Michael Zhang

Founder, Editor

Michael is a photography enthusiast, entrepreneur, and programmer based in Northern California near San Francisco. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with two degrees in computer science.

Articles by Michael Zhang

Storm Chaser Captures What It’s Like to Sit In the Middle of an EF4 Tornado

During the 2013 Moore tornado last week, a young man named Charles Gafford III stuck his cell phone through a hole in his storm shelter and captured close-up footage of the EF5 tornado as it passed by. If you thought that video was crazy, check out the footage above -- it shows what it's like to get hit directly by a massive EF4 tornado!

Black-and-White Photos That Capture the Feeling of Winter Mornings in Montreal

Lightly falling snow and rain, silent figures walking on sidewalks, a chilly breeze, and the quiet breeze. Those are some of the things captured by photographer Julien Coquentin for his project "Early Sunday Morning." Between 2010 and 2012, Coquentin shot photographs documenting the feeling of winter mornings in the city of Montreal, Canada.

Birth Photographer Captures Parking Lot Delivery on Camera, Photos Go Viral

Professional birth photography is a growing niche, as more and more expectant mothers are hiring photographers to document the first first few moments of their new child's life. Miami, Florida-based photographer Emily Robinson offers birth photography services, and is accustomed to photographing deliveries as they happen in hospitals and homes.

Handmade Diorama Maps Created Using Thousands of Printed Photos

What you see above is a "map" of Paris created by collaging thousands of photographs shot in the city. It's just one of the amazing pieces in Japanese photographer Sohei Nishino's Diorama Map project. The series contains maps of many of the world's most famous cities, and all of them are photographed and collaged by hand.

Photoshop Chimeras: Fantasy Creatures Created by Splicing Photos

Want to have some fun as you're learning how to use Photoshop for image editing? Try creating a "Photoshop Chimera." In Greek mythology, the Chimera was a monstrous creature composed of three different animals: the lion, snake, and goat. The term "chimera" has since come to describe any imaginary creature that's the mashup of two or more real animals.

Reddit user Arne Olav has attracted some attention as of late for his humorous chimeras created by compositing two different photographs of animals.

Photographer Captures Abstract Photos Showing Lava Up Close

Want to see what lava from a volcano looks like up close? Photographer Daniel Fox has spent a number of weeks this year photographing lava near Kalapana on the Big Island of Hawaii. Rather than photograph the lava in the context of its surroundings, he decided to get in close and create abstract images showing its intensity.

Bridal Model Receives Photos of Her Own Through a Fantasy Photo Shoot

Claudia Nallely Agres works as a bridal model for a living, but she hasn't yet had the joy of being a bride in a wedding of her own. Wedding photographer Ryan Brenizer wanted to change that, so he recently held a special photo shoot for Agres that resulted in some beautiful and unusual bridal portraits.

Check Out Flickr’s New “Neo-Futuristic” Default Avatars

When Flickr launched its site-wide redesign this past week, one of the things that saw a quiet revamp was the default user avatar. The company hired Greek designer Charis Tsevis to upgrade the original default icon -- an expressionless gray and black square face -- to something more colorful.

Google Releases Satellite Pics of Moore, Oklahoma Before and After the Tornado

After Moore, Oklahoma was struck by a deadly tornado earlier this week, photographs quickly emerged showing what the storm looked like from space and what the destruction was like on the ground.

Now, Google's Crisis Center website has published satellite photographs showing what the city look like before and after the tornado. As you can see from the "after" photo above, the tornado -- which measured 1.3-miles wide at one point -- left a trail of devastation that looks like a scar on the face of the Earth.

Samsung Working on Overlay Feature to Help Strangers Snap Better Shots of You

Asking a stranger to snap a photograph of you is a risky proposition. If the person has no concept of basic photography concepts and techniques, the resulting photographs may be completely different than what you had hoped for -- and you're too embarrassed to ask for another photo (so you wait for that person to leave and for a new one to walk by).

Samsung wants to help solve this problem: they're working on a camera feature that helps guide photo-inept strangers in snapping the shot you want.

What Photographers Would Look Like if Google Glass Took Over the World

Google Glass is set to arrive in the hands of the general public later this year. There are already apps that can trigger the shutter by detecting winks, and some people are already thinking of how the wearable camera can be useful for various photographic applications.

