Official presidential photographers lead exciting lives. President Obama's photographer Pete Souza attends secret meetings and captures iconic photos. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's personal photographer was arrested last year after being accused of being a spy for Russia. Now Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's photographer is the latest to do something noteworthy: he defected to the United States.

In addition to being used for art and documentation, photographs have long been a medium of communication. This is even more true in this social networking age in which photographs can easily be used to tear people down or build people up. This heartwarming video published over at Facebook Stories is a great example of the power of socially shared photos.

You might recognize the photograph above. Titled Valley Of The Shadow Of Death and snapped by British photographer Roger Fenton in 1855, it's considered to be one of the oldest known photographs of warfare. Problem is, it might also be one of the oldest known examples of a staged photograph.

If you've spent any amount of time in mom and pop Chinese restaurants -- especially around college campuses -- then you're probably seen the strangely colored and faded food photographs used in the menus and displayed on the walls. These photographs look anything but appetizing, yet you can find them everywhere there's cheap Chinese food.

Proto-photo-blogger Ken Rockwell has interesting things to say about what he calls “Nikon’s …

Last week we shared a project by photographer Daniel Kukla, who photographed mirrors on easels in the desert in a way that makes them look like landscape paintings. Photographer Brendan Wixted did a similar project earlier this year for a photography class at his university, except he used off-camera lighting to illuminate the reflected landscapes.

Here's something that's a bit strange: Leica filed a trademark application for "M11" this past May, just a few months before announcing the Leica M -- a camera that did away with the company's number-based naming strategy used since 1954.

IKEA found itself in some hot water today after it came to light that a number of women seen in its catalog photographs had been Photoshopped out of the frame for the Saudi Arabian edition. Swedish newspaper Metro broke the story today with a scathing piece titled, "Women Cannot be Retouched Away," writing that IKEA's new catalog reflects the country's oppression of women by editing out every single human with two X chromosomes.

Want a personalized pencil holder for your workspace that features your photography? Check out this neat “photo-roll holder” idea …

Sonia Soberats' journey in photography didn't start until she couldn't see the photographs she was producing. Around two decades ago, she lost her eyesight to glaucoma between losing her son to Hodgkin's disease and her daughter to ovarian cancer. At the turn of the century, Soberats began taking photography lessons in New York City as a form of therapy and self-expression. Her technique of choice? Light painting.

We've seen ring flash units that redirect light from a DSLR's pop-up camera and a hot shoe-mounted flash, but never from a compact camera's built-in flash. Based on a patent filing published earlier this month and uncovered by Egami, that's what Nikon appears to be in the process of building.

Die-hard Dodgers fan Bobby Crosby is the only person to ever film himself catching a home run at a Major League Baseball game. That's not all though: over the past few years, he has also filmed himself catching tens of home runs during the batting practice prior to games, holding his baseball glove in one hand and his camera in the other. The video above, which is currently going viral online, shows Crosby's amazing first person view of all but a few of those catches.

It is commonly said that a picture is worth a thousand words. It seems that US smartphone users agree, for Instagram has now passed Twitter in active user count. The legions of Instagrammers aren't just checking their beloved social network more than their Tweeting counterparts -- their eyeballs are glued on it longer as well.

Point-and-shoot cameras aren't doing so hot these days as consumers are replacing their multiple electronic devices with a single gadget: the smartphone. The compact cameras that have a chance of surviving are the ones that are special in some way, whether it's having a gigantic sensor or being hardened with serious weatherproofing.

With the advent of Internet-connectivity and apps in cameraphones and digital cameras, images can now be shared with others in ways never before seen in the history of photography. Unfortunately, not all of the ways are positive. Some are downright creepy.

Last month we wrote about how the small focusing lens inside a laser pointer can be repurposed as a cheap macro lens for your smartphone. After seeing this project online, photo enthusiast John Coleman decided to give it a shot. To keep the lens secure against your phone, you'll need something to hold it (e.g. a hair pin) and some tape to attach the holder to the phone. The photo above shows the super simple attachment Coleman created.

Lens caps are often cast aside in favor of lens hoods, but what if you could have both in one accessory? That's what the Hoocap does. It's not as fancy as the blooming lens hood concept we featured a year ago, but it seems pretty well thought out. Extend the cap/hood out from your camera, and the two "curtains" open up, allowing the camera to "see" and blocking errant light from causing flares. Close it, twist it, and push it into your lens, and it locks into its closed position for protecting your glass.

Photographer Noah Kalina has taken a self-portrait a day for the past 12.5 years, but his already-impressive project has now been bested by one that's nearly twice as long. When Leeds Met University student Cory McLeod was born 21 years ago, his parents began faithfully documenting his life by taking a single photograph of his face every single day. This past week, the project was published as a one-of-a-kind video titled "21 Years" that shows McLeod's entire life in roughly six minutes.

