Culture

Filmmaker Woody Roseland made this short 2-minute tongue-in-cheek video titled “5 Photohacks to …

This simple photo is a fascinating portrait of what smartphone cameras have done to our culture. A single woman is seen enjoying the moment with just her eyes while a sea of smartphone cameras surrounds her.

The photo has been going viral over the past week, and this lady is now an Internet sensation.

Canadian photographer Eric Draht posted this short video in which photographer …

Hungarian photographer Norbert Baksa is at the receiving end of Internet outrage this week after publishing a series of fashion photos that he says are inspired by the ongoing refugee crisis.

Guess who's shooting with a Sony a7r II camera now? Chief Official White House photographer Pete Souza.

The latest photo posted to the official White House Flickr photostream shows that Souza used the highly-regarded Sony mirrorless camera to photograph President Obama talking to Cuba President Raúl Castro in the Oval Office in mid-September.

Instagram launched five years ago today, transforming the way the world takes and shares photos. Here's a look back at the most popular photos ever posted to the service.

Want to see how a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer responds to a request for free images in exchange for "credit" from a major news corporation? You can, because that exchange happened a few days ago.

David Carson is photojournalist with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who won the Pulitzer Prize with his paper this year for his coverage of protests in Ferguson, Missouri. Last Friday, Carson was contacted by what appears to be a CBS account on Twitter that regularly Tweets requests for image usage.

Tsuneko Sasamoto is a renowned Japanese photographer who is considered to be her country's first female photojournalist, documenting pre- and post-war Japan since becoming a professional shooter at the age of 25.

Sasamoto also has the distinction of being one of the oldest photographers on Earth: she just turned 101 years old in September, and she's still making photos.

Here’s a cute 13-second clip that’s making the rounds on the Web. It shows a little girl throwing a …

A 17-year-old boy in Russia has died after falling 9 stories from a rooftop while engaging in extremely dangerous "rooftopping photography." The goal of the stunt was another eye-catching photo for his Instagram account.

There's a good deal of hatred toward camera drones these days, and there are regularly stories of people destroying other people's drones in crazy ways. In July, another man was arrested for shooting down a drone with a shotgun. The following month, a man was filmed hooking a drone with his fishing line.

It seems the video game developer Robomodo doesn't care much for drones either. In Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5, the popular franchise's latest installment that was released this week, there's a challenge called "Attack of the Drones." Players are tasked with destroying camera drones as quickly as they can.

UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, recently launched an ad campaign in Chile that speaks out against cyberbullying with smartphone photos. Titled "One Shot," each of the three ads shows a group of teenage students pointing their mobile cameras at one of their peers, firing squad-style.

One of the big photo stories on the Web this past week has been the picture above, shot over the weekend by Australian photographer Sam Yeldham. Yeldham was shooting time-lapse photos of a storm rolling into Sydney when a bride and groom strolled into the scene. He captured a gorgeous shot of the couple as the sun was setting and before the storm struck, but the couple was gone before he could get their contact information.

During the MLB baseball game yesterday between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies, a cameraman spotted a group of sorority girls who were apparently more interested in snapping the perfect selfie than watching the game. The announcers for the TV broadcast took notice, and the whole thing turned into a strange case study of what Instagram has done to our culture.

Back in May 2015, the Lewisville Independent School District in Texas issued student Anthony Mazur a notice to take down any photographs from his personal Flickr account that had been captured with school equipment or face a threat of suspension. After much debate with the school board, Mazur won the battle thanks to US copyright law and support from his local community.

The school isn't backing down from its policy, though: it's now requiring students to sign a "work for hire" contract to use district-owned camera equipment and, as a result, surrender all of their copyright protection. Mazur recently posted the new contract on Twitter for everyone to read.

I’ve often looked at engagement shoots, and there are generally two types. One is when a couple are already engaged so is more of a pre-wedding shoot, and one is where someone is brave enough to invite a photographer along while he or she actually pops the question. The latter is rarer, and it made me wonder if I could get a friend to be there when I did it. The more I thought about it the more it didn’t fit in with what I had originally planned.

