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Cool use of social media in the US to crowdsource imagery and monitor recovery from fire #morganfire02 pic.twitter.com/Zy952bzz9k

— Shiny Red (@Shiny_Red) May 20, 2014

Hashtags are nothing more than a novelty byproduct of the 21st century, right? Wrong. At least that's the case in the minds of the scientists behind a new project that takes advantage of photography, hashtags and social media to help crowdsource a time-lapse documentation of fire damage recovery.

Leica recently decided to bring its photography heritage to the world of timekeeping by making an extremely limited edition watch.

Of course, Leica doesn't know anything about the sublime art of watch making, and so the company reached out to independent Swiss watch maker Valbray, and commissioned the making of 100 pieces of the special edition “EL1 Chronograph” in celebration of Leica’s 100th anniversary.

This article was reprinted with express permission from Thomas O’Brien and …

Editor's Note: None of the images in this post are graphic, but the content and captions might be upsetting to some.

The realities revealed by photography are not always of the pleasant variety, because for all of the sunsets and kittens and weddings in the world -- all wonderful and worth capturing -- there is suffering and horror and pain that is just as worthy of our photographic attention.

Photographer Mariella Furrer has spent over a decade of her photographic career focusing on the latter, documenting the stories of the survivors and families of child sexual abuse in South Africa.

If you’re looking for a neat, photography-related DIY project to do this weekend, Canon has you covered. Shared on the Canon USA YouTube channel, the above video shows you how to make a custom epoxy resin coffee table in which you can show off your photography.

Here's a neat GoPro feature that you might not know about: the GoPro actually has a setting where you can take video and still photos simultaneously. No, we're not talking about pulling low-res stills out of video. We mean actually snapping high-res stills at an interval while shooting video.

Reprinted with special permission from Anne Almasy and …

Although not a note or word of his made it onto any records, photographer Jim Cummins’ work is on more albums than any musician in the business.

Jack Salzke from over on FadedFocus Photography worked with Leigh Diprose of Warehouse 100 to create this speed-retouching BTS of the process that went into creating an impressive Corona Extra advertisement.

Up until now, when exporting a RAW image from Lightroom to another program to work on, Lightroom first had to convert it to a JPEG or TIFF image. This effectively rendered shooting in RAW useless if you were wanting to do much outside editing on the images. Here to change that though is DxO with Optics Pro 9.5.

This is just crazy… It seems even the most standard subject — say, a first person view from the …

A couple of days ago, we shared a time-lapse of a Wyoming supercell forming that just blew us away. It was, however, an amateur production by storm chasers, and left something to be desired in way of technical time-lapse beauty. As one commenter put it, it wasn't so much "an incredible time-lapse of a supercell forming" as it was "a crappy time-lapse of an incredible supercell."

Well, if it's an incredible time-lapse of a supercell you want, it's incredible time-lapse of a supercell you'll get. In fact, we'll give you an incredible time-lapse of an incredible supercell.

Financial hard times from the slaughter of the compact camera market aren't limited to one company. And while we try to stay away from the gloom and doom news when possible, the news that Canon Australia's profits dropped almost 90 percent in 2013 compared to 2012 made us do a double take.

Check out this trippy video showing New York City sidewalks in Matrix-style "bullet time." It was created by filmmaker Paul Trillo, who partnered up with Microsoft to create a special camera rig consisting of 50 individual Nokia Lumia 1020 smartphones mounted to an arc.

The conversations that take place between photojournalists and their editors and/or writers can run the gamut between weird and hilarious. I’ve even had a few interesting ones myself, but never did I think to screencap them and share them as the creators behind the Tumblr Photo Editor Texts did.

Photographer Anastasia Pottinger's recent viral project began when she was offered up an interesting proposition for a photoshoot; one that was very different from what she normally photographs.

Usually, she shoots portraits of babies, young children and families. But this time, the Missouri native was offered the opportunity to photograph a 101-year old woman... nude.

Today, Google has announced a new set of features for its Google+ Photos for Android app. Two of the features included in the update are the ability to create animated GIFs from a collection of photos, as well as the ability to create a custom collage.

Promoting FujiFilm’s new X-T1, renowned photographer Zack Arias traveled around the mystical streets of Marrakech to highlight the camera’s capabilities, all the while sharing a plethora of fantastic street photography tips.

