Culture

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.

PetaPixel has written a number of times in the past about Nigerian 419 scammers targeting photographers and photography assistants. After spending time setting up business arrangements, the scammers will use shady tactics to try and steal your hard-earned money.

I'm a freelance photographer, and I recently got sick and tired of being contacted by these scammers. To get back at them, I started having ridiculous conversations with them to lead them on and piss them off. I also started publishing the exchanges on a new site called Messing with Scammers.

Apple and Adobe sparked some unintended controversy yesterday after unveiling and demonstrating the new iPad Pro. Adobe mobile design director, Eric Snowden, took to the stage and showed off a new app called Adobe Fix, which offers powerful face detection features for mobile photo retouching. This is the mobile Photoshop app that was previously referred to as Project Rigel.

As an example of the app's powers, Snowden showed how the app can easily turn a woman's neutral expression into a smile. The demo drew some chuckles from the audience, but journalists and commentators immediately turned to social media to condemn the demo as sexist.

Photographers are used to being behind the camera, but the prominence and rise of photography – particularly through social media – has created emerging opportunities for photographers. No longer relegated to pimping camera gear and workshops, the contemporary photographer has many more possibilities to endorse everything from cars to credit cars.

“Regardless of what it signifies, any photographic image also connotes memory and nostalgia, nostalgia for modernity and the twentieth century, the era of the pre-digital, pre-post-modern.” --Lev Manovich

There will always be a need to connect to the past. Contemporary culture actively and unconsciously cycles through past follies and reflects upon progress. It is no surprise then, that we see popular culture re-presenting past generations. Perhaps more so than any other period in our recent past, today’s pop-cultural climate is mimicking that of the 1970s.

An Iowa photographer recently learned an extremely painful lesson about the importance of backing up images in multiple places after photo shoots. Someone broke into her car and made off with thousands of dollars in equipment, including 6 memory cards containing thousands of photos from over 20 wedding, family, and newborn shoots.

Alex Lopatnyuk recently went gator hunting and brought his GoPro and selfie stick along for the first time.

"The selfie failed," Lopatnyuk writes.

A Hungarian journalist and camerawoman has been fired after photos and videos of her tripping and kicking fleeing refugees spread far and wide on the Internet.

Hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing their war torn countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia, bringing very few possessions with them as they make their dangerous -- and often deadly -- journeys toward what they hope is a better life.

The International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian aid organization, commissioned photographer Tyler Jump to shoot a series of photos to document what refugees brought across the Aegean Sea to Lesbos, Greece.

Europe's largest newspaper, the Bild of Germany, has published an unusual print edition that left out all photographs from its pages. The bold move is apparently a response to reader backlash after the paper published photos of Alan Kurdi, the 3-year-old Syrian refugee who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea.

The paper is saying that "the world must see the truth," and hoping that by leaving out photos, people will realize the importance of photography in bringing about change.

Video editor Paul Ross was visiting the Louisville Zoo recently when he came …

Quite a few parents got a rude awakening this past week after an Alabama district attorney released a video that reveals one way kids are hiding secret photos right under their parents' noses.

Well, this is a bit... awkward. Getty Images recently threatened a lawsuit against German blog Get Digital, which had published the famous ‘Socially Awkward Penguin’ meme without first obtaining permission.

That is right: you technically need permission to use the meme. According to Getty Images, the meme contains an image originally shot by nature photographer George F. Mobley. The blog ended up paying Getty Images $868 for the copyright violation.

Photographer Jonathan Diaz is using his imagination and portrait photography skills for a good cause. He's the founder of Anything Can Be, a Salt Lake City, Utah-based non-profit that's working to inspire hope in young cancer patients by bringing their dreams to life with photos.

It’s been a funny week. A couple of days ago, while I was sitting in the office reformatting my MacBook in sunny West Sussex, I was also sort of arrested in Islington, London.

Let me elaborate...

There's a new rising star on Instagram. A clever account called Socality Barbie is attracting quite a bit of attention for posting satirical hipster Instagram photos featuring a fashion forward Barbie. If you've ever browsed through artsy, hipster Instagram photos, you'll likely recognize many of the generic shots being referenced.

