machine

Originally, the geometric chuck was a device to make ornate patterns on a lathe. Invented in the 1860s, the device could have up to 8 layers—each driven by a central shaft.

A truly mass-market (and widely adopted) at-home automatic film processing machine has yet to appear in the world of photography. Photographer Mark Webb didn't want to wait around for one to show up, so he cobbled together one with his hardware and software knowledge. It's called the Developist.

This is incredible: German photographer Lukas Fritz wanted an easier way to process his film at home, so he spent a year creating the Filmomat, a fully automatic film processor that can handle everything from B&W 35mm film to 5x7-inch color slides.

When Benjamin Von Wong was commissioned to do a series of black and white portraits of SmugMug employees for the company’s gym, he knew he wasn’t going to be taking the easy route. But just because he was going to try to do something really cool, didn’t mean things needed to get expensive.

To spice up the sporty portraits, Von Wong decided to add water into the equation, and thanks to some help from the folks at SmugMug, they were able to make it rain for only $20.

"Blind Self-Portrait" is a project by artists Kyle McDonald and Matt Mets that's based around a machine that can help you turn photographs into sketches. The machine constantly track's the subject's face using a camera and translates the image into a line-drawing and x- and y-coordinates. The user then rests their hand on the machine's "hand" and presses a pen into a piece of paper. The robot hand does the rest of the work, guiding the hand into drawing the photograph as the person sits back and watches the magic happen.

Artist-hackers Becky Stern and Limor Fried took …

At CES 2010 next year, photography automation company Ortery will unveil the Photosimile 5000, a device that they claim is the "next generation imaging device for the office." Essentially it's like a copier, except for stock/product photography. You can simply walk up to the machine, place what you'd like to photograph inside, adjust a few settings on the parameter, and walk away with a professional looking product photograph. The computer-operated system automatically adjusts lighting to remove shadows, and takes care of handling white balance.