One major trend in the camera industry this year is the introduction of mobile operating systems such as Android into digital cameras. By opening the door to things like Wi-Fi, data plans, and apps, camera makers are going in the same direction that phone makers went some years ago, turning their devices into what can best be described as portable computers with specialized functions (e.g. voice-calling, photography).

While covering the trend, we've been at a loss for what to call the new cameras. After calling the Samsung Galaxy Camera a "voiceless phonecamera" in our hands-on first-look yesterday, commenters suggested that we call the device a "smartcamera". Bingo... that's the term we were looking for.

Want a better understanding of how the metering and AE-lock features in your DSLR camera work? YouTube photography tutorial channel PhotoUniverse made this simple explanation that explains the concepts using a whiteboard. He quickly steps through evaluative (which uses a database of many "known" photos) and center-weighted metering before spending a good amount of time explaining spot metering and how you can use it in conjunction with AE-Lock to properly expose photographs.

Two interesting Canon rumors are currently floating around. The first has to do with the 46MP DSLR that Canon is reportedly field testing and may be planning to unveil in late October.

If you’re a fan of Instagram, then you’ll probably appreciate this neat DIY project by Elsie and Emma of …

Ever wonder what it looks like when you fire a gun underwater? Firearm enthusiast Andrew Tuohy of VuurwapenBlog recently decided to find out. Taking his .40 Glock 22 into his swimming pool, he captured some high speed videos of himself firing a round using an ordinary Pentax Optio WG-2 waterproof compact camera (which has a 120fps movie recording mode). The photograph above is a still taken from one of the videos.

Played around with the new Samsung Galaxy Camera very briefly at Photokina last week. It's basically a camera-fied smartphone that doesn't do voice calling. It does have 3G/4G/Wi-Fi connectivity though, so it's one of the first -- if not the first -- compact camera you can add a data plan to.

Last year there was a minor controversy when the Portland Police Department began posting photos of arrested Occupy protestors to Facebook. It may or may not have been inspired by the PPD, but Pottstown, Pennsylvania newspaper The Pottstown Mercury has begun sharing photographs of wanted individuals through the popular photo sharing service Pinterest.

Daniel Kukla is a photographer who had formal training in biological and anthropological sciences. His educational background plays a major part of his artistic practice, and this can be seen in his clever project titled, The Edge Effect.

Kodak divisions are falling left and right as the company struggles to claw its way out of bankruptcy protection. After killing off its camera business and selling off its film business earlier this year, Kodak announced today that it will shortly be pulling out of the consumer printing business in order to focus on commercial printing.

Here's an interesting way to provide a behind-the-scenes look at how a portrait shoot was done. After photographing British comedian Frank Skinner, UK-based photographer Harry Borden took all the unedited photos from the shoot and turned them into a one-minute time-lapse movie. The resulting short film is a glimpse into how a session progressed from one pose to another, and the different ideas that were tried.

Samsung is doing one of the strangest promotional stunts we've seen in recent times. To celebrate the new NX1000 mirrorless camera announced back in April, they're giving away the camera to anyone in the UK named David Bailey.

People vs. Places is a creative collaborative photo project by photographers Timothy Burkhart and Stephanie Bassos.

Sony has agreed to pour $645 million into Olympus in exchange for 11.5 percent of the embattled company, becoming the single largest shareholder. While the companies announced that they are considering cooperating in the digital camera industry, the main motivation for Sony wasn't photographic imaging but body imaging. Olympus is one of the major players in the medical endoscope market, holding about 70% of sales, and Sony's investment allows it to dip its toes into this lucrative industry.

Behold: one of the rarest photobooks in the world. What you're looking at is an exceedingly rare complete set of American photographer Edward S. Curtis' book The North American Indian. It contains 772 large-format photogravures on Japanese tissue, 111 signed plates, and 20 extra text volumes that contain an additional 1,505 photogravures, 4 maps, and 2 diagrams.

Swann Galleries will be auctioning it off on October 4, 2012 with an estimated price of $1,250,000 - $1,750,000. This figure, however, may end up being much lower than the actual price it'll sell for. A similar set of this photobook was auctioned by Christie's back in April. After giving that set an estimated price of $1,000,000 - $1,500,000, it ended up selling for a whopping $2,882,500.

Earlier this year, we featured a project by photographer Sannah Kvist that showed portraits of urban young people posing next to a pile of all their worldly possessions. Jiadang (Family Stuff) by Chinese photographer Huang Qingjun is similar in concept, but very different in content. He has spent nearly a decade traveling around to various rural communities in China, asking families to take everything they owned and carefully arrange them outdoors for a picture.

You've probably heard people say that you should keep your camera gear with you at all times when flying, as there are multiple points in the travel process at which your valuable equipment could get stolen or damaged. In case you're not convinced, check out the video above showing an investigative report that ABC News recently did.

