projects

How to Turn an Old Seatbelt into a Useful Camera Sling

Editor's note: The guest author of this DIY tutorial, Vadim Gordin, is also selling DIY kits and ready-made Lens Loop slings for $15 and $25, respectively. You can find the project over on Kickstarter.

Here's a DIY camera strap I came up with 2 years ago and have been steadily revising as I use it while traveling and shooting all over the country. The design is simpler, more comfortable, and more attractive than any of the other commercially available slings. I hope that by sharing my design here, I can generate interest in my project and help DIYers make a great camera sling on their first try.

Disposable Camera Captures Its Own Trip Across the United States

Five years ago, web designer Matthew McVickar decided to give one lucky disposable camera a free vacation, sending it through the mail from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to Honolulu, Hawaii with the instructions "Take a photo before you pass it on!". When he got the camera back, there were seven photographs taken by various workers in the United States Postal Service that show the cameras journey (and the inner workings of the USPS!).

Baskets of Color at a Supermarket

A while back we suggested that for a photo project (perhaps on a rainy day) you can collect things of a certain color in your house, arrange them neatly, and then take a picture. An even easier place to do this might be your local supermarket. Designer Marco Ugolini and photographer Pedro Motta teamed up for a project titled Per Color that features baskets of color shot in a Brazilian supermarket.

The “Back to the Future” Photography of Irina Werning

Argentinian photographer Irina Werning's "Back to the Future" series of photographs features people reenacting photographs of themselves taken decades ago, and has made Werning a well-known photographer after going viral on the Internet over the past year.

Life as a Human Guinea Pig: Inside the Weird World of Medical Studies

Medical experiments can be quite bizarre -- I once heard about one that involved injecting subjects with various kinds of animal feces. After a year of participating in various clinical trials for cash, photographer and recent art-school graduate Josh Dickinson decided to start a project called Studied to document what it's like to be a human guinea pig. His experiences range from being pricked with needles and subjected to pain to being suffocated...

Found Photos from Cameras Purchased at Car Boot Sales

For part of his MA in Documentary Photography at the University of Wales, Brendan Corrigan visited car boot sales -- a kind of market where people sell things out of their trunks -- and purchased old cameras for about the price of a roll of film. He then had the used film inside each camera developed, publishing the photos online alongside the cameras they were found in (along with the price he paid for the camera). His project is called "Make me an offer".

Make a Giant Holga Camera Piñata

The next time you're planning a birthday party for someone who loves photography, try making a giant camera piñata using cardboard and paper-mache. You can fill it with candy and treats, or take your photo-geekness to the next level by filling it with photography-related gifts and accessories.

Childhood Photos Reshot in the Present

DEAR PHOTOGRAPH is a neat photo project by Taylor Jones that collects pictures of pictures from the past in the present. These are images that show old photos held up and aligned to the present day location, offering a glimpse into what once was.

Unusual Uses for Potholes in Large Cities

Husband and wife photography duo Davide Luciano and Claudia Ficca have a project called "Potholes" in which they stage unusual scenes around giant potholes found in large cities (e.g. Montreal, NYC, LA, and Toronto). The project started after they collided with one such pothole and needed a way to channel their frustration into a positive project, transforming something useless into something humorous and creative.

Hollywood Blvd Superheroes at Home

The superheroes that line Hollywood Boulevard for tourist pictures may have a tiny taste of stardom while on the job, but what are their lives like when they put down their masks and capes? For his project "Super Heroes", photographer Gregg Segal followed a number of superheroes home to document their not-so-super lives when not on the job.

Photo Project Shows What People Would Save from a Burning House

If your house was going up in flames and you only had a few minutes to gather up a few things to save from the fire, which of your possessions would you choose? The Burning House is a neat photo project by Foster Huntington that asks this question, with photographs submitted by various people showing their most valuable possessions neatly arranged. Unsurprisingly, cameras and photographs are at the top of many peoples' lists.

Mailman Photographs the Dogs That Want to Kill Him

Everyone knows that mail carriers and dogs don't mix very well. San Diego mailman Ryan Bradford decided to document his encounters with the canine adversaries along his route using a disposable ISO 400, 35mm camera purchased from Rite Aid. The delightful photo essay that resulted, titled "All the Dogs Want to Kill Me", shows dogs glaring and barking at Bradford from the other side of fences, doors, and mail slots.

Shooting with 50+ Year Old Expired Film

Photographer Chuck Miller got his hands on a roll of Super-XX 120 government surplus film from eBay with an expiration date of May 1959 -- film that's 50+ years old and, as Miller notes, older than the Los Angeles Angels baseball team.

Start a Self Portrait per Day Project with New Everyday App

After Noah Kalina published his "Everyday" video back in 2006 featuring a self-portrait a taken every day for 2,356 days, the concept took off and soon the Internet was filled with copycat projects by people who wanted to document their own lives in the same way. If you've been wanting to try you hand at taking a photo of your face every day but have lacked the discipline to do so, there's a new app for the iPhone called "Everyday" that is designed to make things easier for you.

Room Divider Made with Film Canisters

Tiffany Threadgould of RePlayGround had the awesome idea of building a room divider using old 35mm film canisters. She spent three months befriending film processing shops in New York and collecting the 1,000+ canisters needed for the project.

Automated Pinhole Camera Built with Lego Mindstorms

Pinhole cameras are usually very low-tech and dumbed-down in their operation, but how would one go about making it fancier like a digital camera? Basil Shikin decided to build his own custom pinhole camera using Lego Mindstorms, adding all sorts of awesome features to an ordinarily simple kind of camera. Features include automatic shutter speed calculation using a sensor, automatic film rewind, and the tracking of how much film remains.

Turn Your Halloween Pumpkin into a Pinhole Camera

Claire O'Neill and Mito Habe-Evans over at NPR's The Picture Show blog have just posted a fun experimental project you can try out this halloween: making a pinhole camera out of a pumpkin. What you'll need is a pumpkin, aluminum foil, a knife, tape, photo paper, dark spray paint, and access to a dark room. Along with the disturbing skull camera we shared earlier today, this would be a fun way to capture photos of trick-or-treaters this halloween.