Two months ago we shared with you the interesting experiment by journalist Esther Honing that involved taking one photograph and having people from 27 countries Photoshop it to end up with what they considered to be their countries definition of beautiful.
Fellow journalist and friend of Honig's Priscilla Yuki Wilson wanted to try the same thing, and see how her biracial ethnicity would affect the outcome.
SMWH.RE is an Instagram-based web app designed for those experiencing a slight bout of wanderlust. The well-designed app is simple: it brings the gorgeous landscape photography you see online into the realm of possible vacation destinations by displaying photos alongside their accompanying geographical location and a short description.
Photokina isn't just a place for major camera brands with big lens and body announcements, a lot of smaller companies use the trade show to gain some traction for their sometimes-weird, sometimes-ingenious camera accessories as well.
Fortunately for us, the Lens Flipper by Go Wing -- a double sided mount accessory that makes carrying and swapping lenses super quick and easy -- fits into the latter category.
So it has been an amazing run. I owe a lot to my 'rooftopping' adventures. I've sold prints, had gallery shows, been on TV, in magazines, on the front page of the Toronto Star, and most importantly the rest of my work got more attention as a by-product of it. People really seemed interested - they liked these types of images and the attention was nice. It is hard to turn away the likes and faves. It was addicting to an insecure photographer just starting a new career in photography. Rooftopping was my security blanket.
As of this last Monday, photographer James Simmons can officially call himself Australia's best professional photographer. A wedding photographer by trade, he's joined distinguished ranks as this year's Canon AIPP Australian Professional Photographer of the Year and earned himself some viral fame in the process.
Spanish creative agency Txaber has taken the art of craft beer brewing to its hipster epitome by using the Pantone Color Matching System to match the packaging of the beer with the equivalent Pantone Color.
Details on the matter are scarce, but Ricoh’s European Product Manager Laurence Bouly has officially confirmed in an interview that Pentax is hard at work developing a full-frame DSLR, even going so far as to pull the curtains off two FF lenses at Photokina.
Photographer Suren Manvelyan is back with more of the types of images that he's made his name capturing. Namely: intense macro photographs of the strange shapes and landscapes found in animals' eyes.
In 2011 we shared part one, in 2013 part two, and now we get to share part three: a fishy exploration into the eyes of animals that spend much or all of their time underwater... and an owlet.
Talk of Canon dropping a bomb on the megapixel war with a high-MP DSLR is nothing new, but several rumor sites are now reporting on the possibility of a 46MP pro Canon DSLR next month at PhotoPlus in New York City. Take THAT Nikon and your measly 36 megapixels.
If you've ever needed to deal with photos shot with multiple cameras at the same event, you've probably found how important the clocks on the cameras are for keeping the resulting photos neat and orderly. If timestamps are off, then figuring out when photos were captured in relation to each other can be a pain.
One way you can make sure the clocks on your cameras are perfectly synchronized is by automatically synchronizing them to your computer.
This video is a "then-and-now" comparison showing the Dutch city of Alkmaar in 1914 and in 2014. It was created by Dutch photographer Frits de Beer, Tara Rikkers and Michael de Vreugd, Alkmaar natives who wanted to see how his city had changed over the past 100 years.
Update on 3/15/17: Here's a statement provided to PetaPixel by Peak Design regarding the issue reported in this article:
The product issue described in this article was limited to a single batch of products sent out to a subset of Peak Design's Kickstarter backers in October, 2014. Upon discovering this defect Peak Design immediately halted production until they fixed the manufacturing error. No defective units ever hit retail shelves or peakdesign.com. Peak Design offered their Kickstarter backers free replacement straps, as well as a DIY fix-it-kit.
When you're in the business of keeping photographers' cameras secure and safe, having your product fail can lead to disastrous results. This past weekend, San Francisco photo gear company Peak Design sent out an email to some customers warning them about a newly-discovered issue with their straps.
Apparently a small percentage of straps have a component that can disengage without the photographer wanting it to, potentially leading to dropped cameras.
Salar de Uyuni is a gigantic salt flat found in southwest Bolivia. Measuring over 4,000 square miles (10,000+ square km), it's the world's largest salt flat. The ground is especially flat and white, and is often used to calibrate instruments on satellites due to its properties.
Japanese photographer Asako Shimizu visited and captured images of this location for a project titled On Her Skin. It's a series of 9 square photographs showing how the flat blurs the distinction between heaven and Earth.
Cynthia Breazeal envisions a world in which every family has its own personal robot helping out at home -- one that can help out around the house, and even help take photographs when needed. To turn this idea into a reality, the MIT robotics professor has created a robot called JIBO.
The robot has already become a top 5 most funded campaign on Indiegogo after raising over $2.2 million from over 5,500 supporters.
