Painter Norman Rockwell's illustrations graced the covers of countless magazines over the course of the 20th century, becoming a much-loved piece of American culture for their simple snapshots of life. You might recognize many of the works, and even the name behind the paintings, but did you know that virtually all of the images started out as photographs?
We’ve written a number of posts regarding the NASA Curiosity rover’s photography on Mars, but have you …
Did you know that some of the most famous master painters from centuries past may have actually used camera "technology" to aid them in creating their masterpieces? According to the hotly debated Hockney-Falco thesis, some well-known artists likely used rudimentary camera obscura rooms as a tool -- essentially "tracing" parts of their work.
Christopher Bonanos, author of Instant: The Story of Polaroid, has authored …
YouTube illusion and science channel Brusspup recently did an anamorphic illusion project in which he photographed a few random objects resting on a piece of paper (e.g. a Rubik's cube, a roll of tape, and a shoe), skewed them, printed them out as high-resolution prints, and then photographed them at an angle to make the prints look just like the original objects.
Stephen Dowling of BBC News has an interesting piece that tells the story of the Lomography movement and how it may be instrumental in saving film photography.
The mid-1800s was a busy time for photographic firsts. In 1838, daguerreotype inventor Louis Daguerre captured the first ever photo of a human being. One year later, in 1839, photograph pioneer Robert Cornelius stepped in front of his camera and created the first self-portrait. 1840 held yet another interesting development: the first hoax photograph.
Photographs are usually captured through viewfinders, not of viewfinders, but photographer Meggan Gould has a photo project featuring the latter. Aptly named "Viewfinders," Gould's series turns old analog camera viewfinders into the subject of photos, documenting both the variety of viewfinder designs and the inevitable wear and tear that results from decades of use.
During the Iranian election protests back in 2009, a 26-year-old woman named Nedā Āghā-Soltān (above right) was shot and killed while standing around and observing protestors. After footage of her death went viral online -- Time says it's likely the "most widely witnessed death in human history" -- Neda's portrait became the face of the movement, as countless protestors around the world held large prints overlaid with statements like, "Neda did not die in vain." The problem is, one of the main photos used wasn't actually of Neda.
In 1984, photographer Steve McCurry shot a portrait titled "Afghan Girl" that would become the defining image of his career and one of the most famous National Geographic covers ever published. In 2002, McCurry was able to locate the subject, Sharbat Gula, and learn her story.
Just in case this question ever comes up while you’re playing the world’s hardest game of photography trivia, what …
"Say cheese." It's an expression that has become so much a part of our culture that everyone understands it to simply mean, "Smile," rather than a command to actually utter the word "cheese." For many people, smiling and posing for casual snapshots go hand-in-hand, but why do people smile for pictures, and when did this practice begin? After all, if you browse portrait photos created in the early days of photography -- or even half a century ago -- you'll find the subjects wearing stoic, humorless expressions on their faces.
Want to illuminate an entire football field for a photo shoot, but can't find enough friends who will let you borrow their external flashes? Have deep pockets? Here's a "lighting accessory" you might want to add to your camera bag: the light truck.
In 2008, I had this kooky idea to take my then 4-year-old son out to an abandoned road and throw him into the air, since it seemed most fathers like to do this with their kids. There was this long, abandoned road near my house, so we set up there. After getting my Nikon D200, self-timer, and tripod ready, my son decided that he didn't want to be thrown into the air, so I just held him up instead. I then took another photo of myself looking up with my arms extended.
Photographer Michael Wolf began his career as a photojournalist in Hong Kong working for a German magazine. In the early 2000s, he turned to non-editorial photography with an unusual project called Bastard Chairs. Wolf had noticed that all over China, there were makeshift chairs that had been put together using whatever materials the owners could get their hands on. He began documenting these strange pieces of furniture, showing the creative ideas people in China had for sitting down.
Unless you only shoot in monochrome, color likely plays a huge part in the experience of viewing your photographs. You may be aware of how you use them, but do you know how the colors in your images affect the people that look at them? PBS Off Book put out this fascinating video today that explores just how powerful colors are.
Best known for his iconic V-J Day in Times Square image, photojournalist Alfred Eisenstaedt snapped some of the most iconic photographs of the 20th century's most famous faces. LIFE writes that the photographer had an interesting habit: jumping into the frame for self-portraits with his subjects.
Ever wonder how Google manages to capture street-level photographs of entire cities for its Street View? It's done using a giant fleet of camera-equipped cars. Google employee Masrur Odinaev recently shared this photograph -- taken by a Street View car -- showing one of Google's Street View car parking lots. We see a large fleet of Subaru Imprezas that have panoramic cameras mounted to the tops.
Here's an interesting piece of photo trivia for today: did you know that Apple's similarities with Kodak don't end with Steve Jobs modeling his career and his company after Polaroid? The ongoing dispute between Apple and Samsung is strikingly similar to the battle Polaroid had with Kodak many decades ago.
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.
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.
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.
Want to know what the professional photography industry was like over half a century ago, and what advice was commonly given to aspiring professionals? Check out this 10-minute vocational guidance film from 1946 that offers a quick overview of the various types of photography that people went pro in at the time. Suggested careers include portrait photography, commercial photography, and photojournalism.
Did you know that there's US currency on Mars? It's true: when NASA's Curiosity rover was launched back on November 26, 2011, one of the things it carried with it was a penny from over a century ago. The 1909 Lincoln cent is part of the rover's onboard calibration target used to check that the cameras are working properly.
Marketing and customer loyalty are two powerful things. They can make minor improvements in gadgets seem great, and major advancements to-die-for. In the world of photography, many camera owners feel strong allegiances to the brand they use, fiercely defending it as their own, and even going on the offensive to belittle other photographers who shoot under a different banner. This kind of customer loyalty does strange things to how the "fanboys" perceive the quality of their camera gear.
If you've visited the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada anytime during the past five years at night, you've likely enjoyed the dazzling light show that appears on the side of the tower. The 1,330 uber-bright LED lights (which cost a cool $2.5 million) were installed in the elevator shafts back in 2007, and are turned on from dusk every day until 2 the next morning. What you might not have known, however, is that the seemingly random colors that appear are really not so random after all: they're actually pieces of photographs!
Recognize this photograph? It shows 14-year-old Mary Ann Vecchio screaming and kneeling over the body of 20-year-old Jeffrey Miller, shot during the Kent State Massacre. Kent State photojournalism student John Paul Filo -- just 22-years-old at the time -- captured the image, and was later awarded the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography.
Earlier this month, when we were exploring why the NASA Curiosity rover’s cameras are so lame, we …
The people over at New York-based hackerspace NYC Resistor recently found an old Apple Macintosh SE on the side of a road in Brooklyn -- a computer that was manufactured between 1987 and 1990. They decided to do a little "digital archaeology", and came across something strange:
While digging through dumps generated from the Apple Mac SE ROM images we noticed that there was a large amount of non-code, non-audio data. Adam Mayer tested different stride widths and found that at 67 bytes (536 pixels across) there appeared to be some sort of image data that clearly was a picture of people. The rest of the image was skewed and distorted, so we knew that it wasn’t stored as an uncompressed bitmap.
After some investigation, we were able to decode the scrambled mess above and turn it into the full image with a hidden message from “Thu, Nov 20, 1986“.
After some further techie magic, they were able to unearth four black and white photographs showing the engineers that worked on building the computer for Apple 25 years ago.
As we shared last week, being a sports photographer at the Olympics is a difficult task: battling a round-the-clock schedule and a sea of competing photographers, hauling around a boatload of gear from venue to venue is just the least of your concerns.