In a lawsuit filed this Monday, Ohio-based model Nicole Forni is seeking half a million dollars in damages from Columbus photographer Joshua Resnick after he sent photographs from a shoot they collaborated on to at least three dozen pornographic-oriented web outlets.

What can I say? What has been the best unexpected early birthday present you’ve ever gotten? For me, it happened last July when I got a call from Brad Smith, the Director of Photography at Sports Illustrated, asking me to shoot an assignment.

Almost five years in the making, the followup to Canon's 7D still hasn't become more than a rumor, making many wonder if a Mark II (or any new APS-C flagship) will ever arrive. Well, according to Canon Watch, the answer to that question is yes. And the answer to the following question 'when?' is Photokina, with some potential appearances at this year's FIFA World Cup.

When retouching skin on a subject, there’s a fine balance to strike between smoothing out a rough skin texture and keeping the skin looking natural. There are no shortage of ways to find this balance, but in the above tutorial Michael Woloszynowicz of Vibrant Shot shows us his method for achieving the desired results in an efficient and effective manner (something of a gift he has).

Lytro recently created a fascinating documentary to show off the capabilities of its new Illum camera.

By teaming up with five different photographers, all from different styles of work, the company was able to capture how this new approach to photography can be used to turn a photograph into something more... an experience.

There's a growing concern among many in the industry that photography is having a harder and harder time putting food on the table, but that certainly wasn't the case at one London pop-up restaurant last week where patrons were actually allowed to pay in hashtagged Instagram photos.

Update: The extension's creators have emailed us with some corrections, which have been applied throughout the post. See bottom for details.

RAW image files are wonderful in almost every regard. The problem is, viewing them requires software capable of reading the various formats RAW images take, none of which are easily accessible to the masses and all of which are tied to an application. But a new Google Chrome extension by FilePreviews.io is changing all that.

It looks like we have at least one major camera announcement to look forward to in June, courtesy of Nikon. According to Nikon Rumors, the followup to the popular D800/D800E DSLRs is set to arrive that month (NR is calling it the D800s), and there's even a spec list to throw at you in the meantime.

Photographer Alastair Bird recently came across a modified Polaroid camera that is capable of shooting 4x5 instant film. So, naturally, he put it to work!

As a the Senior Photo Editor at TakePart, Lauren Wade sees a lot of over-Photoshopped images of impossibly-proportioned models. And being as familiar as she is with the practice, she's surprised at the amount of retouching that people are ignorant of.

Looking to address the growing market of touch devices, Adobe today showed off a new, touch-friendly version of Photoshop CC at Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3 announcement. A touch iteration impressive simply because it doesn't cut corners or features on its way to touchscreen functionality.

This week is full of firsts from North Korea. Yesterday we shared what may be the first Google Glass coverage from inside the country, and today we have what is quite possibly the world’s first state-sanctioned city tour of Pyongyang, filmed using a GoPro Hero 3 camera.

At the ripe old age of 103, New Englander Conrad Heyer, a veteran of the American Revolution, sat down to have his portrait taken. Maybe he knew this at the time, or maybe he didn't, but the gruff, stern man staring defiantly out of the portrait above is believed to be the earliest born human ever photographed.

In their ongoing efforts to better organize and curate media, Google has announced the addition of Google+ Stories. Automatically pulling together media and data from photographs uploaded to Google+, Stories pieces together impressive chronological photo albums.

Reason number 14,526 why you should insure your gear: because a rowdy bunch of over-excited Croatian high school grads might just push you into a freezing fountain and destroy it all.

This might seem like an unlikely scenario (which is why it's so far down the list) but it actually happened earlier this month to one poor Croatian photojournalist, and the incident was caught on camera.

Instagram already boasts some high-profile names, but the community got a whole lot more impressive yesterday when none other than Google itself decided to finally joined up.

Many spectacular sports photos are captured by cameras that are being triggered from a ways away, as this allows for angles that would otherwise be dangerous -- for both the photographer and the athletes -- or outright impossible to capture. But have you ever wondered how these remote cameras are set up?

Well, if you have (or even if you haven't and are now intrigued) then professional sports photographer Brett Wilhelm has some answers for you in the form of a BTS/tutorial video that was shot on-location at the 2014 NCAA Final Four.