Rapper T.I. is being criticized by photographers after using a photo without permission on advertising for a party and then getting into an online dispute about the infringement.

Most people use their smartphones as their go-to snapshot camera these days, and the impressive image quality of the latest models is great for recording everyday memories. The small sensor and lens do have their limitations, though, and quite a few people found that out last night when they pulled out their smartphones to photograph the supermoon lunar eclipse.

Famous movies often have iconic movie posters that are easily recognizable at a glance. We've collected text-less versions of 23 different posters to offer a closer look at the photos that are used to create them.

Sometimes I make brief escapes from the humdrum of city life and venture into the woods to capture the majesty of nature. I ride around on my bicycle like a madman looking for interesting subjects to capture. The last time I did this, my beloved camera bounced out of my pocket somewhere along the bumpy road; I’d gotten some good shots that day, quite a few actually, and keeping a stoic attitude while backtracking in search of my lost camera became increasingly difficult. Not only was the camera lost, I was lost.

On Monday, Australian wedding photographer Edwina Robertson posted a photo (seen above) on Facebook and made a crazy pledge. For every "share" the photo received over the following 24 hours, Robertson would donate $3 to Tie Up the Black Dog, a charity that helps those fighting depression and mental illness in rural Australian communities.

People took Robertson up on her offer, sharing the photo thousands of times and causing it to go viral. Robertson will now personally donate $14,922, and she has also helped raise many thousands more through crowdfunding.

Donald Trump is lashing out at an Associated Press photographer over photos of empty chairs at a Trump speech in South Carolina. The presidential candidate is accusing the photojournalist of portraying a dishonest story through his photos.

It's not often that one gets to narrate the story of their birth. Fortunately (or unfortunately) in my case, the story has been told to me and to others around me time and time again. It’s imprinted in memory, much like a photograph, due to its many renditions, and it's narrated more often whenever my birthday comes around each September. Thankfully, it is not one of those tales that changes and has details added or subtracted to it with every rendition.

Sex offenders have the 1st Amendment right to photograph children in public. That's what a state Court of Appeals in Wisconsin ruled on Tuesday, striking down a law that make it illegal for registered sex offenders to take ordinary pictures of kids in public without getting permission from the parents.

Remember that copyright controversy last year between photographer David Slater and the money that took selfies with Slater's camera back in 2011? PETA is joining in on the fracas.

The animal rights group filed a lawsuit yesterday on behalf of the monkey, a 6-year-old macaque in Indonesia named Naruto. PETA argues that Naruto is the legal copyright owner of the photos (seen above) rather than Slater, and that all proceeds from the photos should be used for the benefit of the monkey.

Here's a crazy but true statistic: selfies are now a bigger cause of death in the world than shark attacks.

Shark attacks are extremely rare: only about 5 people die from them every year around the globe. By comparison, there have already been 12 confirmed cases of people accidentally getting killed while trying to take a selfie.

Want to see what it was like to work as a photographer at a major newspaper back in 1983? Check out this blast from the past: it's a 20-minute video by photographer Hugh Wesley, who spent 28 years at the Toronto Sun before retiring as the director of photography in 2001.

The New York Times published an article about brands using user generated content (UGC) without explicit permission. When a woman named Shereen Way posted a photo of her daughter to Instagram with the hashtag #crocs, Crocs pulled the photo and posted it to their website with other user photos.

It was only much later that Crocs sought explicit permission from Ms. Way, which she declined. And how did they ask for permission? “Please respond with #CrocsOK.”

I firmly believe that photography is a powerful force for good in this world.

As reportage, it opens our eyes to tragedies we might otherwise ignore; as landscape or wildlife photography, it reveals a beauty we too often take for granted, and encourages us to treat the planet with the respect it demands; as portraiture, it reminds us that each person has uncharted and unfathomable depths to their humanity that we may never truly understand.

Tokyo-based photographer Irwin Wong just released a crazy film titled "The Last Sentoshi." It's about a female superhero who defeats her enemies using a powerful camera flash.

Vox has published a short 5-minute video that tells the story of how early film stocks in photography were designed with light skin as the ideal skin standard, and therefore sometimes had problems rendering darker skins -- especially in photos that showed both darker and lighter complexions.

