Eadweard Muybridge is considered one of the fathers—if not THE father—of the moving picture. But his life story is perhaps more sordid than glamorous, as this fascinating short film by filmmaker Drew Christie illustrates.
Actor JD Walsh recently created a Hollywood-style movie trailer... featuring strangers he encountered on the street.
Adding macro capabilities to your smartphone camera usually involves a DIY hack like this one, but if you're looking for more professional results then you should definitely check out the BLIPS micro & macro lenses.
In late 2014, I was given a few pieces of piping -- what you might call trash, but which I call the "ring of fire." It ended up being an incredibly useful tool in my photography. I quickly decided to add it to my (now literal) bag of tricks along with Prisming, Lens Chimping, my Broken Freelens, and Anamorphics.
The Internet has not been kind to Instagram's redesigned logo. Adweek called it "baffling" and "a travesty," and some went so far as to call it "an abomination." But if you hate the logo as much as these folks do, you're in luck: there's a hack to get the old one back... sort of.
“Fauxtographer” (according to Urban Dictionary): A person that claims to be a good photographer when in reality they just set their camera to automatic mode a start shooting. This person also happens to fumble over photographic terms or has no knowledge of the terms or switches the color mode to monochrome and calls it artistic no matter what the hell is in frame.
Matthew Callahan is a US Marine and combat correspondent. Typically, he tells military stories through powerful photo essays; but when he isn't photographing marines, he turns his camera on his stormtrooper toys, creating striking battle scenes for the fine art project Galactic Warfighters.
If you've ever tried to stitch a panorama in Photoshop, you know that the program is not always up to the task. In this "Photoshop Secrets" tutorial, photographer Jimmy McIntyre will show you two tricks that will help Photoshop stitch even the most difficult tiles together into a beautiful pano.
Just because you think it can’t possibly happen to you, doesn’t mean it won't happen anyway.
Episode 71 of the PetaPixel Photography Podcast.
Download MP3 - Subscribe via iTunes, Google Play, email or RSS!
Featured: Matt Kloskowski, Sony Artisan of Imagery
Google is giving iOS users a treat today with the GBoard: a custom keyboard for iOS that builds image and gif searching right into your keyboard. No need to switch apps, copy, switch back, and paste that cool tutorial, PetaPixel link, or inspirational photo into your conversation... no need to leave the convo at all.
The Dutch Angle (or Dutch Tilt) is a technique that involves tilting your camera to one side, resulting in a frame that isn't level. Jacob T. Swinney of Fandor created this 3-minute compilation video showing the technique being used in a large number of movies.
Here's a quick DIY trick that'll come in handy the next time you need to add a filter to a wide angle lens on the cheap. If you can't buy a proper adaptor (or 3D print one), just use some card stock and black tape.
How far is too far when it comes to advertising photography? Calvin Klein has a risqué reputation of flirting with the border between acceptable and inappropriate, but one of their recent underwear ads may have crossed that line.
Minnesota's Pioneer Public Television made this 12-minute mini-documentary about wet plate photography and photographer David Rambow. Rambow discusses the history and practice of wet plate photography, along with his personal journey in the medium.
Samsung has announced its new EVO Plus 256GB microSD card, a high performance and capacity card that lets you record up to 12 hours of 4K video.
Who wouldn’t want to explore one of the world’s most haunted places given the chance? Okay, on second thought, maybe most people... Well, while on holiday with my family in Venice, I was recently given that chance and I wasn’t going to turn it down.
Canon's original 16-35mm f/2.8L was released in 2001, and the followup Mark II version arrived in 2007. Now, 9 years later, a Mark III refresh is reportedly just around the corner.
Justin Bieber announced this week that he will no longer stop to take photos with fans while out in public. He says things have gotten to the point in which he feels like "a zoo animal" due to the endless impersonal picture requests.
Corel just released AfterShot Pro 3, the newest version of its non-destructive RAW editor. And while it adds a bunch of cool features like more powerful highlight recovery and the ability to create custom lens correction profiles, that's not its claim to fame. It's claim to fame is sheer speed.
The Google Camera app is definitely not the most advanced photo and video capture app available to Android users, but a new report suggests Google is testing a feature that will definitely appeal to photo loving users: RAW + JPEG shooting.
A few days ago I met up with two younger photographers at a coffee shop in San Francisco.
The team at photo community and marketplace EyeEm just released something really cool. Announced this morning, their new standalone iOS app "The Roll" is basically a much more powerful, intelligent replacement for Apple's Camera Roll.
An anonymous photographer in New York City claims to have spotted the much-anticipated future Sony "A9" flagship camera out in the wild... and apparently it packs quite a sensor.
Your panoramas, photo spheres, and 360° photos will soon feel much more comfortable on Facebook's news feed. The social network announced earlier today that it will let you upload and view 360-degree photos on Facebook for mobile and Web in the next few weeks.
