Instagram can be a force for good. For example, the hashtag and Instagram account #litterati has encouraged thousands to pick up trash they find on the street. But as with most tools, it can also do harm, and a couple of day care workers in Virginia recently used the service to those ends, losing their jobs in the process.
Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge, often referred to these days as Royal Baby George, had his first photo shoot recently. But if you expected the future British king to get his pick of professional photographers when it comes to his first official family portraits, you'd be wrong.
The photos -- which have been called everything from "intimate" and "cozy" to "not really what you want" and "just bad" -- were actually taken by the Duchess of Cambridge's father, Michael Middleton.
Vermont senator Patrick Leahy is a lot of things: an expert marksman, the most senior senator on Capitol Hill, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and third line for the presidency, just to name a few. But even though he's had as successful of a political career as a Senator might ever hope to have, if you ask him what he would like to do full-time, he'll tell you photography.
For years now, the aging senator has made a name for himself as the senator who you never see without his camera. And although we've shown you his work in the past, in the video above, Leahy himself weighs in on his work and photography in general.
Last Thursday, we told you about the newest anti-paparazzi bill to hit the California State Assembly. Focused on expanding the definition of harassment, SB 606 was drafted for the specific purpose of protecting the children of celebrities -- some hollywood actresses have already spoken out in support of the bill.
As with many a legal mater, however, not everyone is in favor of the bill. While most would agree that protecting children from being harassed by paparazzi is a worthy goal, the NPPA is now officially speaking out against SB 606, warning the public that this bill's vague wording "threatens first amendment rights."
The crowd surfing blow up ball at a concert isn't a new idea, but late last year HP and Almap BBDO took it in a new direction. As part of HPs "Making Memories Last" campaign, the company fit one of the massive concert beach balls with a high-definition camera and WiFi antenna.
The world of photography is awash with gear and accessories for an eager public. But not every invention is worthy of merit as seen by this glorious collection of “WTF were they thinking?”.
There will soon be one more road in the United States named after a famous photographer. The city council in Tulsa, Oklahoma has voted to change the namesake of its "Brady street" from Wyatt Tate Brady to Mathew B. Brady.
Wyatt Tate was the founder of Tulsa, but also a racist and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Matthew B. was one of the best known 19th century American photographers who documented the American Civil War.
Looking to incorporate drone photography and videography into your wedding photo packages? Make sure you're a pro at flying the drone before getting it anywhere near your clients.
The video above is an example of what can happen if you're not.
Some sad news has emerged from the Midwest today: The Kansas City Star is reporting that a former employee and blogger committed suicide yesterday outside a local police station. Prior to ending his own life, 60-year-old Martin Manley created his own memorial website that includes detailed information about his life, including photographs captured over the years of himself and his experiences.
Sob alert: Fashion/celebrity photographer Terry Richardson says he's likely to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars due to a recent ruling in a suit against Lady Gaga.
When the words "Getty" and "Free" make their way into the same sentence -- as they have a few times before -- photographers tend to tense up before they read on. But when we say that the Getty Museum is sharing 4,600 images for free, there's no need to fret.
In this case, Getty doesn't refer to the stock photography company, but rather the J. Paul Getty Museum. And the museum's newly launched Open Content Program looks to be a positive addition for all.
There's some debate over who the "father" of street photography was. Although Frenchman Eugene Atget is often granted this title, his work was mainly architectural, putting people second.
But there's another, lesser-known name that enters the picture (pardon the pun) as early as if not earlier than Atget: a Scotsman by the name of John Thomson.
I admit that I am an Instagram Junkie. To paraphrase that classic SNL line: "I got a fever and the only prescription is MORE INSTAGRAM." It's not that I really enjoy sharing images of my dog and what I had for dinner, it's more that I love looking at the uploads of those I follow. Following celebrities is a lot of fun, as you get to see a glimpse inside their world. What are they thinking? Where are they going? What are they doing?
BforBel.com knows this and took it a step further...all the way to Disney.
Photographs may have become depressingly common in your world, but there are still vast chunks of the globe where images are rare and powerful. A new charity is hoping to fill some of that void by offering portrait sessions and prints in impoverished areas, funded by the sale of prints by noted photographers.
A Miami man is in jail after allegedly killing his wife, then confessing to the crime and posting a grisly image of the body on Facebook.