Back in 1974, photographer Mike Mandel traveled across the United States and photographed 134 top photographers and curators as baseball players. Mandel then used those portraits to create Baseball-Photographer Trading Cards, an unusual set of trading cards featuring big names in the industry. As you can see from the card above, Ansel Adams was one of them.

The YouTube channel Found Footage Fest scoured thrift stores and purchased old modeling …

There has been another tragedy involving a dangerous photo shoot on train tracks. A 16-year-old boy was struck and killed by an Amtrack train this past Monday afternoon while doing a casual photo shoot with his girlfriend.

Bangkok, Thailand-based photographer Chompoo Baritone recently created a clever series of images that pokes fun at how Instagram users often use carefully framed photos to make their lives seem more glamorous or exciting than they actually are.

Each of the photos in the series shows a picture-perfect Instagram snap, except we get to see the less-perfect world outside the little frame. The project is titled "#slowlife."

Movie and TV show blooper reels often feature unfortunate moments when an actor just can’t seem to say a …

Here's a list of 23 things you'll (probably) never hear coming out of a professional photographer's mouth.

A few days ago, we shared a creepy short film titled “Follow Focus,” which told the story …

Back in June, we shared a series of photos by Joey L., who made a dangerous trip to Kurdistan to point his camera at the Kurdish guerrilla groups fighting in the Syrian civil war.

It turns out that many of the photos violate Instagram's policies, not because they show violence or graphic scenes, but because they show members of PKK, a group that's listed on "terrorist" lists. Joey L. isn't pleased with the policy.

I proudly ordered an Instacube in August 2012 amid significant press hype over a device that would display your Instagram feed with a large 6.5” screen. Finally... the digital picture frame that I actually wanted. The initial goal of $35,000 was quickly smashed, and the Kickstarter campaign ended up raising over $620,000.

A couple in Chicago recently posed for an adorable engagement photo shoot in which they recreated the opening love scene from the 1961 Disney movie "101 Dalmatians."

Dear Photographer,

It is no secret that local business is suffering in the digitized times, with camera stores being some of the worst to feel this pinch. In our region, we are one of the only camera stores for miles in each direction. Many of our customers drive upwards of 2 hours just to come into our store to shop with us, which says a lot about the state of the photo retail world, and how far great customer service reaches.

On September 23rd, Pope Francis will be visiting Washington D.C. and rolling through the streets during a Papal Parade in his Popemobile. The Secret Service is working hard on security preparations leading up to the visit, and yesterday it published security policies for law enforcement to enforce.

Among the banned items at the parade are firearms, explosives, drones, and selfies sticks.

Every year there are multiple stories of people getting killed while doing photo shoots on train tracks. Union Pacific even launched a PSA campaign about the dangers earlier this year.

It seems that one photographer didn't get the memo.

If you’re a fan of both photography and scary movies, check out this creepy little short film titled “Follow …

People often use social media photos these days to make their lives seem a lot more happy, exciting, and/or glamorous than it actually is. Popular Vine comedian/actor @MelvinGregg decided to poke fun at this fact of Internet culture with a little 6-second-long Vine sketch that's going viral.

Rafael del Col was 30-years-old when he lost his wife Tatiane Valques to a car accident back in 2013, leaving him to raise their daughter Raisa by himself. Last year, Del Col decided to pay an emotional tribute to Tatiane by recreating portraits the couple had taken a week before their wedding in 2009, with Raisa stepping into her mommy's shoes.

The photo shoot was captured in the powerful 5-minute video above, which quickly went viral on the Internet.

Comic artist and professional photographer S. Dirk Schafer of CLICKittyCAT just finished up a series of comics about the new photographer problems that came with the emergence of digital photography.

California governor Jerry Brown has vetoed a Senate bill that sought to make it illegal to fly a drone less than 350 feet above someone's private property without their permission.

We've heard of quite a few close calls between drones and aircraft over the past few years, but this latest one was an extremely close call that actually resulted in an arrest.

A hobby camera drone operator was arrested in Hollywood late last month after flying his drone within 50 feet of an Los Angeles Police Department helicopter that was searching for a suspect.