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RRRRRRRROLL_gif is a project by a group of friends in Japan that comes together to create two cinemagraphs each week. The images feature people and objects rotating around a single axis.

Capturing photos of our Olympic and Paralympic athletes is an important job that no photographer takes lightly -- after all, we've all seen the kind of firestorm that can result from not doing it well. So when Benjamin Von Wong had the opportunity to photograph Olympic Para Dressage Rider Natasha Baker, he made sure to do it right.

A computer error at the San Diego fireworks show last week led to an 18-minute show being condensed into 15 seconds... and also some pretty crazy firework photos. YouTube user danwroy was sitting across the water from the launch area, and used a Canon 60D to capture this crazy video showing what the spectacle looked like to those with front row seats (you might want to turn your volume down). So this is what firework shows look like to cameras with their shutters left open...

An interesting headline spotted over at Yahoo News: "More Americans Becoming Serious Photographers". In the article, analyst Chris Chute of research firm IDC says that more people in the US are identifying themselves as "enthusiasts": …

Young artist Scott Blake's article about his altercation with photographer and painter Chuck Close starts with a simple question: "When one of the world’s richest living artists orders you to stop making art, you do it. Or do you?" It's been two years since Close, who is referred to in the article as "the wealthy bully," put a stop to Blake's Chuck Close Photoshop plug-in by threatening a lawsuit, and Blake still hasn't managed to put what he sees as the injustice of the whole situation …

For his project titled Back Yard, Japanese photographer Daisuke Yokota applied the musical ideas of echo, delay, and reverb to photography by shooting, developing, printing, and re-photographing the same image over and over. In an interview with American Photo, he states, …

One of the most difficult things I found at the beginning of my professional career was discussing money. I’d happily accept anything that came my way and was pretty short-sighted at the implications it had, not only for myself but the local working community and the economics around that.

The photograph you see above isn't the result of Photoshop or infrared photography. Captured by Spanish photographer Palíndromo Mészáros, it shows what the landscape of Ajka, Hungary looked like half a year after the Ajka alumina plant accident -- an industrial disaster in which 35 million cubic feet of toxic waste flooded the land to a height of around 6.5 feet. Mészáros lined up the thick red line caused by the sludge with the horizon line to obtain this surreal image.

Up until now, all rumors regarding Canon's upcoming mirrorless offering (which is expected to be announced officially at a special July 23rd event) have pointed towards it housing the same sensor found in the company's capable G1 X compact. This was said to be the case because another, more capable mirrorless offering has been in the works for Photokina. New rumors, however, seem to indicate that, while there is a prototype out there of a Canon mirrorless with a G1 X sensor, the official …

A week ago we showed you a patent and reported on a well-established rumor that Nikon was on the verge of announcing an 800mm focal length lens, which would rank as the longest in its lineup since their last 800mm was discontinued in 2005. Today, that rumor became a reality when Nikon officially put up a press release announcing that development of the new FX, VR lens is indeed in the works, and that lucky attendees will get to see a display model at both The Open Championships golf tournament …

German photographer Falk Lumo has an interesting post on his blog regarding full frame and crop sensors. His theory is that camera manufacturers have created an artificial barrier between the two sensor sizes for business reasons, and that we'll soon be seeing big changes in the camera world as this barrier disappears: …

LZRTAG is a free Android app that lets you generate QR codes associated with uploaded images -- mostly animated .gif images. The codes can be printed out and placed on walls and other surfaces. When scanned with the Android app, the codes call up the associated image and display it in an augmented reality on your phone.

As you already know, we're pretty obsessed with Polaroids, and all the creative photography we can get our hands on. This tutorial will teach you how to make a pop-up Polaroid camera card that "prints" out a miniature Polaroid picture.

Up until now XQD cards have had a bit of a tough time getting off the ground. With only one compatible camera option in the Nikon D4, one manufacturer in Sony, and prices as large as the speeds they offer are impressive, people may have been starting to wonder if the format is here to stay. The answer, it seems, is yes -- due in large part to Lexar's newly announced interest in producing the cards by later this year.

Photographer David Nemcsik of Budapest, Hungary has a beautiful project titled the "Levitation Project" that features surreal images of people floating in midair in a lying up down position. The subjects are Nemcsik's friends, and the locations were picked by asking them this simple question: "where were you in your last dream?".

Photographers and designers alike salivate over a Wacom tablet on occasion, but more often than not the cons (in way of cost) outweigh the pros. The new addition to the Wacom family, however, comes with a few more bells and whistles to tempt those with some disposable income and an itchy wallet finger -- and they call it the 24HD Touch.

