bts

NYC Ballet Enlists Street Art Photog’s Help to Make an Epic Impression on Its Patrons

If you walk into the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center right now, you'll very quickly find your jaw on the floor alongside the reason for its gaping state. Stretched across the entire promenade of the theatre is a large-scale photo installation that has well-dressed ballet-goers so enthralled they're laying down on the floor, striking poses and climbing up several flights of stairs to get a better view of the massive photograph.

John Stanmeyer Shares the Story Behind His World Press Photo of the Year

Controversy over the World Press Photo organization and the way they handle their judging aside, most people were in agreement that photographer John Stanmeyer deserved the award he received this year. In the above video, the World Press Photo winner shares some insight as to how his widely-praised photograph came to be.

Using Body Painted Models to Create and Photograph a Fiat 500c Abarth

Editor's Note: This video is a tiny bit NSFW. All nudity has been censored, but the models are at times very scantily clad so you may want to wait until you're at home to watch it.

While The Body Issue of ESPN Magazine usually keeps the focus on bodies in a sporty sense, Fiat wanted to make an impression in its advertising pages as well.

And so, taking the Fiat 500C's motto "Made of Pure Muscle" to its most literal sense, Fiat used 15 circus performers, acrobats and artists to turn human bodies into a car without the help of Photoshop.

BTS: Sports Illustrated Photographs Bikini Clad Kate Upton in Zero Gravity

Not all of the women in this year's Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue are made of plastic, and yet the unique Barbie swimsuit shots we told you about a few days back will STILL play second fiddle to a much cooler photo shoot of model and actress Kate Upton... scantily clad... floating around in actual zero gravity.

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue to Include ‘Unapologetic’ Barbie Poses

Guys, you may want to be extra careful about where you read your copy of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue this year. It will contain a double-helping of grist for feminist outrage this time around, as Barbie, that icon of feminine pulchritude and academic rigor ("Math class is tough. Let's go shopping!") struts her stuff alongside the human models.

Hey Seoul Sistas: On Assignment for the Bachelor Season 18 Episode 4

The first time that I had worked with Disney ABC TV as their official stills photographer was a couple years back when they came to Japan to film for the reality show I Survived a Japanese Game Show. It was a super big production and I'm grateful I got to be a part of that. Although the working hours were somewhere between 12-14+ moving around on foot each day, I couldn’t complain because the entire crew were all fun to work with.

As with lots of the non-news related picture work that I do, it’s typical that I can’t post any pictures up due to contract reasons (or until the story runs) even though the Internet makes it so tempting with just four clicks of a button. One of the assignments that I’m allowed to finally take out of the bag (now that the show is broadcasted) and share with all of you is when Disney ABC TV put me on the plane bound for Seoul, South Korea to shoot all the stills for the filming of The Bachelor Season 18 Episode 4. Although I couldn’t fly first class, they did put me up in a nice little room towards the top at the Millennium Seoul Hilton Hotel, which I was more than fine with. Thanks again Disney and ABC.

Facebook Takes Us Behind the Scenes with Humans of New York for 10th Anniversary

We never get sick of going behind the scenes with Brandon Stanton and Humans of New York, probably because we never tire of hearing Stanton's story. An amateur photographer who moved to New York in 2010 with two suitcases and a goal has somehow managed to start a movement that has attracted millions of followers, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charity, and spawned many a Humans of _____ copycat.

At 2.8 million followers, HONY is one of the most successful pages on Facebook's massive network, and so Facebook chose it as one of the 10 'stories' they would tell for the site's 10th Anniversary.

BTS: Spend a Day in the Studio with Pro Photographer Karl Taylor

In our State of the Blog Address, we asked you what you want to see more of on PetaPixel, and one of the suggestions that came up most often was Tutorials, Behind the Scenes videos and other helpful educational content like that.

Well, we were listening. And so, we invite you to spend 15 minutes this lovely Friday watching professional photographer Karl Taylor at work in his studio.

BTS: How the Sony Skydive Lens Change Ad Was Filmed… and No It Wasn’t Fake

There's no doubt the ubiquity of fake and mis-reported content on the Internet has turned many of us into big-time skeptics. Whenever we see something that seems incredible or outlandish, our knee-jerk reaction is to call it fake and begin searching for evidence of that fact, using our confirmation bias as a guide.

One video that elicited such a response from many of the people that saw it was this recent Sony ad that showed an a7R lens change happening in mid-air during a skydive.