Photographers are up in arms this week over an online battle between a DJ and a wedding photographer. At the center of the controversy is the question of whether or not a DJ should be able to shoot and share wedding photos when the photographer has an exclusivity agreement with the bride and groom.

President Obama embarked on a three-day tour of the Alaskan Arctic this week to bring attention to the issue of climate change. To document his adventure and share it with the world, Obama carried along a GoPro camera and a selfie stick.

A 19-year-old man in Houston, Texas, died yesterday after accidentally shooting himself with a gun while posing with it in a selfie.

Whether we like it or not, our culture has become obsessed with selfies. Front facing cameras on smartphones are increasingly getting better and every other week another ‘selfie flash’ product seems to appear in the wild.

Now the Australian government wants to help tourists take bigger and better selfies that include the environments around them; they are being dubbed ‘GIGA Selfies’.

I’m a freelance creative director and professional photojournalist. When I’m shooting, I work quite a bit for the boutique picture agency, Polaris Images in NYC, although I do take a lot of other assignments. I shoot all kinds of assignments—news, features, portraits, and politics... lately, a lot of politics.

I’m in Las Vegas, and with Nevada and its large Hispanic population being one of the early primary voting states next year, all the candidates from both parties are coming through here every week. I’m assigned to cover almost all of them, and I try hard to make more than the usual campaign pictures, if I can.

Newborn baby photographers often capture the same elements in their shots: a nude baby sleeping serenely as their doting parents' smile and gaze. What you don't often see, however, are the many unexpected accidents that happen. And there's one truth many baby photographers know very well: babies can't stop the shoot to request a bathroom break.

Exclusive photo ops are sometimes only available to those who win an application lottery. The McNeil River bear sanctuary in Alaska is one example -- photographer John Daley recently shared about his experience with that. Here's another one: CERN.

The largest particle physics laboratory in the world is holding a special CERN Photowalk 2015 next month, and a handful of lucky photographers from around the world will be given a behind-the-scenes tour of the prestigious labs.

Photography has the power to change lives, and that's what happened in a big way over the past week for one Syrian refugee. After a photo of the man selling pens went viral online, people around the world have donated over $150,000 to help give the man start a new life.

Love someone who loves photography, and planning to pop the question soon? Check out this homemade ring box Matt Chalker made for his photographer girlfriend recently. It opens and closes like the aperture on a camera, and it took about 50-60 hours to make.

Throughout your measure of time learning photography and shooting, have you ever reached a point of realization that there is hardly a place left on the planet that you can shoot where someone else hasn’t already? Especially the most remarkable places, we find they have been packaged up, guard rails erected, and signs posted that welcome us while at the same time restrain our ability to capture a unique perspective.

Back in July, writer David Sikorski and photographer Kristina Bakrevski gained quite a bit of attention online after publishing engagement photos of Sikorski and his one true love: the burrito.

The idea was so popular and unusual that McDonald's decided to steal it for a new advertising campaign.

My life is pretty good. I live in one of the coolest cities in the world (Toronto), I have a lot of close friends, good family, an amazing girlfriend who loves me, and I’m beginning to think my photography business is sustainable after almost five years of hard work. I’m happier now than I have been for most of my life. But here’s the reality: I am just a blue collar photographer.

Photography has been used in many ways throughout its history: as documentation, propaganda, keepsake, etc. But never has it been so frequently used as a weapon as in the Information Age. As visual communication becomes the de facto language of social media, we can only surmise that we will see more and more examples of using photography for nefarious purposes.

You’ve heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, right? Well, perhaps not always. Redditor …

After reading Stephen Mayes’ TIME essay on the end of photography I couldn’t help but respond. To begin with, his main proposition is that “in the future there will be no such thing as a ‘straight photograph’” to which I’d add that I’m not sure there ever really has been much of a ‘straight photograph’ although in recent decades the public has become increasingly aware of this.

World champion sprinter Usain Bolt had a scary encounter with a clumsy cameraman at the World Athletics Championships in Beijing today. After winning the 200m race, Bolt was upended after the cameraman lost control of the Segway he was riding.