The Aurora Borealis (AKA Northern Lights) often makes an appearance in time-lapse videos of the night sky, but have you ever seen what it looks like in real time? That's what Korean astrophotographer Kwon O Chul was able to capture in the video above.
So you think the Lion is the king of the jungle, eh? Well, the large-spotted genet, a catlike creature found in the wilds of Africa, might have reason to dispute that after a wildlife camera caught one of the little animals using buffalo and white rhinos as its own personal Uber service.
Phase One is making the most of Photokina by announcing a complete overhaul to its popular Capture One Pro software. Now on version 8.0, the updated program not only improves upon its former self, but also looks to squeeze in more of the market share by enticing ex-Aperture users who are looking for simple migration to a semi-familiar interface.
If you haven't smiled yet today, you're about to. That's because photographer Seth Casteel -- the man behind the NY Times bestseller and viral sensation Underwater Dogs -- is back with another installment of his series that promises to be even more adorable than the first.
How could this possibly be, you ask? Well, for this second iteration, Casteel taught 1,500 puppies how to swim, making the resulting photo book so squee-inducing you might just explode from all the cuteness.
Last week we got an email from photographer Damian Battinelli that really piqued our interest. He told us that he and five of his friends had, in a moment of drunken brilliance in a Las Vegas casino, come up with a fantastic idea for a new online reality show that would pit photographer against photographer in a series of fun photo challenges with a twist.
Thus was born Photo Throwdown, a photography show that just aired the very entertaining and exciting 'part one' of its first episode today!
We’ve showcased glitch photography before, both purposeful and accidental. Blurring the lines between science and art, glitch photography is often like a fingerprint, with each image being unique.
Today we have for you an awesome collection of these photographic fingerprints by artist and freelance photographer Sabato Visconti.
One day the stories of photographers being hit or nearly hit by trains while taking photos on the tracks will become so prevalent that people just stop doing it altogether, but today is not that day. Just this last weekend another unidentified photographer and the newlyweds he or she was photographing had an uncomfortably close call.
Say hello to the Canon M4 D Mark II, the assault camera that shoots 10 shots per second and is equipped with a 100-400mm scope. The barrel is able to extend and retract, and offers stabilization features while in use.
This funny little arrangement was created by French photography studio KOEphotography and shared on its Facebook page.
Update: Dropbox has contacted us to let us know that the issue has been fixed!
Dropbox users waiting anxiously for iOS 8 to drop so they can take advantage of all the cool new features like manual controls and a more robust photo experience take note: your automatic backup will be temporarily shut off once you update to the new OS and download the newest version of the Dropbox app.
ProCam 2 is out and ready for download today alongside iOS 8, and it has the distinction of being the first camera app to utilize the full manual controls Apple opened up to developers in iOS. And while the interface might be a doozy for some, it packs quite the punch in a little package.
In this tutorial I’ll show you how I use a standard 50mm prime lens to make medium format sized astrophotos with a regular small format camera.
The Panasonic CM1 smartphone with its 1-inch sensor and super-fast Leica lens might not be available outside of a few European countries any time soon, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can't have a supercharged smartphone camera.
Enter Relonch: an iPhone case that adds a much larger APS-C sensor and fast f/2.0 lens to any iPhone 5 or 6.
Photographer Brandon Stanton has one of the most popular photo projects going on right now in Humans of New York (HONY). Millions of people follow him through his site and through social media, and his photo book instantly became a #1 New York Times bestseller after it was published.
At Photokina 2014, Sony is a showing off its new autofocus technology called "4D Focus." It's an AF system that blankets the scene with a wide coverage area and can rapidly focus on subjects while predicting their movements over time.
Say hello to 4K video recording with the iPhone... but first you'll need a 5S model and a cool $999. That's how much you'll need to pay in the App Store to purchase Vizzywig 4K, which touts itself as the world's first mobile app that lets you capture, edit, and distribute 4K video.
French photographer Alexandre Bonnefoy traveled to Japan in search of "urban wildlife photographs." He ended up creating a series of photographs showing the stray cats found in the alleyways of various cities.
Conflict photographer Ashley Gilbertson was recently sent into a very different war zone by TIME. Instead of capturing images of human versus human conflict in real life, Gilbertson was told to document the main characters in the video game The Last of Us Remastered.
After releasing a total of 6 cameras, both digital and analog, at Photokina today, Leica would have been remiss to leave us without a few new pieces of glass. Don’t worry though, they’ve delivered in the form of six all-new lenses and two old lenses that have received a metallic makeover.
As much as Photokina is about cameras, lenses and accessories, camera companies are certainly not limited to these things where the trade show is concerned. Leica proved that today with their new online platform, Leica Fotopark.
