photos

The Earliest Known Photos of People Smiling

The following is a collection of some of the earliest known images of people smiling, starting with a pair of soldiers in the Mexican American War in 1847 and up to a group of soldiers near the end of the Civil War.

If early images of people smiling do not come as a surprise to you, there are a few things to note. Among other things, a portrait of a person with a grin of any kind is quite a rare find in the early decades of photography.

Photos of Presidents Throwing the Ceremonial First Pitch Through the Ages

The first ceremonial first pitch ever thrown was tossed by former Japanese Prime Minister Ōkuma Shigenobu at a baseball game in Koshien, Japan, back in 1908. Two years later, US President William Howard Taft started the tradition in the United States, tossing a pitch (shown above) in Washington DC on the opening day of the Washington Senators' season. Since then, every US president has thrown at least one ceremonial first pitch, and they have all been documented in photographs.

Here's a look at some historical photos of US presidents throwing their ceremonial pitches.

Facebook Launches ‘Scrapbook’ to Help Parents Tag Photos of Their Kids

Facebook doesn't allow children under the age of 13 to sign up for the social network, which makes things trickier for parents who wish to organize photos of their kids with tags. Today Facebook launched a new feature called 'Scrapbook' that's designed specifically to allow parents to tag children who don't have their own accounts.

SpaceX is Now Publishing Its Photos Into the Public Domain Thanks to a Tweet

NASA is a government agency, so the photographs it creates are released to the public domain and can be used by anyone for any purpose. Now that private companies such as SpaceX are getting involved in space exploration and collaborating with NASA, the copyright of mission photos becomes a little more murky.

All that cleared up in a big way this past weekend: SpaceX is following NASA's lead and will now be releasing photos to the public domain.

Too Hard to Keep: A Collection of Photographs People Couldn’t Bear to Live With

Photographs help us remember important moments in our lives, but what happens when they capture things we'd rather forget? Sometimes photos are so painful that their owners can't bear to live with them, and that's the premise behind photographer Jason Lazarus' project THTK, short for "Too Hard to Keep". Since 2010, Lazarus has been collecting photos that people deem "too painful to live with any longer."

The First Leaked Photos of the Olympus E-M5II

The first leaked photos have emerged showing the upcoming Olympus E-M5II. The camera is a followup to the popular Olympus E-M5, a camera announced back in 2012 that shook up the camera world with its retro styling.

Majestic Views of Pacific Northwest Landscapes by Photographer Griffin Lamb

Griffin Lamb is a 19-year-old freelance photographer based out of Seattle, Washington. On weekends Lamb goes on adventures, hiking and backpacking in the great outdoors with his friends.

Over the years, he has built up quite an impressive portfolio of breathtaking landscape photographs that capture the beauty of the Pacific Northwest.

Olympus Showing Off New ‘Lens Camera’ Prototypes with a Rounded Design

Back in September of this year, Olympus announced that it would be trying its hand at "lens cameras" with a new "Open Platform" project. The goal is to create a camera module that features a sensor, a lens mount, and wireless pairing with a smartphone.

Early illustrations showed a cube-like camera, but Olympus is now showing off a new rounded prototype that looks a lot more like a lens than it does a camera.

‘Attack of the Giant Fingers’ Pays Tribute to the Digits that Invade Our Photos

Somewhere deep in the depths of our archives, it’s inevitable that every single one of us has an image with our finger in it. Whether a family portrait gone bad or an accidental misfire by a stranger helping you take a shot, it seems like our fleshly phalanges have a knack for getting in the way.

To honor these accidents, Erik Kessels has created a photo series and accompanying book titled Attack of the Giant Fingers. As the 13th section of his larger, ongoing collection titled In Almost Every Picture, this series sheds light on the darker days of analogue when you couldn’t ‘chimp’ to see if your finger invaded the frame.

Pitt & Jolie License Wedding Photos Exclusively with Getty, Give All $2M in Proceeds to Charity

For celebrities, selling off the rights to publish wedding photos can be quite the money-maker. And if your last names are Pitt and Jolie, that is doubly true.

However, rather than raking in the dough for themselves, the couple decided to team up exclusively with Getty and use the photos of their recent nuptials to raise money for the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation.

Ubersnap Photo Sharing Platform Lets You Combine Music and Photography in Melodic Matrimony

Whether or not you’re conscious of it when watching a movie, the sounds and soundtrack play as significant of a role as the actual imagery. Sadly, none of the standard photo sharing options allow us still photographers the luxury of framing our visual message with melody... until now.

A fairly new and interesting platform called Ubersnap is looking to change this music-less status quo.

10 Things Google Should Consider in Launching a Standalone Photo Sharing Service

Google used to have a standalone photo sharing service. It was called Picasa. I never really liked it. It wasn’t a very social site. I thought Flickr was a lot better.

