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

Photographs of Food Paired as Pantone Color Swatches

Minneapolis-based art director David Schwen has been generating a lot of buzz lately for his photo project "Pantone Pairings." Shared through his Instagram feed (@dschwen), the photos are recreations of Pantone color swatch pairings done with complementary foods of the same colors.

The Print Quality Across Various Editions of “American Photographs”

Walker Evans' famous photo book "American Photographs" was first published in 1938. Since then, the book has been released in new editions every 25 years or so. Although the photos contained within its covers have remained the same, the processes and technologies used to print the photos have evolved over time, causing each edition to be every so slightly different from the others.

A Study of Shadows in Manhattan During the Blackout Caused by Hurricane Sandy

To view photographer Romain Laurent's Shadows project properly, he recommends that you first properly calibrate your screen. The photos are all dominated by blackness.

You see, they were all captured during the major blackout in New York City caused by Hurricane Sandy in late 2012. When the power went out in the city's financial district, Laurent pulled out his camera in order to do a photographic study of light and shadows in the eerily dark areas of the city.

‘Big Brother’ Program Exposes Orphans to the Joy of Photography in Malaysia

If you're ever in Malaysia and notice a large group of children walking around with fancy DSLR cameras, you might be looking at a special new 'Big Brother/Big Sister' program called The World Through Our Eyes. The program is designed to bring joy and healthy relationships to the lives of orphans and underprivileged children by opening their eyes to the joys of photography.

Dove Speaks Out Against Retouching by Releasing an Anti-Photoshop Action

Skin care company Dove is speaking out on the issue of "fake beauty" being promoted in photographs through Photoshopping. Rather than address the issue directly at first, the company decided to speak out directly to those responsible for "fake" images by doing some clever guerrilla marketing. It essentially pranked retouchers through the Web by releasing a fake Photoshop beauty Action that undoes manipulation rather than creates it.

Source to Sea: A 113-Day and 1,700-Mile Journey Down a River in 3 Minutes

Have you ever seen an entire river from start to finish, from source to sea? That's what photographers and adventurers Will Stauffer-Norris and Zak Podmore set out to do back in October 2011. The duo spent 113 days journeying down the Green and Colorado Rivers, traveling 1,700 miles from the mountains of Wyoming to the Sea of Cortez in Mexico. The journey ended in January 2012.

Olympus E-P5 May Be Coming ‘Soon’ and Lack an Electronic Viewfinder

Rumors are starting to heat up about an upcoming Olympus E-P5, which would be the flagship PEN camera sitting on the highest tier (we briefly covered how Olympus' PEN lines are organized in our recent review of the E-PM2). The latest things being said about the E-P5 is that it will have a new retro design, no viewfinder, and a relatively high price point.

Picasa Web Albums Now Being Directed to Google+ Albums

In July 2011, we shared a report that Google was planning to rebrand Picasa as Google Photos later that year. Well, that didn't happen, but it still looks like the Picasa brand name is on track to be sunsetted.

Google has begun redirecting the Picasa Web Albums URL to personal Google+ Photo Album pages.

JackPod Turns Your Phone’s Headphone Jack Into a Tripod Mount

As more and more consumers use their smartphones as their primary camera, camera gear manufacturers have been brainstorming new products designed to mount phones to camera tripods. Universal mounts to this point have largely been focused on ways of gripping the phone securely. The JackPod is a new stupidly simple answer to how to get phones mounted to tripods: it uses the standard headphone jack found on pretty much every smartphone on the market.

Apple Thought About Naming the iPhone “TriPod”

"How's the image quality on the TriPod 5?" That's a question you would perhaps be hearing these days if certain decisions had been made differently years ago over in Apple HQ. When the Cupertino-based company was brainstorming names for the smartphone that would eventually be called the "iPhone," one of the names that was being considered was "TriPod."

Choros: A Hypnotic Short Film Featuring Single Dancer with 32 “Visual Echoes”

"Choros" is a beautiful experimental film by Michael Langan and dancer Terah Maher. It features a single dancer layered 32 times, which each layer slightly offset in time from the previous one. The "visual echo" technique turns a single woman into a "chorus of women," and transform the dance from single movements into waves of motion. The 13-minute video is set to the song Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich.

