2015

Since 1987, the School of Photographic Arts & Sciences at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) has done an annual nighttime community photo project called RIT Big Shot. For the the 31st event held this past weekend on October 3rd, the school set out to create a photo of the Churchhill Downs that shows the iconic Kentucky Derby track at night.

The Sony RX100 III is a fantastic little camera and when I had the chance to play with its successor earlier in the year I was very excited to see if the RX100 IV would build upon the already high standards Sony has helped set. While Sony has been making some impressive advances in the high-end camera market, in the pro-compact area things are a lot tighter with Canon just edging ahead of the RX100 III with the G7X.

You know you're committed to your craft as a wedding photographer when you find yourself doing these things for the perfect reflection portrait of the bride and groom.

Did you know that you can easily see geostationary satellites by shooting time-lapse photos of the night sky? Reddit user jannne took his camera outside this week and managed to capture a number of satellites in their photos.

Since its launch back in April 2006, Photojojo has grown from a fun photography newsletter to a massive online store filled with photo gifts and gear. Today the company just launched a major new endeavor: Parabo Press. It's a photo printing app for iOS that lets you transform your digital photos into all kinds of physical products.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced yesterday that it's proposing an unprecedented $1.9 million fine against Chicago-based SkyPan International, a company that shoots aerial photos and videos with camera drones. This is the largest civil penalty ever proposed against a drone operator for endangering airspace safety.

In addition to Photoshop Fix, Adobe also announced a bevy of updates to its Lightroom line of programs yesterday at the Adobe MAX conference. It's an update that "covers the full Lightroom ecosystem across desktop, web, and mobile."

Instagram launched five years ago today, transforming the way the world takes and shares photos. Here's a look back at the most popular photos ever posted to the service.

"The Prophesy" is a striking series of photographs by photographer Fabrice Monteiro that shines light on the problem of pollution in Africa, yet offers a message of hope. Each image is a "high fashion photo" in which the garment is crafted from things found at locations that have been altered by trash.

At a special Windows 10 Devices event in New York City today, Microsoft unveiled a number of major new products that photographers who use Windows may want to look into: a Surface Book convertible laptop, Surface Pro 4 tablet, Lumia 950 smartphone, and a Display Dock that lets you use your Windows phone as a mini PC.

Want to see how a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer responds to a request for free images in exchange for "credit" from a major news corporation? You can, because that exchange happened a few days ago.

Dedolight celebrated its 30th anniversary this year by holding an international competition in which competitors create the best tutorials they can for passing on their lighting knowledge.

There's a new fad on the Web. It involves creating trippy Inception-esque scenes by Photoshopping landscape photos into strange worlds with right angles in the horizon line.

Sony announced today that it will be spinning off its booming image sensor business as a new company called Sony Semiconductor Solutions. The goal of the change is to bolster the company's Devices segment.

The first known photograph was captured in 1826 when light reacted with a particular type of asphalt known as Bitumen of Judea. Since that first natural light photo, photographers have introduced artificial flash lighting to photos through all kinds of different ways. In this post, we're taking a look at a brief history of the camera flash -- from its humble beginnings with explosive powder and burning metal up through the latest LED lights -- to see how far it has come.

After sharing his DIY square "ring light" build here back in July, photographer Isiah Xiong is back again with another DIY project. This time, Xiong is explaining how he built a DIY version of the $300 the Eyelighter reflector for around $40 to $50 in materials.

500px today unveiled revamped profile, photo, and discover pages that aim to deliver a better experience to the 6+ million member community. The company says the new designs are based on user feedback, have been tested over the past few months, and have the goal of "enabling and rewarding visual creativity."

A year ago, photographer Julian Tryba was featured by Vimeo after creating a time-lapse of Boston using a technique he dubbed the "layer lapse." Now he's back again with the same concept applied to a different subject matter.

Tsuneko Sasamoto is a renowned Japanese photographer who is considered to be her country's first female photojournalist, documenting pre- and post-war Japan since becoming a professional shooter at the age of 25.

It’s been a busy past couple of months for me, full of photo experiments and metadata blunders. But even when I’m busy with assignments, I’m still looking for a project.

Here's a cute 13-second clip that's making the rounds on the Web. It shows a little girl throwing a tantrum on a tabletop... until she notices that a camera is being pointed in her direction. If your child has this same reflex, it could be an early indication that you have a future model on your hands.

The folks over at Luma Labs have released the third generation of their ‘Luma Loop’ camera sling, a piece of equipment that aims to be incredibly accessible and stable, yet out of the way when not needed. Designed and manufactured with premium materials here in the United States, Luma Labs says every component is custom made exclusively for their production. We are taking a look to see if all that extra work has resulted in a product that is truly worth it.

Peter van Agtmael is a New York-based conflict photographer and a member of Magnum Photos. Since 2006, he has photographed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the effect of the wars in the US.

Instagram has long been at the center of debate over its policies regarding nudity. In March, the service sparked controversy by deleting a menstruation blood photo posted by an artist. Back in April, the service revised its policies to clarify that breastfeeding and post-mastectomy photos are okay.

After pulling the plug on its Photoshop Touch app back in May, Adobe is now back in the mobile photo editing game. Today the company officially launched Photoshop Fix, the app that was teased months ago and code-named "Project Rigel."

Check out the rugged Panasonic lenses in the photo above. No, Panasonic didn't quietly release ruggedized versions of the 100-300mm and 42.5mm that you didn't hear about. The lenses were upgraded do-it-yourself-style by photographer Nate Cowlishaw at home using rubberized undercoating designed for the undercarriages of cars.