My mind is a strange and dangerous place. I shouldn’t go in there alone after dark. But the other night I was thinking, just me and myself, about all the new camera releases this year. Which had made the biggest impact? Was it the Canon 5D III with that world-class autofocus system? The Olympus OM-D bringing mirrorless cameras up a notch in image quality and usability? Should I mention the excellent Samsung NX20, just because no one knows it’s really good? Give the Fuji X-Pro an award for …

Randall Munroe over at XKCD posted this fascinating comic today that demonstrates some of the peculiarities of human vision. Roll up a piece of paper to set your eyes the correct distance from the screen, and then observe how they perceive things like detail, color, polarization, and more. Click the image above for the large version.

It's nearly impossible to find a photograph in China taken before 1970 -- most images were destroyed or removed to other countries during Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution.

Back in 2010, we shared a video showing Canon's 1200mm lens -- a giant piece of glass that has been called "The Mother of All Telephotos". If you thought that focal length was long, check out Nikon's 1200-1700mm f/5.6-8P lens. Nikon launched a prototype of the lens in 1990 for newspaper photographers covering baseball in Japan. The sample photos above show the lens' ridiculous reach. A standard 50mm FoV can be seen on the left, while the right photo shows what the same scene looks like at …

Pictures do a lot for humanity. They compress 1000 words into one simple photo, capture special moments and freeze them in time, put us back in touch with our history and, more recently, when 36.7-million of them are taken every second by one of the world's fastest cameras, pictures can also help cure cancer by catching it early. That last part is due to the brilliant minds in a lab at UCLA who have created what they are calling "The World's Fastest Camera."

Mexican photojournalist Julian Cardona has lived in Ciudad Juarez since 1960 and began documenting the city in the early 1990s as a photojournalist for the local newspaper, El Diario. He says he's seen Juarez shift from an idyllic postcard-worthy border town to the city known as the homicide capital of the world.

If you're human then you've probably looked at a portrait of yourself at some point and been dissatisfied for one specific reason or another. Most of the time, though, it just comes down to an unexplainable "I don't like it" or "I never look good in pictures" or, in extreme cases, a sound effect similar to gagging. But according to this short TED audition, the problem isn't with your expression or your looks, it's in your head.

Photographer Shawn Van Daele has launched a beautiful (and meaningful) photo project called "The Drawing Hope Project" in which he shoots magical photographs based on the drawings of children living with health conditions. The photo shoots take 1-2 hours, but combining the images in post-production takes up to 8.

We'll preface this by saying that this is very dangerous and if you choose to attempt it you do so at your own risk -- we don't recommend anyone try this at home. That being said, this is also one of the coolest "backyard" special effects we've ever seen, and one that would make for some kick-a photography backgrounds or slow-motion video.

What you see here is the first image ever uploaded to the World Wide Web. It's a graphic featuring a promo shot for comedy band Les Horribles Cernettes, and was uploaded almost exactly 20 years ago by Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web. Motherboard has the interesting story behind the photo: …

Niniane Kelley of PhotoboothSF -- the SF photo shop that still shoots tintype portraits -- shot a series of tiny tintype photographs using a 110 camera. The images are likely the world's first 110 tintypes, and the world's smallest tintypes as well (each one is about half the size of a standard 35mm frame).

Getting potential clients' attention in the world of photography can be a difficult task, but photographer Gordon Stettinius has been doing quite a good job at it. So good, in fact, that one studio owner asked him to "never send anything to them again. Ever." His secret? Sending bizarre studio portraits as a follow-up.

Alex Dainis of Boston first recorded herself lip-syncing the song "Aaron's Party" by Aaron Carter back when she was 17. Three years later she made another recording, and finally this year -- at the age of 23 -- she made a third. This resulting video, titled 17-20-23, shows her singing her heart out at all three ages. She writes, …

The University of California has agreed to dish out a $162,500 settlement to David Morse, a 43-year-old photographer who was arrested back in 2009 while covering a student protest.

Canon is sending out the above invitation for a press event on July 23rd (translation, anyone?). This date is when the company's first mirrorless camera(s) is expected to be unveiled. Here are the rumored specs of the new system: two cameras with G1 X-sized sensors offering 14 and 24 megapixels, EF compatibility using an adapter, EVF on at least one of the cameras, and 3-5 lenses initially. Mark your calendars -- it's coming.

The "Smashing Booth" is a contraption that shatters objects and snaps photographs at the moment of impact. It was created by designer Henrietta Jadin, who created it as part of a school project titled "Breaking Point." The wooden device catapults an object at the back wall of its box, and a photo is captured by an open shutter, sound sensor (made from an Arduino controller), and strobe.

Here's a top ten list, in no particular order, of Nikon movie roles! Often appearing as uncredited extras, these Nikon SLRs have been present at some of the greatest moments in movie history.