To test airports that have a history of theft, Brian Ross of ABC's The Blotter left 10 iPads inside the plastic bins at security checkpoints. At 9 out of 10 airports, the screeners followed protocol and immediately contacted the owner using the contact info prominently displayed on the iPad. In the 10th case, an agent was filmed taking the iPad out of the bin before it vanished.

Back in 1992, Los Angeles-based photographer Laura London lived down the street from the singer of the rock band. The singer's name was Axl Rose. The band was Gunz N' Roses.

Watts Martin of Coyote Tracks has an interesting piece titled “Iconic” that discusses …

Bob Ross became a household name a couple of decades ago through his show The Joy of Painting on PBS. His friendly personality, soothing voice, and artistic talent got countless people hooked on oil painting, beating the devil out of paintbrushes, and creating happy little trees and clouds. He's the kind of guy who could (and did) talk about watching paint dry and make it enjoyable.

Japanese camera blog Egami found an interesting just-published patent by Epson that was first filed last year. The goal of the technology appears to be to make older vintage lenses more useable on newer cameras. Basically, it seems that the company wants to add a small camera/mirror/lens component to the front of camera that's designed to track the settings on old manual lenses. The photos in the patent show what appears to be Epson R-D1 cameras enhanced with special arms that are dedicated to spying on the lens' settings.

Ithaca College, a small private school in New York, recently conducted a fun photo experiment to capture a day in the life of the students on campus. Instead of sending a photographer around to various student hotspots, the student social media team left ten disposal cameras in five locations around campus with a note that read:

Hey, I just left this camera here for the day. Take some fun pictures with you and your friends! I'll be back later to pick it up

At the end of the day, all the cameras were collected, all the film was developed, revealing an "authentic view of a day at Ithaca College."

Sony made huge ripples in the camera industry earlier this month by announcing a compact camera with a full frame sensor: the RX1. The camera features a bokehlicious 35mm f/2 Carl Zeiss lens, a super compact size, and a price tag of $2,800 that broke many a photographer's heart.

For those of you who are wondering how the fusion of compact and full frame performs, Sony has uploaded a number of full-resolution sample photographs. Pixel-peepers, prepare to gawk in amazement at the quality that's now possible with fixed lens compact cameras.

Living and working in New York City, Canadian writer and producer Christopher Moloney walks past many locations used as settings in movies. This past summer, he began documenting those spots with an awesome "photo in a photo" project. Using a simple black-and-white printer and a cheap digital camera, Moloney visits the exact locations where famous scenes were filmed at, and shoots a photograph of a printed movie still from just the right perspective so that it blends into the background. His website, titled "FILMography" (film + photography) has hundreds of these creative images so far.

Earlier this month, Nokia found itself in a public relations nightmare after it came to light that photos and …

Vanguard announced a fancy new professional tripod at Photokina last week, and today we're giving you the opportunity to win one of the first ones as photographers are just getting their hands on them. The Vanguard ABEO Plus 323CB is an uber-durable carbon fiber tripod that comes with a BBH-200 pro ball head. It features a fast-adjustment central column, tension adjustable leg locks, 3-in-1 feet (rubber, spikes, and snow/sand shoes) for stability on any surface, an anti-shock ring, and accessory hook, and a max weight of 26.4 pounds. It's retail value? $600.

Earlier this month we shared some neat photos of astronauts using DSLRs while on spacewalks outside the International Space Station. In case you're also wondering how the cameras are used inside the habitable satellite, we've carefully perused NASA's 2Explore Flickr photo stream in search of those photos as well, and have collected them here in one place for your viewing pleasure. They've got some pretty nice gear up in the ISS... lucky astronauts.

If you’re trying to make some side money by selling photographs as microstock — or are trying to do …

We've shared some pretty intense footage captured using helmet-mounted cameras in the past, but perhaps none as crazy as the video above. Shot by a US soldier in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, the video offers a point-of-view look at what it's like to face machine gun fire from the Taliban. [Editor's note: Be warned -- there's a bit of mature language.]

Would you use a camera app that could only shoot a single photo before becoming useless as a camera? The answer is probably no, but you should still take a look at One Memento nevertheless. It's might sound unappealing at first, but the idea behind the app is quite interesting.

North Carolina-based photographer Daniel Lowe sent us the gorgeous video above, which shows star trails forming and floating across the sky. Most time-lapse videos of the night sky show stars as points of light, rotating around Earth's pole. Lowe's video shows the long streaks of star trails doing the rotating, making the video even more surreal and magical.

If you were thinking about buying the iPhone 5 as your primary carry-around camera, you might want to hold off on that. Reports are emerging that the camera suffers from purple flares when bright light sources are in or around the frame. Cult of Mac reports that iPhone 5 owners are taking to online forums to express their displeasure with this issue.

Yesterday we featured an interesting example of digital photographs being reintroduced into the real world in another form (Google Street View photos as life-sized portraits), and now here's another one. For her project "Broken Houses", NYC-based photographer Ofra Lapid created realistic models of abandoned buildings using printed photos, and then photographed them on an infinite gray background.