Photographer Garry Cornes of Glasgow, Scotland, attended the demolition of a 24-story building this past Sunday. After joining the crowd there and setting up his camera on the other side of the street, Cornes had his view ruined at the worst possible time when a bus rolled in to photobomb his shot.
Time and again photographer Martin Heck has captured our attention by pushing the time lapse envelope. We've featured two of his 4K time lapses in the past, and today we get to show you something even more stunning: his 8K Patagonia time lapse captured entirely on a medium format camera.
The saying goes that "you are your own worst critic," but when it comes to photography, a Canon photo trends study finds that the old adage simply doesn't track. In fact, the vast majority of people think their photography is 'good to excellent.'
Over the past several years, photographer Flo Razowsky of Nogales, Arizona, has been photographing the ultra-long walls that divide international borders around the world. Her project is titled "Up Against the Wall."
What would it be like if, instead of Tom Cruise and Daniel Craig and Matt Damon, the biggest blockbusters in Hollywood all starred Asian actor John Cho? That's what 25-year-old digital artist William Yu set out to find out in his series and social movement #StarringJohnCho, a protest against whitewashing in cinema.
In January, the photographer Zoe Strauss made a bracing plea on her Facebook page. The artist, whose work had been recognized by the Whitney Biennial and Magnum Photos, and was the subject of a traveling survey exhibition organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, was out of money
You can add "Russian guy with a spear" to your list of things your drone should fear. Joining Jet Skis, anti-Drone net bazookas, and mother nature herself, a Russian man at a history festival made his displeasure for drones known by taking one down with a spear.
Can photo clients tell the difference between a professional photographer and a fake one? Seattle-based photographer Ben Lucas recently decided to do an experiment to find out, and the 5-minute video above shows what happened.
Starting out in studio portraiture and not sure what light modifier to choose to achieve the photo you want? In the post, we'll take a look at the differences between the main modifiers in order to help you make a good choice.
We just found out about a really neat piece of software for Canon DSLRs. Called LooZ, it lets you see and record what you're light painting as you light paint it, taking the guesswork out of complex light painting creations and letting you share the final process in video form.
Instagram has just announced a total redesign of its app. Everything from the logo to the look of the app interface itself has been retooled to put more emphasis on the photos and videos themselves.
General consensus seems to be that your smartphone's flash is mostly useless, but the "Flens" wants to change all that. The tiny magnetic "flash lens" supposedly boosts the power of your smartphone's flashlight by a full order of magnitude: 10x.
After leaked photos of Canon's first EF-M macro lens appeared online yesterday, we told you to "stay tuned" because we'd likely see an official announcement before long. Less than 24 hours later, we have the official announcement! …
A historic building in South Florida burned to the ground recently because in the dark of night, a trio of photographers set it ablaze while trying to “paint with light.”
In mid-April 2016, a series of powerful earthquakes struck the Kumamoto region of southern Japan. A number of major camera companies have important operations in that area, and now, weeks later, those companies are still working recover from the disaster.
Canon will soon be announcing a new Canon EF-M 28mm STM Macro lens. Photos and specs of the lens leaded today, revealing that it will be the first Canon lens to boast a built-in LED ring light.
Mercury just passed between the Earth and the Sun yesterday, a rare "planetary transit" that occurs about 13 times every 100 years. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft shot highly detailed photos of the astronomical event, and the beautiful time-lapse above is what resulted.
Every year, around the beginning of April, I find myself getting lost in the emotions I felt after witnessing and photographing the aftermath of the explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon in 2013.
The film simulation software company Really Nice Images has launched a new iPhone camera app called RNI Flashback. While the app is yet another film simulation app in a market saturated with them, it aims to stand out by adding randomness to the equation.
My name is Jerm Cohen and I'm a portrait photographer based in NYC. I just got back from my first Kentucky Derby, where I made a series of portraits of the people there.
Over the past couple of decades, CMOS sensors have come to dominate the digital photography landscape thanks to their increasing quality and falling costs. If you're unfamiliar with the differences between CMOS and CCD sensors, CEI-Europe has created a helpful infographic that compares the two technologies.
Recently one of my cousins messaged me asking for some camera advice. He was looking for help choosing a new camera and wondered if I had any suggestions. Without wasting any time I started writing back a sort of stream of consciousness response.
I'm an avid camera and gear hoarder, but not the new stuff... I prefer the classics. I usually go to antique stores, thrift shops, etc. in hopes of finding a real gem. That's exactly what happened last week.
The last time you had or saw road rage, did you post to Instagram about it? If you did, you might have ended up a statistic in a recent report on road rage released by The Auto Insurance Center.
If you ever try your hand at light painting photography with burning steel wool, be extra careful with safety and legality. Just a few months after a photographer allegedly destroyed a historic shipwreck in California with his sparks, another steel wool photo shoot has burned down a historic 1920s building in a US national preserve.
