Brian Matthew Hart has spent the better part of 9 years playing around with unique light drawing techniques. His latest project, Uncertainty, brings together the knowledge and inspiration he’s accumulated over those 9 years and packs them into one of the most abstracted and unique approaches to light painting we’ve ever come across.
When it comes to technological innovations, the acronym MIT comes up often. Known for their incredible collection of human capital in the form of intellect, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is constantly pushing the boundaries of what’s capable in every facet of life.
And in the case of a project called “Tesseract,” the boundaries being pushed are those surrounding the field of smartphone camera technology.
An ongoing debate among photographers from all backgrounds is that of natural vs artificial light. Both options have their pitfalls and qualities worth praising, but even so, it seems like some photographers are hesitant to put a subject in front of a strobe if natural light is available.
But as shown in this video put together by Felix Kunze and Sue Bryce for CreativeLive, when used correctly, strobes can almost perfectly replicate the look of natural light. Kunze and Bryce compare identical model setups side-by-side using both natural and strobe lighting as an exercise in showing off the differences and similarities between the two.
When it comes to simple photography hacks, few are as useful and clever in the field as this one, presented by 34-year wedding photography veteran Frank Donnino.
Today the good folks at f-stop Gear have launched their new Loka UL backpack. This further extends their Mountain Series lineup of backpacks and is one more example of how f-stop Gear won't sleep on progress.
Take a look at the photo above. It was taken recently by the Mars Curiosity Rover and contains a 'light' in the top left that has caused such a fuss NASA actually had to come out and clarify that it wasn't, in fact, anything of consequence.
What happens when someone creates a camera sensor that better replicates how our eyes are shaped? Well, according to Sony and a recent presentation they published, this curved sensor and accompanying glass will allow for faster apertures without taking a hit on image quality.
You know those perfectly overcast days, where the clouds just perfectly diffract the sunlight, turning the world into a beautiful, evenly-lit soft box? Imagine if you could have that indoors when trying to shoot a subject.
Inspired by that which we cannot see -- such as the shapes of sound, the feelings we experience, the relationships of the various patterns in this world, and the energy constantly emitted by matter -- photographer Patrick Rochon has created a beautiful series of light-painting photographs called Radiant Light.
Samsung is reaching out to the smartphone generation today with the release of its thinnest and lightest interchangeable lens compact yet. Actually, to be more accurate, they're reaching out to the smartphone generation with the thinnest and lightest ILC EVER: the NX Mini.
What happens when the concept of graffiti as we know it is flipped on its head? Well, I believe you end up with something like 'Painting with Lights,' a project by French photographer Philippe Echaroux -- something he calls 'Street Art 2.0.'
A few weeks ago, we shared a video by photographer Karl Taylor that gave you a behind the scenes look at what a day-long fashion shoot in his studio was like. And even though a few of our readers poked fun at the video's obvious product placement, a lot of people learned a thing or two and came back with followup questions regarding the light modifiers that Taylor was using throughout the day.
Fortunately for us, Taylor was listening, and has produced this very informative follow-up video in which he discusses the differences between his go-to modifiers, complete with side-by-side comparisons.
If you paid attention in high-school physics, you know that white light contains within it the rainbow of colors of the visible light spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet (and if you're Isaac Newton you throw Indigo in there for good measure).
There seems to be a growing desire among the networks to give sports fans the absolute best angle of the action when they're watching a game on TV, but what angle is that?
Sunday Night Football is tackling the problem by giving fans every angle with the newly installed FreeD system, but researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute are taking a different approach. With their new OmniCam360, they intend to give you both 360° views as well as the ability to choose whatever angle you like best.
In an attempt to explore "duplicity in two-dimensional surfaces," illustrator, designer and typographer Alex Trochut invented and patented a way to print two images on the same surface. His photography exhibit Binary Prints, puts the newly invented method to work, revealing a different portrait when viewed in the light or dark.
Want to see some beautiful street photographs that make use of light and shadows? Look no further than the project "Man on Earth" by London-based photographer Rupert Vandervell. Each image in the series shows a single person's figure framed by the shadows and features of a big city.
Want to see how much reflected light your polarizing filter eliminates from any scene? You can easily visualize this light using an image editing program like Photoshop.
Voted "The Most Brilliant Artist of the Netherlands" in 2009, Dutch artist Diet Wiegman is a master of his craft. But of all the amazing creations he has to his name, his work with light and shadow is most breathtaking. Using garbage, pieces of glass and other rubble, he creates a sculpture that, with the help of a light source, projects a beautiful image onto a wall.
Duesseldorf, Germany-based photographer Jakob Wagner wants to show you how diverse photographs of the Atlantic Ocean can be. The images in his series "Madeiran Weather" are all of the same patch of coastal area, yet they are drastically different from one another due to the weather.
Red Bull Illume and Snap! Orlando recently came up with an awesome way to put a twist on the concept of light painting. They recruited light-painting photographer Patrick Rochon to photograph a team of wakeboarders who rode around with colorful lights strapped to their wakeboards!
French photographer Julien Mauve has always been fascinated by light, and his project "After Lights Out" is an interesting study of the subject. The series is based on a simple idea: what would it look like if darkness overtook our world, and only a single source of light were present to pierce the darkness?
Each of the scenes seen in Mauve's photos are completely devoid of artificial light except from a single source, through a single window.
Photographer Váncsa Domokos created a neat do-it-yourself camera accessory that uses optical fibers to control the direction and intensity of a flash unit's light. Instead of having light come directly out of the flash unit, the accessory redirects it through a thick bundle of optical fibers, allowing you to point the light in any direction -- and in different directions if you'd like.
"Lights Edge" is a series of beautiful pictures by photographer Kevin Cooley that show beams of light rising up from various winter landscapes. They're simple long-exposure photographs that aren't the result of any digital trickery. Instead, Cooley simply opened up his 4x5 camera and launched military-grade emergency flare into the night sky.
Back in March 2011, we featured an iPhone app that lets you use your iPhone as a makeshift light meter. The app apparently works pretty well, but if you've been looking for a fancier solution involving your iPhone, one has finally arrived.
It's called the Luxi, and is a small clip on accessory that turns your iPhone into a proper light meter.
Chinese New Years festivities have been going on over the past week in cities around the world. Over in Singapore, photographer Choo Yut Shing captured this neat photograph of a giant light snake slithering down a street.
For his project "Trace Heavens," James Nizam found an abandoned property in Delta, Canada, and, with the government's permission, sliced gaps and holes into a couple of the rooms. He then allowed sunlight to stream into the space in the middle of the day, and then used small mirrors attached to ball joints in order to direct the light beam around the room in various patterns.
The photograph above is reportedly the world's largest piece of long-exposure light art. It was created by light painter Michael Bosanko in a 35,000-square-foot aircraft hangar in Coventry airport in October 2012.
American photographer Ray K. Metzker has had a long and distinguished career in photography, and is well known for his cityscape and landscape images. Many of his street photographs exhibit what Henri Cartier-Bresson refers to as the "Decisive Moment" -- that moment in which all the subjects and details in a scene come together just perfectly in your viewfinder.
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.
Based in San Francisco, Kim Pimmel is a photographer, a user interface designer, a DJ, and a "maker." Take a look at his experimental light painting photographs, and you'll see each of these interests shining through. Pimmel has spent years experimenting with long exposure photographs that show different light sources as brushes. His beautiful images are created using custom rigs and common objects -- things like turntables, ping pong balls, fiber optic cables, pendulums, iPhone screens, and more.