably, you're seeing the effects of the Great Instagram Purge, which has wiped out millions upon millions of accounts.

Famous Paintings Recreated as Photos Using Things Around the Office

Photographers Chris Limbrick and Francesco Fragomeni both work for the website hosting company Squarespace. During times in which they're not hard at work, the duo has been shooting a lighthearted photo project called foolsdoart.

Each photograph is a recreation of a famous painting with Limbrick and Fragomeni as the subjects and with their office as the stage.