What 10FPS on a Nikon D4 Looks Like in 1920FPS Super Slow Motion

It's not uncommon for digital cameras to have burst modes as fast as 10 frames per second these days -- especially in mirrorless and pellicle mirror cameras -- but do you think you have a good understanding of just how fast 10FPS is? If not, check out this video by YouTube user krnabrnydziobak, who pointed a Phantom Miro eX2 at a Nikon D4 to see what 10FPS looks like when captured at a staggering 1920FPS.

A Time-Lapse of Photographer Liu Bolin Disappearing into TED 2013

Chinese photographer and artist Liu Bolin was invited to speak at the TED 2013 conference last week, and talked about his widely published photos that show himself blended into various backgrounds thanks to paint that's carefully applied to his body. At the end of this talk (which hasn't been published online yet), he showed a photograph of himself blended into the background of the conference stage. The time-lapse above shows the process that went into making the image.

BTS: Shooting Adventure Photos of an Ice Climber with Off-Camera Lighting

Adventure photographer and Nikon ambassador Kamil Tamiola of Alpine Photography recently shot a project titled "Cascades of Light." He traveled to the Cascate di Lillaz icefall in Cogne, Italy with professional ice climber Jeff Mercier.

His goal was to capture adventure images of ice climbing in a different light -- literally. Instead of shooting with natural light, he decided to light the scene artificially during both night and day.

AirLock System Lets You Test Waterproof Camera Housings for Leaks

Underwater photo gear company Backscatter has released a new product that's designed to give photographers peace of mind when diving with expensive camera gear in waterproof housings. Called the AirLock Vacuum System, it's a new device that lets you verify that your housing is completely free of leaks before you take it into the water.

NFL Player’s Funny Mugshot May Spark a Viral Portrait Pose Called “Dezzing”

Oakland Raiders football player Desmond Bryant was arrested this past weekend and charged with misdemeanor criminal mischief (apparently the 27-year-old show up at a neighbor's house drunk). While it's not uncommon for a famous athlete to find themselves in jail, Bryant's case is attracting quite a bit of attention due to the ridiculous way he posed for his mugshot (seen above) when he was booked at around 9:30 in the morning on Sunday.

Disorienting Portraits of People Walking About in a Tilted World

Brooklyn-based photographer Romain Laurent's "Tilt" project from 2009 is one that turns an oh-so-simple concept into unique photos that instant grab your attention. Each photograph shows a person standing, walking, or skateboarding in an urban environment, except the whole world is tilted around them.

Canon Unveils a 35mm Full Frame Sensor for Video That Can See in the Dark

Frustrated with how your camera's CMOS sensor performs in dimly-lit situations? Canon has just announced a new CMOS sensor that'll put a smile on your face. It's a new 35mm full-frame sensor that's designed specifically for capturing video in "exceptionally low-light environments." Canon claims the sensor can capture high quality video with high-sensitivity while keeping noise very low.

Here's how sensitive the new sensor is: it will reportedly be able to see meteor shows, rooms lit with incense sticks, and scenes lit only by moonlight.

Photographer Shoots Old Fire Hydrants and Photoshops Them Into Planets

Photographer Adam Kennedy has a hobby that's pretty unique among the photo projects we've seen. He photographs fire hydrants and Photoshops them into planets. That sounds random, but the results are actually quite neat.

The photograph above shows a before-and-after of what his original photos look like and what he turns the rusty old hydrants into.

Interview with Photographer Joey L.

Joey Lawrence, better known by his professional name, "Joey L.," is a Canadian commercial photographer, director and published author based in Brooklyn, New York. Visit his website here.

PetaPixel: Can you tell us about yourself and how you got started in photography?

Joey L: When I was 16 years old and in high school, all my friends were in bands. I could never sing (I'm beyond horrible) or play any instruments, so instead I became the photographer. I would help them build press kits and band profiles for their websites, experimenting along the way and learning everything I could about the technical side of photography.

Photos of Trash Heaps Made to Look Like Chinese Landscape Paintings

Take a quick look at Chinese photographer Yao Lu's "New Landscapes" photos, and they may look to you like old Chinese paintings of misty mountains, green hills, and choppy brown rivers. Each one even bears a red seal stamp that artists use as signatures on finished works.