Yep, it happened. It really did...
I just recently finished a whirlwind Euro-trip traveling with my sisters. The itinerary was Germany (where I am currently living as a soldier with the incredible fortune to be stationed there) to London to Dublin to Paris to Barcelona and back to Germany.
Robert E. Jackson isn't exactly a household name, but his massive collection of one-of-a-kind snapshots has earned him a great deal of recognition in the right circles. Back in 2007, he was given an entire show at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. And some of his collection is currently on display at the Pace/MacGill Gallery in New York City.
He's a prolific collector with over 11,000 prints to his name, and so NPR's Claire O'Neill asked him to call in and talk with her about the snapshot, what it was, what it is, and whether or not it's in the process of fading away forever.
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.
Think the above photo is showing a violent protest in the Middle East? Think again. The photo is in fact a screen grab from a video showing just how easily news photos of a 'violent protest' could be staged.
Those of you who have been waiting for a scientific reason to tell some of your friends to stop cluttering your Facebook News Feed with a new photo every 5 minutes need wait no more. A new study out of the UK examining the effects of sharing photos on social networks recently found that uploading too many photos (as well as the wrong type) can actually make people like you less.
It's one thing, apparently, to be accused of multiple murders, sexual assault and breathtaking cruelty. But lousy photography skills?
That was the scene in a Northern California courtroom on Wednesday, as alleged serial killer Joseph Naso tried to establish his credentials as a photographer, a key part of his self-constructed defense as he faces four counts of murder.
Capturing our likeness has been a pursuit of the human race for thousands of years. From paintings of gods in Egypt and Greece, to portrait paintings of royalty, to the unabashedly narcissistic selfie of today.
In this week's episode of PBS Arts' webseries Off Book the topic of the day is portraiture, a subject each of the four interviewees takes on from their own unique angle.
This is Hafid. About 4 months ago, Hafid stole a phone from a German tourist who was vacationing on the island of Ibiza, Spain. Hafid didn't, however, delete the original owner's Dropbox app or disable the automatic upload feature.
So ever since the phone was stolen, she has received periodic updates about Hafid's life in Dubai, which she has kindly uploaded to a Tumblr blog, complete with humorous commentary.
Yage Yang of Taipei, Taiwan is passionate about two things: snapping photos with his camera and building things with his hands. In June 2012, he decided that he would build a giant replica of a Nikon D800 out of styrofoam, just for fun. The project took him an entire year to complete, but the result, a "Nikon D800X," is ridiculously impressive.
You may think the worst offenses on Instagram are aesthetic, but animal-rights activists are complaining that the service helps users sell live animals that end up slaughtered for food or religious sacrifices.
Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Ros has turned to Instagram to create its latest music video, encouraging fans to upload clips that can be melded into an evolving visual interpretation of the song "Stormur."
Social media have opened all sorts of avenues for getting in trouble at work, from oversharing workplace gossip on Twitter to old Facebook photos showing bosses parts of your past not covered on your resume. But here's a relatively new one: Showing the world what your paycheck looks like.
In early July 2013, Sports Illustrated writer Richard Deitsch posed an interesting question to his tens of thousands of followers on Twitter: "How many of you have a photograph of the single best moment of your life?" The photographs that people shared in response were powerful and emotional.
Ever had trouble getting a quality smile from a client? Then you might want to think about building a giant replica of a Polaroid camera and plopping it on the sidewalk.
Conflict photographers like Michael Kamber and Louie Palu have spent years covering the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. They've lost friends, been very nearly killed themselves, and come back with incredible (and sometimes hard to stomach) photos.
Both of their work is currently on display alongside many of their peers' at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC, and in the short video above, they share the stories behind some of their most moving imagery. (Note: the above video contains some strong imagery)
Have you ever covertly taken a photo of an attractive stranger when out and about in public? If you have, then you're no different than 8% of Brits, at least according to a recent survey.
While finding it hard to hit the bars set by Lamar Odom and Kanye West, celebrities and wannabe famous people continue to pioneer new avenues for abusing photographers.
In a move roundly criticized by the U.S. State Department, embattled Syrian Pres. Bashat Assad has taken to Instagram to promote jarringly bucolic images of life in the war-torn nation.
