December 2014

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.