Love Sick: An Incredibly Creative Medical-Themed Pre-Wedding Shoot

"Don't be afraid to be different." That is the moral of this video. Usually you save the moral for the end, but it is stated, restated and demonstrated so well with this shoot that it's worth starting the post with. Don't be afraid to let your creativity break the barriers of the proverbial box and try something different, because you might just stumble onto an idea as unique and creative as "Love Sick" by Simeon Quarrie of Vivida.

Go Behind the Scenes with Talented Time-Lapse Photographer Michel Shinblum

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.

Eric Kim Hits the Pavement with SF Street Photographer Jack Simon

There's something inspirational about watching a seasoned photographer work at his craft -- whether it's a studio photog who molds light to his will or a street photographer whose demeanor and results both scream professionalism.

Jack Simon falls under the latter of those categories, and in the video above, fellow street photographer Eric Kim takes us behind the scenes with Simon as he walks the streets of San Francisco.

BTS with Kirsty Mitchell as She Begins the Final Chapter of Her Wonderland Series

We first shared the jaw-dropping fairytale photographs that make up Kirsty Mitchell's Wonderland series in May of 2012, some three years after she began her journey and just as her work was going so viral online that her reply to our request to feature her work was a "yes" followed by a "thank goodness I upgraded my servers!"

Now, four and a half years after she began Wonderland as a tribute to her mother who had recently passed away, she has officially embarked on what she is calling the final chapter in her Wonderland series.

The Power of Wikipedia: How I Became Gaming’s Most Popular and Anonymous Photographer

I'm a very accomplished photographer. My photos have been in magazines, newspapers, textbooks, blogs, online videos, television and any other medium that you can think of. My work has been seen by millions and will be one of the most important resources for the history of video games. The only catch is that I'm almost never credited and don't get paid for it.

Shooting an Epic Time Travel Composite Photo on the Cheap

A while ago, we read an article about how gear doesn’t matter on PetaPixel, while at the same time planning a shoot that would involve a Hot Rod. Inspired by the post, we said, "Let’s do it with a Canon 550D and a cheap lens instead of the Nikon D800," because we really believe that all the latest cameras are quite good, and gear doesn't always matter anyway.

BTS: Richard Renaldi Introduces & Poses Complete Strangers on the Streets of NYC

Photographer Richard Renaldi's 6-year-long project Touching Strangers has been an incredible success. From viral Internet fame to a full-fledged photo book that exceeded its Kickstarter goal eight times over, there's something profoundly moving about complete strangers posed together, sometimes quite intimately, on the streets of NYC.

In the video above we get a behind the scenes look at how Renaldi does what he does, and how his subjects, sometimes reticent at first, often wind up feeling at ease and connected to this perfect stranger they didn't know existed 10 minutes ago.

Behind the Scenes with Brandon Stanton and His Humans of New York Project

When we first covered Brandon Stanton and his Humans of New York project almost a year and a half ago, he had accumulated about 3,000 portraits of people from around New York City. Now that number has grown to over 5,000, and the blog that started it all has birthed a book and the kind of viral fame the Internet it known for.

BTS: A Look at How Pelle Cass Creates His Interesting Single-Frame Time-Lapse Shots

Back in early July, we got a chance to share photographer Pelle Cass' intriguing Selected People series with you. For this series, he combines hundreds of exposures to create what amounts to a time-lapse in one frame: showing what a particular location looks like over the course of many hours, but capturing it as a single moment in time.

Expect the Unexpected: Jimmy Fallon Gets Peed on by Baby During Photo Shoot

Update: The footage has been taken down at the request of Jimmy Fallon's publicist.

If you're planning on using a baby in a future photo shoot, take note: you can't really control their emotions, and they can't really control their bladders. Of course, if you know what you're doing, you could end up with some unexpectedly great pictures anyway.

BTS: Making Epic Advertising Composites with Erik Almas

Purists might not take to all of photographer Erik Almas' work, and in particular the work featured here, but if you can get over the fact that these are composites that necessarily need some help in the computer to come to life, Almas' advertising photography will blow your mind.

Shooting Photographs for the New KFC eleven Concept Restaurant

KFC Restaurants recently opened a new concept store in Louisville, Kentucky called KFC eleven. (The "eleven" being a tribute to the 11 herbs and spices in KFC's original recipe chicken). The new store has a distinctly modern look, and is far from the red and white color palette made popular by Colonel Sanders.

The new concept required a new direction for the photography as well. KFC eleven's creative agency, (Creative Alliance) asked us to help them create the visual feel for this new brand.