Today’s news is that Google is looking to spin off Google Photos from Google+. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not. You never know. The timing of Friday afternoon stories and leaks always makes you wonder. Usually when companies want to push something they release it more like Tuesday mornings or make a big deal about it at I/O or something.

Chinese SWAT Member and Fiancée’s Action-Packed Engagement Photos Go Viral

As a SWAT officer, Hou Weilin needs to be constantly prepared for any situation that may arise. Thus, when his fiancée, Li Jinyang, wanted to get engagement photographs, he was unable to do so in a studio setting, where he’d be too far distanced from his equipment and gear, should a situation arise.

As a compromise, Weilin and his fiancée used his workplace to their advantage to create some crazy, cinematic engagement photos.

How I Used ‘Grandpa’s Photos’ to Honor My Grandfather’s Memory and Retrace His Steps

It’s a sad day when your Grandfather needs to go into a ‘nursing home.’ For years my Grandpa, Stephen Clarke, had always been the strongest, smartest, most capable guy in the room. Now, he had been reduced to needing 24-hour care in a place that smells like a hospital.

In an effort to help him, my family and I cleaned out his now empty house. As I was sorting through things and cleaning I found a box of old 35mm slides. Little did I know just how much these slides would change the next half-decade of my life, eventually leading me to create my latest project, Grandpa’s Photos.

Google+ Photos Update Brings Snapseed-esque Functionality to the Browser

Google’s acquisition of Nik Software some time ago caused quite a stir in the photography community. Creators of a number of plugins, filters and the editing app Snapseed, Nik Software had a lot to offer Google in the world of photography.

And little by little, as Google has continued to improve its photo platform and services, more and more influence and integration from the acquisition is making its way to the end user. Case in point is Google+ Photos' latest update, which features a number of Snapseed-esque editing tools.

Apple Confirms 3rd-Party Extensibility and Robust Editing Features in OS X Photos

Although still far from its public debut, more and more information about the new Photos app for OS X is making its way to the public.

Meant to be the successor to both iPhoto and now Aperture, Photos is said to create a more seamless photography workflow across OS X and iOS devices. And the latest news indicates that the OS X version of Photos will offer some potentially exciting features.

Purdue Football Team is Crowdsourcing Its Helmet Design Using Photos of Fans

Hey @LifeAtPurdue.. buy a VIP card by 6/10 and get a photo of yourself on the @BoilerFootball helmet next season! pic.twitter.com/LFjz0y5gCt

— Purdue Athletics (@PurdueSports) June 4, 2014

In an effort to increase ticket sales and get fans more involved, Purdue University has announced that they will be designing a new helmet for the football team that involves crowd-sourcing photos of fans to insert into the logo.

Simple Photoshop Script Imports Multiple Images as Layers in a Single Document

No matter how many hours you spend in Photoshop each day, it’s inevitable there’s a feature or utility within the app you’re yet to use or are completely unaware of. Such was the case for this neat little tip by Digitalchemy that we just stumbled upon, which shows you how to import a collection of photographs into Photoshop, each as a new layer in the same file.

Photos from the Early 1900s Prove LOLcats Were Around Long Before the Internet

If you thought cat photos were something new, you’d not only be greatly mistaken, you'd be stepping all over the life's work of one Mr. Harry Whittier Frees.

Born in 1879, this American photographer made his fortune taking photographs of cute kittens and puppies dressed up in human clothes and posed in human environments, which he then turned into postcards, calendars and even children’s books.

Over 400 Photos from 1938 Italy, Including One of Hitler, Found on Film Purchased at a Thrift Shop

I have a feeling this is something every photographer does or has done at some point in their life. Walking through a flea market or thrift shop, they look around and see an older camera. Not one they have any interest in purchasing, but one they do have interest in. Why? For what could be inside. They are in the search of film... film that isn’t theirs. They hope to find photographs from a time long gone and possibly forgotten.

I’ve done it myself and I’d put good money down that many of you have as well. Usually the cameras come up empty, and even if they don’t, oftentimes the photographs themselves are nothing special. But every so often someone hits the jackpot, and that was the case recently with Matt Ames.

Getty Gets Into the Print Business, Will Sell Exclusive Wall Art Through Photos.com

Getty Images caught no end of flack for allowing anyone to embed much of their archives for free, but their business plan going forward doesn't just include sharing images for free. The company wants to make a more permanent mark on your life as well, and they're doing it by letting you buy prints of award-winning photographs from their archive through a new service at Photos.com.

Louie Schwartzberg on Smartphone Pics & How They Offer a Glimpse Into Your Soul

 
In the age of smartphones whose cameras are getting better with each passing day, we tend to snap more photographs now than ever before. But have you ever wondered, looking back at your photos, what they say about you as an individuals?

Well, award-winning filmmaker, time-lapse photographer and incredible TED Talk presenter Louie Schwartzberg has, and in the short clip above, he shares his thoughts on it with Oprah.