Need a chuckle? Look no further than the latest bizarre photo fad to sweep across the Internet. Called "Cat Beard," the meme involves shooting a self-portrait with your face above a cat's head. If you can nail the right perspective, you get a humorous photograph that looks like you have a strange beard covering your face (and a frown as well).
Adobe has made several announcements over the past few days. We've seen a new version of Photoshop, Creative Cloud bundles geared towards photographers, and even a go at hardware with the "Mighty" Pen and "Napoleon" Ruler. But of the unveilings, none was as controversial as the announcement that we would be saying goodbye to the Creative Suite line -- from now on, it's going to be Creative Cloud or nothing.
It's hard to fathom the effect that Photoshop and digital retouching has had on our world. Limitations placed on artists and photographers in particular have systematically been stripped away as terms like "'shopped" made their way into our vernacular.
In this short video, PBS Arts examines that effect. From the artist, to the photographer, to the everyday citizen who has something to say, nobody has been left unaltered by Photoshop.
There's a humorous new photography meme emerging from Japan. Students in the country are shooting photos that look like they're 'Kamehameha' scenes from the popular manga and anime franchise Dragon Ball.
In each shot, one participant poses as a character exploding with energy, while one or more other subjects pretends to be blown away by the force of the blast. As with all of the popular memes that have emerged in recent years, participants are jumping onboard by shooting their own photos and then sharing them on the web.
Photographer Noah Kalina's Everyday project features one photo of his face every day, and has been running since January 11, 2000. Kalina uploaded time-lapse videos created using the photos in 2006 and 2012, and both videos quickly went viral online. Not only did they amass millions of views, but they sparked a new phenomenon as well, as people around the world started snapping daily photos of their own faces and uploading similar videos to the web.
The video above is one that uses the same idea popularized by Kalina, except it's very different from the rest (warning: it's a bit disturbing).
The Harlem Shake meme has taken over the Internet over the past few weeks, and even the world of photography has been invaded. Here's a small roundup of Harlem Shake videos put out by photography and camera enthusiasts.
Oakland Raiders football player Desmond Bryant was arrested this past weekend and charged with misdemeanor criminal mischief (apparently the 27-year-old show up at a neighbor's house drunk). While it's not uncommon for a famous athlete to find themselves in jail, Bryant's case is attracting quite a bit of attention due to the ridiculous way he posed for his mugshot (seen above) when he was booked at around 9:30 in the morning on Sunday.
A Brazilian model named Nana Gouvea is the latest person to feel the scorn of the Internet. After Hurricane Sandy plowed through New York City this past week, Gouvea decided that the wreckage presented the perfect opportunity to further her career. Going out into the devastation with her husband as a photographer, she posed for a photo shoot amidst downed trees and smashed cars. She then shared the resulting portraits through her Facebook page.
Needless to say, people didn't respond very positively to the pictures. They quickly went viral, but in a bad way.
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.
IKEA received a lot of bad press around the world earlier this week after it came to light that the company had Photoshopped women out of its Saudia Arabian catalog. The company has since apologized, but the Internet isn't planning to let the story die down without poking some fun at IKEA's expense.
During the past week, a new meme called "Texts From Hillary" has been taking the web by storm. It involves two photographs of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton checking her phone on a flight while wearing sunglasses. By combining the images with other photographs and witty captions, the creators imagined what her texts conversations with other famous individuals might be like. Not everyone found the meme hilarious: the Washington Post writes that photographer Diana Walker wasn't amused when she first saw her images being used:
[...] the incident underscores the conflicts between photographers, who want to control their work, and the wide world of the Internet, where everything seems free. “There needs to be a dialogue about this,” she says.
And she wishes that people who want to grab photos from the Internet and use them for their own purposes would make an effort to contact their original creators. “Before they used it, how about a call to me?” she asked. But, she admits, that might have resulted in no such memorable meme. “I’m not sure I would have said yes.”
However, the site's creators soon added a credit line for Walker with each photo and the photographer -- along with Clinton herself -- is now "amused and taken with the idea that this picture is all over the world."
Photo meme alert: here's a series of humorous images that have been spreading across the Internet like wildfire. They show the differences between what various groups of people think about what photographers do.
There’s an Internet meme called “Sh*t People …
'Moneyface' is a photo fad involving folded money and hybrid faces. Simply fold a banknote containing a portrait in half and combine it with a human subject.
This past week, BP has received a lot of attention for its release of "official" images that later turned out to be very poorly photoshopped. So far, three badly altered photos have been called out. Aside from the inevitable backlash and disappointment from the public, the photo has taken on a life of its own as an internet meme. People have been adapting their own versions of the helicopter scene, replete with geek jokes and bizarre photoshopping. Here's one amusing example: