DL Cade

A fashion photographer's job is, at its most basic level, to draw attention to the clothes he or she has been asked to photograph. But how does one make their fashion shots stand out when there are so many more out there, often bookending your own shoot inside the very magazine you're featured in?

Montreal-based photographer Martin Tremblay (also known as Pinch) figured out a way to turn fashion photography on its head... he literally turned it on its head!

Christmas is exactly ten days away, which means parents have a little over one week left to frantically drag their screaming children to the local mall or holiday venue to sit on Santa's lap for that traditional picture. But where most parents would do this for a few years until their kids inevitably grow out of it, a pair of brothers decided they would keep the tradition going... for 34 years.

There are selfies, and then there are self-portraits. Make no mistake, these are two very different things, in the same way that a photograph differentiates itself from a snapshot. So while the word 'selfie' might be in the midst of experiencing its 15 minutes of fame, it would be an injustice to call photographer Kyle Thompson's gripping self-portraits 'selfies.'

Okay, there just HAS to be a Polaroid lover and/or hipster on your Christmas list that would absolutely lose it if they unwrapped the Polaroll on December 25th. What is the Polaroll, you ask? It's a toilet paper roll dispenser that is shaped like a Polaroid SX-70 One Step White/Rainbow camera.

In a world dominated by too many photos and too little photography, one of the pieces of advice we stumble across fairly often from masters of this craft is to simply "slow down." Andy Romanoff is one such master, and his project "Seeing the PDC" -- for which he spent 6 months photographing the Pacific Design Center in LA -- is a testament to slowing down and really seeing what it is you're trying to capture.

This was NOT a good week for moronic criminals with access to Instagram. After posting a bunch of ill-advised selfies on the photo sharing site, a Florida teenager now finds himself behind bars and facing 142 felony counts thanks to his oversharing habit.

We're not entirely sure if this is the first of its kind, but this surreal stop motion animation is definitely the first we've run into that was shot entirely on Google Glass. Yep folks, the future is here, and it's reaching into the past for its animation techniques.

Every time we decide to post something about Instagram, we go through a bit of an internal dilemma. On the one hand, it's the most popular photo sharing app in the world, and many photographers have used it to great effect -- for those reasons alone we can't exactly ignore it. On the other hand, a solid percentage, perhaps even a majority, of you guys hate the app with a passion that defies our collective vocabulary to describe.

Michael Shainblum is a name that has come up a few times on PetaPixel, and it's always associated with a spectacular time-lapse that earns many a "beautifully done" and even the occasional "hot damn." And now, thanks to The Creators Project, we get to go behind the scenes with Shainblum as he creates one of his masterpieces.

Photoshop takes a lot of flack in this day and age, especially when it comes to the beauty and fashion industries that consistently publish overly manipulated imagery. Often that 'flack' doesn't give us much to laugh at, but a recent project by East Carolina University student Anna Hill does.

She put together four mock Photoshop ads that poke fun at just how far the beauty industry often takes photo manipulation.

Speed freaks (at least where lenses are concerned) who love their mirrorless camera get ready to celebrate, because there's a new super-fast lens on the market that is claiming the title of "fastest lens in the world for mirrorless systems" -- the Ibelux 40mm f/0.85.

Update: Looks like the discount is gone folks! This puppy is back up to $12,000.

Those looking to drop several grand on a 35mm film camera for your favorite purist this Holiday season need look no more. Introducing the Nikon FA Gold limited edition camera: a 24k gold-plated camera with lizard skin accents that is currently going on eBay for the relatively low price of $4,800.

To clarify, when we say "relatively low," we mean relative to what you would have spent on the same camera yesterday when it was listed for a whopping $12,000.

We love a good Mars panorama -- be it a this selfie panorama by Curiosity or this gorgeous mountain-top shot by Opportunity -- and now we have another one for you that is, arguably, the best of them.

What's that? The ZEISS 55mm f/1.4 Otus haunts your dreams when it's not keeping you up wondering how you're going to sell a kidney on the black market to afford it? Well then, you might want to ignore this post, because there's another Otus confirmed for 2014!

We love a good photo series that can put a smile on our faces, and when those photos are also being taken for a good cause, well, we really couldn't ask for more. Such is the case with the 2014 NYC Taxi Drivers Calendar.

Today was the day of the mystery Instagram event that had many a tech site speculating about what the Facebook-owned image sharing giant would announce. A couple of sources were close, but there's no longer any need to speculate because Instagram has let the cat out of the bag, and that cat's name is Instagram Direct.

Already live as I write this, Instagram Direct is a new service that will allow users to send direct messages complete with text and either photos or videos to a select group of people, rather than sharing them with your entire follower base.

While cover a fast food workers strike at the National Air and Space Museum last week, photographer Kristoffer Tripplaar was forcefully brought down by no less than three security guards when he accidentally bumped into one of them in an attempt to protect his equipment.