A 17-year-old boy in Russia has died after falling 9 stories from a rooftop while engaging in extremely dangerous "rooftopping photography." The goal of the stunt was another eye-catching photo for his Instagram account.

The city of Atlanta, Georgia, has an old local law from 1977 that makes it illegal to shoot photos of people on public sidewalks. The law has never resulted in an arrest or citation, but it did make the news last week after police officers reportedly cited the ordinance to prevent photographers from taking pictures on city sidewalks.

Here's a 5-minute short film titled "O" that was shot entirely using a lens made with a drop of water and an iPhone. The lens gives the film a dream-like quality, which is perfect, given that the project is intended to give viewers the feeling of nostalgia.

The National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) announced this week that it has joined in on a new lawsuit filed against the state of Wyoming over recent laws that criminalizes "data collecting" in "open land." Among other things, the NPPA argues that the laws put photojournalists on the wrong end of the law for legitimate work.

This past week, 33-year-old Pittsburgh-based photographer LaToya Ruby Frazier was announced as one of 24 recipients of this year's MacArthur "Genius" Grant, a $625,000 no-strings-attached prize.

At first it had been a dream to travel to Asia for a long time already, even before I discovered photography. I am now 22 years old and I finished my bachelors in psychology. Along the way I found out that I really wanted to pursue photography, but nonetheless psychology still gave me some really good insights. It never hurts to have some more knowledge about human life in general.

The innovative folks at DJI continue to design drones that push the limits of aerial photography (and empty the wallets of eager onlookers). A new edition of the Inspire 1 with an added Micro Four Thirds camera system recently arrived on the scene, and we just had a chance to test it out. Let’s see if it lives up to the high demands of its price tag.

If you enjoy knowing the nitty gritty technical details of how photography technologies work, then you may enjoy the 8-minute video above. Published by Computerphile, it features image analyst Mike Pound of the University of Nottingham explaining the math behind how programs apply blurs and image filters (e.g. Instagram) to photos.

Personal videos have long been an integral part of our lives, allowing us to share and cherish memories with our friends and family. Apple’s recent release of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s+ have introduced ultra high-definition 4K video recording to a massive new audience. With such a powerful device, you may want to tweak your footage before you share it. Today, we are taking a quick look at five different editing solutions for your iOS device.

This past weekend, the day before the supermoon lunar eclipse, photographer Mark Gee decided to take advantage of the extra large moon his own way. Gee recruited a bunch of local photographers from Wellington, New Zealand, and had them photograph the moon from a hill while Gee filmed the moonrise in the background.

There's a good deal of hatred toward camera drones these days, and there are regularly stories of people destroying other people's drones in crazy ways. In July, another man was arrested for shooting down a drone with a shotgun. The following month, a man was filmed hooking a drone with his fishing line.

Want to browse the entire collection of photos captured on the moon by Apollo astronauts with their chest-mounted Hasselblad cameras? You can now do so right on Flickr.

Every so often, a new image format comes to town and attempts to overthrow the established order of how images (and photos) are saved and shared. In 2010, Google announced a new format called WebP, which promised to speed up the Web by shrinking file sizes without hurting quality. Last year, well-known programmer Fabrice Bellard unveiled a format of his own called BPG that claimed to pack the same quality of JPEGs at just half the size.

"Impermanent Sculptures" is a series of light-painting photos by Brazilian photographer Vitor Schietti. One of the interesting ideas found in the series is using fireworks to illuminate trees, resulting in photos that look like the leaves and branches are showering drops of light onto the ground.

Guitarist Dweezil Zappa, the son of Frank Zappa, recently took to Facebook to respond to critics of his strict concert photography contact.

Wouldn't it be interesting if we had snapshots through the eyes of famous artists throughout history? The images could reveal things they saw, worked on, and were inspired by.

Here's something that you should be aware of if you use Behance to share your photography portfolio online: the "No Use At All" symbol used by Behance is the same well-known one used by Creative Commons for "No Rights Reserved." In other words, with a casual glance, it may look like your work is in the public domain and completely free for everyone to use however they'd like.

UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, recently launched an ad campaign in Chile that speaks out against cyberbullying with smartphone photos. Titled "One Shot," each of the three ads shows a group of teenage students pointing their mobile cameras at one of their peers, firing squad-style.

Photographer Alex Teuscher recently traveled to Cambodia for work, and while there, he took the opportunity to visit and photograph the ancient temples found in the Angkor region of the country.

20-year-old Hugo Cornellier of Canada has been taking one selfie a day before the word "selfie" became a thing. He started his daily ritual 8 years ago, when he was just 12 years old. This past weekend, Cornellier published the 2-minute above that shows himself growing up from age 12 to age 20.

One of the big photo stories on the Web this past week has been the picture above, shot over the weekend by Australian photographer Sam Yeldham. Yeldham was shooting time-lapse photos of a storm rolling into Sydney when a bride and groom strolled into the scene. He captured a gorgeous shot of the couple as the sun was setting and before the storm struck, but the couple was gone before he could get their contact information.

If you ever find yourself with only 30 seconds to shoot in a studio and the need to capture 25 poses, you'll need to find a model with some unusual rapid-fire posing skills... like this guy.

Sony has been hitting home runs as of late when it comes to digital camera sensors. In late August, sensor testing company DxOMark reported that the Sony a7R II contains the best sensor they've ever reviewed. But is Sony able to repeat its performance in the world of smartphone cameras? It appears the answer is a resounding "yes." …