Look a little closer, however, and it becomes apparent that something isn't quite right. "Those are some strange looking mountains, you think to yourself." Well, they aren't actually mountains, but rather mounds of garbage covered with green construction netting.

Review: Olympus E-PM2 Is Small, Speedy, And Sleek, But Its UI is Not

Olympus first ushered its PEN brand into the digital age back in 2009 with the E-P1. Since then, the lineup has split into three distinct tiers: the E-P line for standard PEN cameras, the E-PL line for smaller "Lite" models, and the E-PM line for even smaller "Mini" models. Goldilockean photographers can therefore choose the size and feature set most appropriate to their needs (and hands).

How PetaPixel Stacks Up Against Other Top 100 Blogs in Age and Gender

We now take a break from our regularly scheduled programming to direct your attention to an interesting study that was published yesterday by Pingdom. The website tracking company decided to analyze the demographics of the world's top 100 blogs (according to Technorati), sorting them by reader age and gender. It's findings regarding PetaPixel caught our eye.

Macro Snowflake Photos Captured Using an iPhone and $5 Lens Add-On

We've shown you the snowflake photos you can achieve using a DSLR and a macro lens and also a point-and-shoot and a macro rig. Now, here's what you can achieve using a smartphone.

Photo enthusiast Ben Woodworth shot these snowflake photographs using his iPhone 5 and a tiny macro lens he purchased for $5 online.

Virtual Photo Album for ex-Pope Benedict XVI Mocked Over Comic Sans

Benedict XVI officially resigned yesterday after eight years as the Pope of the Catholic Church. The Vatican decided to commemorate his papacy by publishing a digital photo album to its website. It's a serious set of photos that marks a serious occasion, but it's attracting attention for the wrong reason: most sites that are reporting on it seem to be focusing on the font selections rather than the images themselves.

The text in the album is Comic Sans and the watermarks on the photos are Papyrus.

HP Live Photo App Lets You View Photos as Augmented Reality Videos

Still photographs are easy to print and share, but how would you go about sharing a video with someone physically, without having to pass them some kind of tablet computer? HP has a solution: it's called Live Photo, and is an app that uses augmented reality to view videos "embedded" in printed photographs.

For Sale: A Canon 1D Mark III and 600mm f/4 That Took a Saltwater Bath

If you want to know what the market is like for high-end camera gear that has been destroyed by water damage, check out this eBay auction by a Hastings, Victoria-based Australian photographer who goes by the handle tallguy069. The poor guy accidentally dropped his Canon 1D Mark III DSLR and Canon 600mm f/4L lens ($10,000+ in gear) off a boat into saltwater, completely destroying the functionality of both pieces.

Photographer Captures Girlfriend Leading Him Around the World

Russian photographer Murad Osmann has been attracting quite a bit of attention this past week on the Internet for his images. No, it's not his professional photos of people and places, but rather a clever project he has been putting together on his Instagram account.

It's titled "Follow Me," and features a unique perpective: each shot is from Osmann's point of view, and shows the back of his girlfriend Nataly Zakharova's body as she leads him by the hand through various locations around the world.

Photos of the White House Gutted During Its Truman Reconstruction

Did you know that the White House was completely gutted and rebuilt on the inside between 1949 and 1952? After decades of poor maintenance, the building was in danger of collapsing in 1948, which forced President Harry Truman to move out and commission a complete gutting and rebuilding of the building's insides.

The U.S. National Archives has been publishing photographs showing the gutted White House to its Flickr photostream.

A Sneak Peek at the Google+ Photos App in the Chromebook Pixel

When the new Google Chromebook Pixel was announced a week ago, one of the new apps announced alongside it was for managing photographs. Photography played a bit part in the laptop's design: it has a 12.85-inch, 4.3 million pixel touchscreen (the highest pixel density of any laptop) that has a strange aspect ratio of 3:2 -- the aspect ratio of classic 35mm film.

X-ray Photographs of Various Cameras

Memphis, Tennessee-based photographer and X-ray technician Blake Billings has a set of images showing what various cameras look like when photographed with an X-ray machine. What you see above is a Nikon D60 DSLR.