Who says you need to travel to exotic locations to capture the aurora borealis in action? Sometimes, all you need is a window seat on a trans-Atlantic flight from London to NYC -- at least that's what happened for one lucky amateur photographer recently when he was treated to one heck of an 'in-flight movie' right outside his airplane window.

The tech world is full of 'wars,' all of them over the attention of that flighty creature known as 'the consumer.' And one of the wars being raged most furiously is between the major social networks: the established behemoths Facebook, Instagram and Twitter; that stubborn network loved by photogs, Google+; and the new kid on the block that has everybody's undergarments in a bunch: Snapchat.

Well, Facebook has had its go at stealing some of Snapchat's market (both literally and through acquisition) and has been ultimately unsuccessful on all counts. Now it's Twitter's turn.

Light-painting, like time-lapse, is a genre of photography that is packed full of talent, making it really hard to pick quality work to feature (if you haven't already, check out this list of 10 amazing light-painting photogs you should follow right away).

We were thrilled, therefore, when we stumbled across Nicolas Rivals' series of steel wool light painting Rorschach tests dubbed, simply enough, Light Rorchach.

If you've followed PetaPixel even just the last month, you might have noticed that Adobe extended its Photoshop Photography Program (also referred to as the Photography Bundle) to people regardless of whether or not they own a previous version of Photoshop not once, not twice, but three times.

That is: this special promotion that allowed everyone to sign up was supposed to end on the 2nd... then on the 8th... and now is extended all the way to the end of the year. And while our you guys have come up with all manner of reasons in the comments as to why Adobe might be doing this, a new survey reveals the real reason: it's working really well.

Those with delicate constitutions where the destruction of photography gear is concerned should look away or skip over this one. Whatever you do, don't press play on the video above... or if you do press play, don't watch past about the 3:50 mark, because that's when things get ugly.

It's been a little while since we've seen fit to report on a rumor. Most of what has passed through the rumor mill of late has either not been significant enough, or only worth linking out to. This news, however, caught our eye: it seems Sony is working on a 'non-Bayer' sensor that might appear in cameras as early as late 2015.

Last week, a video showing how a hyper-realistic iPad finger-painting of Morgan Freeman (inspired by this portrait by photographer Scott Gries) came together made the viral rounds faster than most. It had already earned its first million hits in the first 12 hours, and currently sits at almost 11.25 million.

It seems the Nikon engineers had some tricks up their sleeves when they put the D4 sensor inside the new Nikon Df, because while the sensor earned identical scores to the D4 in almost every category when DxOMark put it through its paces, the Df actually BEAT the D4 in the "low-light ISO" category.

But more than that, it beat EVERYBODY in that category, narrowly edging out the previous champion D3s to claim the number one low-light spot among DxOMark's rankings.

If you haven't heard of celebrity photographer Matt Hoyle's photo book Comic Genius: Portraits of Funny People, then you're in for a treat. We're talking about a book full of hilarious portraits of hilarious people that is being sold for a good cause... what more could you want?

Nikon recently released a firmware update for its D3100, D3200, D5100, D5200, and P7700 cameras that maximized battery performance and allowed the camera to more accurately tell you how much charge you have left. But it seems there was an unintended (or maybe not so unintended) side-effect: third party batteries no longer work.

If we start a post off by telling you that "the stop motion video above consists of 8,000 frames taken on an iPhone," you'd probably assume it was some small-time filmmaker or hobbyist that put it together, and most of the time you'd be right.

In this case, however, you'd be dead wrong. Because that's exactly how musicians LeAnn Rimes, Rob Thomas, and Jeff Beck decided to film the music video for their most recent collaboration, a song called "Gasoline and Matches."

Okay, this video doesn't necessarily have much to do with photography, but we could think of no better way to wake you up on a Monday morning than by sharing this gorgeous footage of creamer being poured into a cup of coffee at 2,000 frames per second.

We introduced you to F-Stop Gear's 'Life in Focus' miniseries when it first debuted back in April. Since then, eight more inspirational episodes of the series have aired, and since we neglected to share them one by one over the last eight months, we thought we'd share them all here as a sort of motivational kick in the pants to end the year on.

The key to creating a good photo-based service is to fill a need that isn't being filled by any other app or website -- a task increasingly difficult as more and more players enter the market. Still, once in a while someone stumbles on an idea that is just the right mix of concepts to create a service really worth your while, and Exposure seems to be just that.

A portrait is a powerful thing. Programs like Help Portrait -- which is dedicated to spreading joy, inspiration and hope by taking portraits of people who have never had one taken before -- are easy proof of this. But just in case you find yourself in need of more proof, the If Only for a Second portrait project is here to provide it.

This is, as they say, an oldie but goodie. Put together all the way back in 2009, this self-portrait time-lapse chronicles one man's journey walking almost all the way across China on his way to Germany. A journey as much about the physical challenge as it was about self-discovery.