Vince Devlin over at the University of Montana has the fascinating story of how four UM photojournalism students snagged the first photos of Ted Kaczynski (AKA the "Unabomber") back in 1996, beating other media organizations and making the cover of Newsweek: …

Vancouver-based photographer Eszter Burghardt creates miniature landscapes using food (e.g. seeds, powders, milk) and wool, and then photographs them using a shallow depth of field. Her images show everything from volcanos to icebergs. The projects are titled "Edible Vistas" and "Wooly Sagas".

Here's a promotional/educational video by Canon that explains both how digital cameras work and how it manufactures them. Interesting fact: lenses are so precise that if they were to be enlarged to the size of a sports stadium, the margin of error would be less than the thickness of a business card.

While there are ample resources available on portfolios, websites, leave behinds and promotional materials, there’s one important subject that I’ve found little helpful information on: the photographer’s bio.

Here's a cool video that shrinks down the process of building a massive egg-shaped studio (also known as a "full egg cyclorama") down to about 3 minutes and 30 seconds. A cyclorama this size is used to photograph anything from multiple cars to full-sized busses or, in this case, an antique fire truck. And in case you wanna know the exact specs, the dimensions of this behemoth, built by The Good Egg Studio in Sydney, come out to 12m in width, 17m in length and 4.8m in height.

Want to add some custom tints to your photos without resorting to digital trickery? dainy over at Lomography has a tutorial on how you can create a simple color filter using some cardboard and colored transparency sheets. Combining thin strips of various colors can lead to pretty artsy effects.

There are plenty of stories out there of photographers allegedly being mistreated at the hands of the police; unfortunately, this mistreatment often includes the destruction of any evidence of the altercation. But the New Jersey ACLU is hoping that their new Police Tape app helps people more discretely record these interactions for future use in court.

Postrgram is a new service that turns your Instagram and/or Flickr photo collections into photomosaics, or giant photos composed of tiny photos. The process involves a few simple steps: tell the service your username (make sure you have at least 50 photos in your stream), specify the image you'd like as the main image, and the rest is taken care of.

For the past two years, 37-year-old photographer Tou Chih-kang has been capturing the last moments of dogs at Taoyuan Animal Shelter in Taiwan. His roughly 400 portraits show the dogs -- most of them abandoned by their owners -- moments before they're put to sleep. His mission is to raise awareness and encourage responsibility among pet owners: …

After scorching over 18,000 acres and burning down 346 homes, the Waldo Canyon fire near and around Colorado Springs, CO has left scars that are both literal and metaphorical in nature. And while it would be impossible to capture an image of the metaphorical scarring left by the most destructive fire in Colorado history, NASA's Terra Satellite was able to get this false color image (which includes both visible and infrared light) showing the very literal scar the fire left in its wake.

Unlike most photographers, I hate my camera. I have read hundreds of stories on the Internet in which photographers argue about which cameras are the best and why. There are stories trying to prove that Canon is better than Nikon, or that 4x5 film is better than medium format digital. Camera review websites show scientific-style photographs displaying how much detail they have captured in a dollar bill, or pictures of color checkers and skin tones. They will also show “real-world” and …

Inspired by his father's obsession with adding new shelves to walls, photographer and furniture design student Darragh Casey decided to shoot some family portraits that featured family members themselves shelved alongside some of their prized possessions. His project spans three generations of his family and is titled "Shelving the Body".

There's good news coming out of the Nokia camp if you live in the US and you've been wanting to get your hands on the 41-megapixel camera in the company's 808 PureView smartphone. Not only is the 808 itself now available to purchase on Amazon unsubsidized for $699, but the camera technology inside it may soon be available without the hefty price tag.

Orrin Hastings spent three months creating this stop-motion music video for the song "This Man's Brighter Days" by abe&tell. He roamed the streets of Sydney asking 500+ girls to hold up an iPad containing one still frame extracted from a video. Played back, the stop motion contains a video-within-a-video. The concept is very similar to the J.Views video we shared a couple months back, except that one used actual prints.

U.S. Army soldier Alex Jansen is currently stationed in Afghanistan, and besides taking some great shots and posting them up on the Pentax forums, he also put together this video illustrating one of the reasons Pentax owners love their cameras: the dust and weather sealing.

If you keep up with the world of photography, chances are you have at one point or another read The British Journal of Photography; if it's one of your main reads you may even have their popular iPad app. And now you've been given a smaller, more portable option, because the magazine has officially released its first iPhone app, an app that the creators say will "change your expectations about how a magazine should look on an iPhone."

It doesn't look like Canon's T4i can catch a break lately. Just days after issuing a somewhat entertaining product advisory explaining why some Canon T4is were showing up as EOS Kiss X6is in EXIF data, Canon has had to issue yet another. This one, like the last, only affects certain serial numbers -- in this case those with "1" as the sixth digit (e.g. xxxxx1xxxxxx) -- but unlike the last, it could potentially be both harmful and aesthetically upsetting.