Having always-ready glasses strapped to your face may be convenient, but how will photography look? The video above by Grovo offers a humorous look at what photographers would look like if Google Glass becomes widely used as a camera and camcorder.

The Nikon D3s Can Survive Getting Wet, Muddy, Frozen, Dropped, and Burned

High-end DSLRs by major camera manufacturers are made to be durable. After all, photographers find themselves in all kinds of environments documenting all kinds of subjects, so their cameras need to have serious protection against accidents and the elements.

Ruggedness is often a characteristic that's touted in new camera announcements, but exactly how rugged are flagship DSLRs? French Nikon photographer site Pixelistes recently decided to find out by torture testing a Nikon D3s.

300-Megapixel Photographs Shot With Single Presses of the Shutter

Remember that 50-gigapixel camera being developed by Duke University scientists? Since we reported on the project last year, researchers have created a spin-off company called Aqueti for bringing the technology "into the world for everyone to experience." The camera they've developed will soon be making public tours, and we're starting to get a peek at what it's capable of.

Time-Lapse of One of the World’s Largest Fireworks Competitions

Photographer Rob Whitworth has created a number of beautiful time-lapse videos that have received huge numbers of views online. This past April, Whitworth had the opportunity to take his skills to the city of Da Nang, Vietnam to document the Danang International Fireworks Competition 2013, one of the world's "biggest and best" firework contests.

Leica M Mini Teased on Leica’s Website, Announcement Coming on June 11th

The iPad mini and the Mac mini. Those are two "minified" products Apple has released to give its customers a choice for products that are cheaper and more portable. It appears Leica is planning to take a page from Apple's playbook.

The camera company's website has begun teasing a new Leica Mini M, a camera that will presumably be a smaller (and possibly cheaper) version of the Leica M flagship digital rangefinder.

This Is Just a Part of William Eggleston’s Extensive Camera Collection

Want to see what the camera arsenal of a world famous photographer looks like? A photographer whose work fetches millions of dollars at auction?

Check out the photograph above (larger version here). It was shot by photographer William Eggleston for WSJ Magazine, and shows just a portion of Eggleston's extensive camera collection.

Latest Photo Fad Involves Photographing Your Cat as Your Beard

Need a chuckle? Look no further than the latest bizarre photo fad to sweep across the Internet. Called "Cat Beard," the meme involves shooting a self-portrait with your face above a cat's head. If you can nail the right perspective, you get a humorous photograph that looks like you have a strange beard covering your face (and a frown as well).

GoPro Mounted on DSLR Shows What It’s Like to Photograph a Live Concert

Want to experience what it's like to shoot a live concert? Montreal, Canada-based concert photographer Pierre Bourgault wants to show you. When he recently had the opportunity to photograph a performance by the band Dead To Me, Bourgault decided to strap a Gopro camera to the top of his DSLR. The video above is what resulted.

Man Sticks His Camera Out Storm Shelter Hole, Captures View of Tornado Up Close

When the 2013 Moore tornado struck Oklahoma on May 20th, 2013, Charles Gafford III took refuge in a storm shelter. Once inside, he noticed that there was a small gap in the shelter that he could stick his smartphone through. He did, and ended up capturing the footage above that shows what it's like to have an EF5 tornado -- the strongest strength rating assigned -- pass almost directly overhead.

10 Easy Tips and Tricks for Looking Better in Photographs

Before running out for Botox or for a fancy photographer, here are 10 quick and easy things you can do to improve how you look in photos:

Have a lot of shots taken of you, and only keep the best. Focus on flattering posture and angles. Know facial expressions that work for you. Make sure your eyes are facing the light. Pay attention to what you are wearing, your grooming, the lighting and background.

A Time-Lapse and Footage of the Tornado That Struck Oklahoma

Update on 12/16/21: This video has been removed by its creator.

A devastating tornado struck Moore, Oklahoma on Monday, May 20, 2013. It was reportedly over 2 miles wide at one point, and covered 20 miles during the 40 minutes it was on the ground. The National Weather Service has classified it as at least an EF-4 tornado with winds of at least 166 miles per hour.