The story of GoPro's humble beginnings is an interesting one, and if you've not heard it we definitely suggest you click on this link and watch the video there before going on. But today's news isn't about those humble beginnings. It's about the meteoric heights to which the company has climbed.

Announced at market close yesterday, the former one-man surf camera operation and current action cam king has officially filed for a $100 million IPO.

If there was ever a time to use the term jaw-dropping, this might very well be it. Because while we've seen some amazing footage and even more amazing pictures of supercells and other spectacular weather phenomena, this (GoPro?) time-lapse by the storm chasers at Basehunters Chasing is really something to behold.

Sigma took a unique approach when it worked together with its sensor subsidiary, Foveon Inc., to build the newest version of Foveon sensor found in the DP Quattro camera.

Using technology that captures light simultaneously across three separate layers of sensors -- one each for blue, red, and green -- Sigma claims that, while smaller, the sensor is actually capable of out-resolving a 36-megapixel full frame sensor similar to those found in the Nikon D800E and Sony A7r.

NYC’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has officially made available 400,000 high-resolution digital images of the collections it currently has in its possession.

Hoping to keep up with other museums, the Metropolitan has created an initiative, called Open Access for Scholarly Content (OASC), that will “provide access to images of art in its collection that the Museum believes to be in the public domain.”

500px already 'changed the game,' or at the very least raised the bar, when the photo sharing site launched the 500px Prime licensing marketplace. Initially said to offer a 30% cut to photographers, they actually listened to feedback and flipped that number on its head before the final release. Now, those 500px users who want to license their work through 500px Prime make a 70% cut off the top.

But 500px is determined to keep shaking things up, which is why, today, they've decided to put some of the piles of social network data they have at their disposal to use and let clients search the service by gender preference. And this, they promise, is just the beginning.

While Google Glass user Kenny Zhu was in North Korea this past April, he took advantage of the small and comparatively inconspicuous size of the device on his head to snap what appear to be the first images taken in North Korea using the wearable tech.

The 9/11 Memorial Museum opens officially in two days. It is the final …

We're big fans of anybody who helps to stop gear theft, and so naturally, we've always been big fans of the free service Lenstag. Initially unproven, the service made its first recovery a couple of months ago, and as its database of registered gear expands, it can only get better.

But Lenstag isn't just resting on its laurels and waiting for that moment to come, content with what it has achieved. No, the service is branching out with an awesome new feature that will help you keep track of unauthorized use of your images as well!

Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Deanne Fitzmaurice sat down with Marc Silber on Advancing Your Photography recently to discuss how she approaches capturing life through a lens.

Although the battle between drone owners and the FAA carries on in terms of definitive laws and regulations, it looks like progress is being made. According to a report by Bloomberg, the FAA is looking to expedite the handing out of permits for owners of “low-risk” drones.

Wedding photography has grown exponentially over the past decade, and with that growth has come some new trends in weddings that weren’t nearly as prevalent before. One of these is the ‘first look,' the moment that the groom first sees the bride in her dress, and a moment that is quickly becoming a must-capture.

The above video, put together by B&H in collaboration with photographer Joe Buissink, shows just how to get the most out of this rising trend.

Is mirrorless medium format the next frontier? If you pay attention to the rumor mill, it sure seems like it is. Less than two months after rumors of a "completely different" Sony MF camera surfaced, Fuji is taking its turn as new and anonymous sources come forward to share bits and pieces of a potential mirrorless MF camera.

What happens when ‘the cloud’ gets personal? According to Kwelea Inc., you end up with MBLOK. Deemed “one memory for all devices,” MBLOK is a pocket-sized SSD with integrated Bluetooth technology that allows you to store and access data from up to 7 mobile devices, all on the go.

One of the basic Photoshop skills that many beginners want to learn early on is how to change something's color in one of their images (be that an object or someone's eye color). Well, you're in luck, because Aaron Nace and Phlearn are here with a simple tutorial that will show you how to do just that, and do it well.

It was the year 1974 when Jamaican reggae king Bob Marley met a young, 16-year old photographer by the name of Dennis Morris. Marley was enamored by Morris from the start, and their relationship quickly blossomed into a friendship which would last for many years to come.

The above video, titled “Bob Marley: Giant,” documents that friendship by sharing the story of Bob Marley's life through Morris' eyes and viewfinder.