Today has been all Leica at Photokina, and we're not even done yet. Beyond the new big guns in the S-series, the LCD-less digital rangefinder and the all-mechanical M-A film rangefinder, Leica also improved its compact camera lineup with a number of new additions.
Specifically, they announced the Leica X, Leica X-E, Leica D-LUX and Leica V-LUX.
A photo of a previously-patented ultra-wide angle zoom lens leaked online earlier today, and it has the Canon faithful all atwitter in the hopes that the leaked image is indeed the real thing and not just some hoax playing on their hopes and dreams.
Rafael Mantesso's dog, an adorable bull terrier named Jimmy Choo, is taking the Internet by storm today after Mantesso's creative Instagram photos of Jimmy caught the attention of the world at large.
An artist and editor, Mantesso draws, dresses and otherwise inserts an unbelievably cooperative Jimmy into countless fun adventures on his Instagram account -- from a screaming vocal performance, to a day spent with troublemaking cartoon duo Calvin and Hobbes.
The long-awaited Polaroid 'Socialmatic' -- a square camera that looks like the Instagram app logo (which was, of course, inspired by a Polaroid camera in the first place) -- is one step closer to an official release. And now that Polaroid brought some prototypes with them to Photokina, the unwieldy digital instant camera is starting to look more and more like a potential flop.
Looking to make its medium format S-series lineup a bit more robust, Leica unveiled two new S-series camera bodies and a new S-series lens at Photokina this morning. The two cameras are the ‘entry-level’ CCD-sensor Leica S-E (Type 006) and the ‘top-end’ 4K-capable CMOS-sensor Leica S (Type 007), and they're joined by the Summicron-S 100mm f/2 lens.
It looks like Sony started something with its QX-series lens cameras. Olympus, with some help from MIT, is jumping on the bandwagon at Photokina where they've debuted a Micro Four Thirds interchangeable lens module that is meant to connect up with your smartphone and tablet and be used much the same way the QX cameras are.
If removing the LCD from a digital rangefinder just isn't retro enough for you, Leica has something that even the most adamant of purists won't be able to dog. Dubbed the Leica M-A (Typ 127), this all-new film rangefinder is 100% mechanical: no built-in light meter, no electronic control, this beauty doesn't even take batteries.
60 years ago, in 1954, the very first M-Series rangefinder made its debut, and Leica has decided to celebrate this occasion by releasing a digital rangefinder that is as close to that original M3 as possible. So say goodbye to the LCD screen and embark on a journey back to the 'essence of photography' with the Leica M Edition 60.
The "Internet of Things" is likely what the future holds, but it's a future that has it share of security concerns. As more and more devices are making their way online, hackers will have newer points of entry into our lives.
Case in point: a security researcher has shown that Canon Pixma printers can be hacked to run custom code. As an example, he loaded the game Doom onto the printer.
Wanting to recognize some of the most talented young photographers in its community, Flickr today announced 20under20, an annual award that honors 20 of the "world’s most extraordinary young photographers on Flickr."
Duct tape can often be a photographer's best friend. Cable management can often be a nightmare. The two don't naturally combine very well though, since duct tape can leave sticky reside on your cords after its removed.
If you ever need to wrap up cables and don't have any twist- or zip-ties on hand, here's how you can use duct tape to wrap cables without the cables getting sticky.
"One selfie per day" projects require a great deal of commitment but aren't exactly novel these days -- everyone and their mother seems to have hopped onboard the bandwagon after Noah Kalina's everyday project went viral.
Still, there are still the select few that stand out from among the rest. One of them is the video above, which shows 8 years of a young man's life in continuous stop-motion.
Whether you're looking for ridiculous reach or social-friendly, strangely-shaped cameras, Canon's got you covered today with the last of its camera announcements from Photokina. Not as exciting as the Sony-competitor G7 X or the long-awaited 7D Mark II, the two other point-and-shoots Canon debuted are nevertheless interesting additions to the family.
We've said it before and we'll say it again, one of the major downsides of the exceptional Sony A7, A7r and A7s full-frame mirrorless cameras is the lack of native lenses, but Sony and ZEISS are working hard to remedy that.
Just last week ZEISS debuted the Loxia line of FE lenses, and today Sony introduced a brand new wide-angle lens and teased several primes at Photokina.
Olympus wants pros to seriously consider the company's flagship OM-D E-M1 as their primary shooter, and the new silver version of the powerful camera, the major firmware version 2.0 that shipped with it, and the brand new 40-150mm f/2.8 lens make that abundantly clear.
The last of Panasonic’s camera announcements from the Photokina floor today is a second member of its super compact GM lineup of system cameras, the Lumix DMC-GM5, which was accompanied by two new GM-series lenses for good measure.