NBC affiliate station WMC-TV had a helicopter camera in the sky capturing the whole thing, and released the time-lapse video above showing the storm traveling across the land before finally disappearing back into the clouds.

Metabones Speed Booster for Micro Four Thirds Starting to Make Appearances

Back in January 2013, lens adapter company Metabones rocked the camera world by announcing the Speed Booster, an SLR-to-mirrorless lens adapter that can magically increase your maximum aperture, sharpness, and angle of view.

So far the adapter has been released for Sony NEX and Fuji X cameras, but greater things are on the horizon: Metabones will be releasing the Speed Booster for Micro Four Thirds cameras as well.

A Comparison of Burst Mode Speeds and Shutter Sounds of Canon DSLRs

Canon's DSLRs come with a variety of continuous shooting speeds, ranging from 2.5 frames per second on the 300D (AKA Digital Rebel/Kiss Digital) to a whopping 14 frames per second on the high-end 1D-X. If you want to get a taste of what these shutter speeds sound like on the actual cameras, check out the comparison video above by YouTube user dochero2005.

BTS: Making Photographs of Sony’s New Xperia ZR Waterproof Phones

Earlier this week, Sony announced its new Xperia ZR waterproof smartphone that can double as an everyday underwater camera. After we reported on the story, we were contacted by reader Jeffery Richt, who shot the marketing photographs for Sony. The video above is a behind-the-scenes video showing how the underwater shoot went down.

New Yorkers Upset Over Photographer’s Secret Snaps Through Their Windows

Photographer Arne Svenson lives on the second floor of an apartment building in the Tribeca neighborhood of New York City. For his project "The Neighbors," he pointed his camera at a luxury apartment building across the street and secretly photographed its inhabitants through open windows.

Those photographs are now being sold for thousands of dollars at a gallery in NYC, but it turns out the subjects aren't very happy with having their images stealthily snapped and sold.

Photo Contest: Giving Away 10 Portfolio Upgrades on 500px

500px is sponsoring us for the next week and a half to promote its new Portfolios, which we covered back in early April. As part of the partnership, we're running a photo contest for the next 10 days in which 10 people will have their accounts upgraded to the new portfolio system.

Four Generations of Women Captured in a Single Family Portrait

A trendy project in the photo world these days is collecting portraits of people of different ages. Photographers have photographed people of ages 0 through 100 based on location and gender, and some are doing the same project with short video portraits.

Seattle, Washington-based portrait photographer Chamonix Thurston-Rattue recently decided to start her own age collection project titled "100 Years of Beauty." Her goal is to create a portrait of a woman for each age between 0 and 100.

GoPro Captures Vertigo-Inducing Footage Atop the One World Trade Center

One World Trade Center was finished in New York City last Friday after the final section of the spire was hoisted up and installed. The skyscraper is now the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere and the third tallest building in the world based on pinnacle height.

To document and celebrate the completion of the tower, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey decided to fix a GoPro camera to the final spire section as it was hoisted up and installed. With its fisheye lens pointed straight down, the camera managed to capture some crazy footage (shown above) of what it looks like to be hanging 1,776 feet in the air.

Sony Xperia ZR Smartphone Doubles as an Underwater Camera

Waterproofing is one specialization that compact cameras have had that smartphones (and their cameras) haven't, but that's about to change. Sony has launched a new phone called the Xperia ZR that will help smartphones further erode the point-and-shoot market by opening the door to underwater smartphone photography.

PhotoExif Helps You Record EXIF Data for Film Photos On the Go

One of the advantages of digital photography is having information about how each photo was shot embedded within the photograph's file itself. This EXIF data is something photographers commonly jot down in notebooks as they walk around and shoot with their analog cameras.

Photographer Oriol Garcia wanted a better solution than manually writing down shot times and details. Since most people have smartphones now, why not make an extremely easy to use app that can document the info of every photograph taken? He ended up creating an app called PhotoExif that can do just that.

Instagram Food Photograph Gets Identity Thieves Busted

If you make your money unscrupulously as an identity thief, you might want to refrain from sharing about your life through photographs online. Two identity thieves in South Florida found that out the hard way earlier this year after they were busted thanks to an Instagram photograph of food.