How have magazine covers and their photos changed over the past century? The answer sheds light on not just the design and image choices of major media companies, but changes in our cultures and the way we think as well.

Cafe Art is a UK-based initiative that aims to connect the homeless with their wider community through art and photography. The project was founded in 2012, and since then they've hung up artwork in more than 20 cafes across London.

Back in July, Cafe Art handed out 100 Fujifilm disposable cameras to homeless people in London, connected them to photography training with the Royal Photographic Society, and asked them to shoot photos with the theme "My London."

Have you ever looked at a piece of artwork -- a photo, for example -- and had the thought “I could do that”? PBS's The Art Assignment takes a closer look at the statement to explore a few questions it raises.

Here are some glitterbombs of truth about photography and being a photographer...

Here's a humorous example of why you should pay attention to lighting when combining photos into a composite image. A few days ago, Jeb Bush's super PAC Right to Rise USA tweeted a picture that showed Bush with a stock photo of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in the background. People immediately noticed that something was strange with Bush's left hand.

Facebook has deleted a controversial page called "Project Harpoon," which posted photos of plus-size models and celebrities next to Photoshopped versions showing what they would look like if they were thinner. The page gained thousands of fans during its short existence, but it also attracted a loud outcry from the public and from the women seen in the photos.

How much would you need to earn to make photography a full-time job? On a recent visit to India, I was strolling through Mumbai's colonial-era neighborhoods when I was approached by a young man with a Nikon DSLR and a backpack. He offered to take my photo against the backdrop of two of the city's landmarks, the Taj Hotel and the Gateway of India.

Instant prints were available, and examples in a clear plastic file were offered for inspection.

Lately, drones have been the topic of many privacy concerns. Notably, one Kentucky man gunned down a Phantom that he thought was taking photos of his teenage daughter. But are drones any more creepy than existing technology?

The Rugby World Cup is coming up this September and New Zealand sports television channel Sky Sports wants to make sure that their cameramen are ready for the job. In this series of hilarious videos from 2011, we witness ‘cameramen at boot camp’. Whether they are trying to keep their lenses focused or assemble their camera bodies while blindfolded, we wish them all the best.

Here’s a humorous little meme image that’s been floating around the Internet. It’s …

Stock photography has provided business and individuals with a method of acquiring imagery without the need to hire a photographer. However, has any bit of stock photography ever truly captured the complex nature of a New Yorker? Apparently the folks over at New York radio station WNYC didn’t feel that the need was being addressed and, as a result, have crafted 35 “quintessential photos of true New York City.”

The photo above is titled: "Woman Texting at Top of Subway Stairs While Others Try to Exit."

This is pretty crazy if it's real: an ammunition company called Snake River has just announced a new product called the Drone Munition shot shell: it's a shotgun shell designed specifically for shooting down camera drones.

British photographer David Yarrow is making headlines after a tiger got loose during a photo shoot in Detroit.

Anne-Marie Valentine was on a camping trip at Folsom Lake in California last month when she spotted what appeared to be a dead seagull at the bottom of the dry lake bed. When she got closer, she realized that it was a camera drone that someone had crashed into the lake before the drought had sucked away water. What's more, footage in the video camera was still intact, and it showed the drone's unfortunate final flight.

Have you ever tried to show a friend a photo on your phone, only to have them start swiping through your entire personal photo collection uninvited? If you do know someone like that, there's now a lighthearted way to prank them. It's an Android app called Ninja Snap that will surprise nosey swipers by showing them their own face in your album.

Have you ever wished you could remotely control your smartphone’s camera with a trigger remote disguised as a 35mm film canister or a mini twin-lens reflex camera? If so, then your wish has been granted by the Japanese company Gizmon. For a small price, you can pick up one of these cute and colorful gadgets and pair it with your iOS or Android smartphone.

There’s been a lot of news coverage and editorializing about vertical video. It’s become such a scourge that PSAs have been created to stop the phenomenon in its tracks.

Last year, journalist Esther Honig published a viral series of images showing how photo retouchers in 27 countries around the world "enhanced" a portrait of her according to their cultural preferences. Inspired by that project, the UK medical website Superdrug Online Doctor just published a similar experiment that explores body image.