There are a lot of photo book makers out there -- even Flicker joined the fray not too long ago -- but one company that we've been really impressed with ever since it debuted is Mosaic, and now, Android users can take advantage of the service as well!

It seems LEGOs are quite the muse for many a photo enthusiast, whether they're shooting creative dioramas or cool 'action' scenes. But one type of photography where LEGOs come in particularly handy is stop-motion, and if you don't believe us, check out the video above by Bricktease founder Duncan McConchie.

It's getting harder and harder for photographers who shoot time-lapse to get our attention. You see, they're getting too darn good, and so gorgeous time-lapse after gorgeous time-lapse makes its way across our computer screens forcing us to be very picky.

That said, veteran time-lapse photographer Andrew Walker's recently released "Journey Part 1" time-lapse had no issue getting our approval, because it's absolutely, unequivocally breathtaking.

Although it can't compare to a quality camera, it's hard to deny that the iPhone is capable -- after all, we've seen NY Times cover photos, fashion shoots and even a professional portrait taken using an iPhone as the camera of choice.

We've seen some pretty terrifying stuff captured on action camera before, but this one ties with the skydivers who got hurled into empty space when their planes collided. It was uploaded by a BASE jumper who, on November 24th, took a leap that was almost his last.

Some of the most extraordinary photography we've run across was created by folks who use little to no Photoshop while capturing incredible photos that seem impossible without some manipulation. A great example of this kind of work is Kirsty Mitchell's series Wonderland, where all of the costumes and props are painstakingly put together by hand.

Korean artist Lee JeeYoung, however, takes it to the next level. Not only does she eschew digital manipulation entirely, but all of the fantasy worlds she creates have to fit inside her 360 x 410 x 240 cm studio (approximately 12 x 13.5 x 8 feet).

A couple of weeks ago, we told you that Adobe was extending its special $10/month Photoshop Photography Program (better known around these parts as the 'Photography Bundle') to everybody, even if they didn't own a previous copy of Photoshop.

That deal was supposed to end on December 2nd but, thanks to widespread positive response from photographers, they've decided to extend the deadline to December 8th!

The Polaroid iM1836 has had a rough go of it since it first burst onto the scene at last year's CES. Nobody seemed to think the camera was anything to write home about, and its similarity to Nikon's 1-Series cameras was undeniable.

So undeniable, in fact, that earlier this year, Nikon filed a lawsuit to try to get the iM1836 pulled from the shelves. Yesterday, they succeeded.

In case you haven't noticed, we're fans of quirky camera-themed products that put gear to creative use. Be it a lamp made out of un-fixable retro cameras or a humidifier disguised as a lens, we just like that sort of thing. Phlite, therefore, is right up our alley.

Called crazy or awesome (and sometimes crazy AND awesome... or crazy awesome) depending on who you ask, Phlite transforms your gear into a camera-themed desk, table or floor lamp in seconds, so you can enjoy your gear even when you're not out shooting with it.

Sometimes inspiration strikes when you're out in the wild, climbing mountains and taking in breathtaking vistas. Other times, it happens when you're looking after your 7-year-old daughter and playing LEGOs. You can probably guess how photographer Jeff Friesen's 50 States of LEGO series came about.

Once in a while, you wake up in the morning with problems on your mind (or in your Inbox) and immediately start your day in a funk, focused on those problems. It's these mornings that benefit most from some perspective-giving imagery, and perhaps nothing puts our tiny Earth-bound problems in perspective quite as decisively as photographs taken from the International Space Station.

The time-lapses you see above and below will do just that, and do it in spectacular fashion as you fly over the Earth feeling a bit like Superman trying to turn back time (oh, I'm sorry, is my Nerd showing?)

PRO Photographer magazine just released an app that it's calling "a new media hub for the connected photographer." More specifically: it's an iPad, iPhone and Android phone app that, for the first time, brings together premium magazine content and live, curated news feeds under one digital roof.

The ability to pull photos out of your camera and onto your computer wirelessly is an incredibly useful tool that many photographers use, but what if you could pull those photos instantly into Lightroom right there on-location? Well, it turns out you can, and it's not all that complicated either.

Swiss photographer and artist Fabian Oefner calls his Disintegrating series of exploded car photographs 'possibly the slowest high-speed images ever taken."

One of the most recent videos to go extremely viral over the past several days involves a behind the scenes look at how a portrait of Morgan Freeman came together... and when we say came together, we mean created from scratch on an iPad by finger-painting!

Stunning, breathtaking, Oh Em Gee, however you want to put it, the photos in this post are incredible to look at and incredibly difficult to capture. Not because it takes any crazy skills to properly photograph the Grand Canyon, but because the atmospheric conditions necessary to make these photos possible happens only about once per decade!

When it comes to photo apps, VSCO Cam is one that stands out from the myriad other options out there. But, up until now, only iOS users could enjoy the app that calls itself "the standard of mobile photography." All of that changes today with the release of VSCO Cam for Android.