How do us elders separate ourselves from those who only know what it means to upload? Here are 17 tools and toys you’ll immediately recognize if you still remember the heyday of Kodak. Bring on the nostalgia.
Over the past week, we've had the opportunity to share stories that showed both the intersection of camera technology and sports, as well as camera technology and 3D modeling for video games. The video above has a little bit of both.
Dove Canada is getting serious about promoting Real Beauty by going after art directors, graphic designers and photo retouchers -- basically anyone who distorts body image in print. In order to fight those who they feel create an unrealistic representation of what the body actually looks like, they created a "Beautify" action that can be downloaded for free from popular editing sites. The action appears to add a "glowing skin" effect when in reality, it reverts the image back to its original, unretouched state, thus driving home Dove's philosophy that "Real Beauty Isn't Retouched."
I don't know about you, but if I downloaded a skin enhancing action only to find it reverted my image back to the unretouched state, I'd be throwing out all my Dove products in protest.
Remember that fake anime fighting photo fad that emerged from Japan earlier this year? Vancouver-based photographer …
Professional food photography is a legitimate pursuit that takes some serious skill. It's done in a studio, with professional lighting and often enlists the help of a professional food stylist to get the shot just right.
Food pics are a different matter, often taken in a restaurant with a cell phone while the other people at the table wait impatiently to dig in. The humorous clip above pokes fun at the latter.
A photo of sweet justice or a picture of cruel gloating? That's the debate raging on Facebook after a Philadelphia antique store posted a hard-hitting photo of a young man being arrested last week after being caught in the act of robbing the store.
This is awesome: someone over at the Chicago Tribune made a hilarious mistake this morning, accidentally publishing a placeholder …
Is your dog acting too normally? Then it's time to confuse the heck out of him with PetziConnect, a stationary doggie camera that lets owners see their pets remotely, talk to them, and dispense treats.
Just in case you weren't feeling media-saturated enough already: there's word of an emerging technology that could decorate your photos with ads only a camera can see.
There's just something about skateboarding that attracts photographers and videographers. Whether they're traveling the world photographing crazy tricks in exotic places, or shooting 1000 fps footage of tricks that haven't even been named, camera junkies are always finding new and interesting ways to capture the sport.
Sebastian Linda's newest video does just that. By using high-speed cameras, some creative camera movements and colored powder, he's managed to create a magical skateboarding world through the lens of his camera.
Sunday Night Football is about to get a lot more fun to watch. Not even two months after we shared the news that the folks over at NHK had put together a robotic bullet time rig that could shoot 360° slow-motion replays, NBC has announced its plan to bring matrix-style replays to the world of pro football.
An unnamed photographer and the editor of a French celebrity gossip magazine have been charged with privacy violations for publishing topless photos of new royal mom Kate Middleton (now Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge), and more charges are likely to follow.
Back in 2009, award-winning editorial art director and artist Mark Michaelson released his book Least Wanted: A Century of American Mugshots. In it he had compiled more than 10,000 mug shot portraits taken between the 1870s and 1970s. Portraits of the "punks, sneaks, mooks and miscreants" he referred to as the "Least Wanted."
For his portrait series Wanted, London-based photographer Nick Dolding decided to recreate some of the most striking of the mug shots found within Michaelson's book.
In the world of firefighting, a "hotshot" is a firefighter who specializes in containing forest fires before they reach inhabited areas. Gregg Boydston is one such "hotshot." Part of a 20-person crew that is available to travel all over the nation, he does one thing that most firefighters don't: he brings his iPhone along and uploads photos to Instagram.
Having to ask someone to take your or your group's picture can be an awkward experience for everyone involved (including the photographer). And although there are apps that will re-insert the photographer digitally, an ingenious little addition to the tourist island of Enoshima takes a significantly more "analog" approach at fixing the problem.
Warning: This post contains somewhat inappropriate viral images of a well-known American talk show host. Reader discretion is advised. Also, please, please look the other way if you're only interested in reading serious articles.
To: Mr. Geraldo Rivera
From: Cheri Frost speaking on behalf of Everyone
Re: Bathroom Selfies
How do you take the next step after rising from humble newspaper shooter to chief official photographer for the White House? You start sharing pictures of your lunch, of course.
At least that's the strategy for Oval Office documentarian Pete Souza, who opened his new Instagram account Wednesday with an image of healthy snacks aboard Air Force One.