Inspiration

Danish photographer Mads Nissen has just been awarded World Press Photo of the Year 2014 for his photograph showing an intimate moment between a gay Russian couple. The selection was made after a whopping 20% of finalists were disqualified from the contest for altering their photos in a way that broke the post-processing rules.

Lynsey Addario is a 41-year-old photojournalist who has taken her camera into virtually ever major theater of war in the 21st century. She has covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, the Congo, Haiti, and Libya (she was one of the four NYTimes journalist kidnapped in Libya in 2011).

Danish photographer Thomas Bangsted sits on the opposite end of the spectrum from "spray and pray" photography. The Brooklyn-based artist often spends months or years completing individual pictures through researching, traveling, shooting, and post-processing. The 7-minute video above offers a glimpse into how Bangsted creates his art.

Want to see what a 10K time-lapse video looks like? Look no further than the video above. Titled "10328x7760: A 10K Timelapse Demo," it was created by Los Angeles-based photographer Joe Capra, a guy who specializes in ultra-high-definition time-lapse photography.

Just weeks after photographing New York City from 7,500 feet, photographer Vincent Laforet traveled west and captured the city of Las Vegas from an even higher perspective. Shot at almost 9,000 feet, the photos are part of a new series titled "Sin City".

The 3.5-minute music video above was captured in a span of 5 seconds. French filmmaker Guillaume Panariello tells us he did this "shortest shoot ever" using a Phantom 4K camera snapping 1000 frames per second. When slowed down, those 5 seconds of real time turn into three-and-a-half minutes of slow-mo craziness. The song is "Unconditional Rebel" by Siska.

Want to see what it's like to photograph skiers in the backcountry? Sports photographer Christoph Oberschneider recently did a 3-day ski shoot with good friends in the mountains of Austria. He brought along a GoPro to capture what the adventure looked like from his point of view, creating the 2.5-minute video seen above.

To mark the 60th anniversary of its M line of rangefinder cameras, Leica recently interviewed 10 well known photographers about their experience with the camera and their favorite photos captured with it.

Starting back in May of 2014, I finally put my first foot forward in the making of a 16x20 inch bellows camera. The idea to build a camera was nothing new to me, but I was always hesitant to begin construction since I am the type of person that prefers to work off a set of blue prints and directions. Unfortunately, since my drawing skills aren't amazing, it was pretty difficult to visualize and plan a solid blueprint of the project - which ultimately forced me to bite the bullet and simply …

Photographer Jean Luis De Heeckeren recently visited a pool in Austria to shoot underwater portraits of kayaker Viktoria Wolffhardt. Above is a short 2-minute behind-the-scenes video that shows the project's planning, setup, and execution.

Scientific photographer Neil Bromhall of Right Plants 4 Me created this time-lapse showing the birth of an oak tree. It reveals how an acorn turns into an oak seedling over the course of 8 months from September through April.

Photojournalist and war photographer James Nachtwey received a Lifetime Achievement Award this past Monday from the American Society of Magazine Editors. The 3.5-minute video above is his acceptance speech in which he talks about the power of photojournalists to create positive change in the world.

Here's a strange portrait showing what you get when you fire an off-camera flash that's shoved into your subject's mouth. Certain parts of the human face are more translucent than others, resulting in a creepy skull-like appearance.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would begin 2015 by shooting a Super Bowl commercial. Even further removed from the unlikeliness of shooting said commercial is... well... shooting said commercial in seven images. Not seven scenarios or seven videos -- seven photos.

Gilles Alonso is a 43-year-old professional architectural photographer based in Lyon, France. For his recent project "Symétrie du Spectacle" ("Symmetry Show"), Alonso visited a large number of grand theaters and photographed the hall from center stage. The images capture the beautiful symmetry and grandeur of these spaces.

Here's a fascinating video about how photographer Michael Paul Smith creates and photographs Elgin Park, a 20th century town created through miniature 1/24th-scale models. Smith creates incredibly realistic photos by capturing the detailed dioramas with an ordinary compact camera, and his images have gone viral in recent years on the Internet (the project has over 70 million views on Flickr).

Here's a short 2-minute behind-the-scenes video showing how Getty's Chief Entertainment Photographer Larry Busacca shot celebrity portraits at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. Busacca had to shoot all the portraits in the same tiny, green-walled tent studio, so he had to get creative with posing to shoot unique portraits of the actors.

For his projects Affinity I and Affinity II, Santa Fe, New Mexico-based photographer Brad Wilson captured beautiful studio portraits of all kinds of wild animals, from birds to primates to the diverse wildlife of the African safari.

Photographer Carl Pendle created this clever stop-motion titled "The Cut" that offers an interesting perspective into different fruits and vegetables.

Underwater photographer Aaron Gekoski was recently on an outing to photograph one of the largest migrations in the world's oceans, but the project was hampered by unfavorable conditions. Instead of writing the trip off as a failure, however, Gekoski and his buddy decided to tackle a different photo project instead: selfies with sharks.

Here's a 4.5-minute profile of street photographer Travis Jensen, a man who documents life on the sidewalks of San Francisco. It's a look at how Jensen approaches his photography and people on the streets. (Warning: there's some strong language.)

Anita Anti is a photographer based in Ukraine who uses elaborate costumes, props, and makeup to create magical portraits that are often inspired by fairy tales.

Photographer Brandon Stanton's Humans of New York has become one of the most influential photo projects in the world since it launched back in November 2010. Tens of millions of people follow Stanton as he shoots portraits of people on the street and shares the images online with their stories.

Here's an interesting 1-minute behind-the-scenes video showing how the racing team The Racer's Group (TRG) recently did a photo shoot that involved two Aston Martins zipping around the Daytona International Speedway.

Self promotion has been one of the most difficult things for me to overcome as a photographer. I constantly ask myself "Who cares?", "Is this relevant?", and "Do I sound like a douche bag?". I’ve decided to get over myself this year and just put the work out there and let the chips fall as they may.

Above is a full 50-minute documentary from 1998 about the life and work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, the legendary photographer who's considered to be the father of photojournalism. It's titled "Pen, Brush and Camera."

Ever since light painting exploded onto the scene some years ago, writing your signature by waving a light source in a long exposure has become a very common photo idea. But have you ever tried writing your signature by waving your camera at the moon? …

In 2013, photographer Brad Goldpaint and his wife Marci quit their day jobs, sold all of their possessions, and began living out of a motorhome while traveling through the Western United States. Their new career was teaching photography workshops while educating the public about the damaging effects of light pollution.

Nikon and The Telegraph recently partnered up for a campaign titled "I Am Different." It's a series of short videos showing how 5 different photographers are using their Nikon DSLR in various niches of photography.

American photojournalist W. Eugene Smith was widely praised for his devotion to photography and for pioneering the use of the photo essay to tell stories. He is said to have "created at least fifty images so powerful that they have changed the perception of our history." …

Here's something else to file under "Strange things people are doing with camera drones": PIEROGRAM was staying at a cottage with a friend this past summer when, after a few beers, the two decided to mount some roman candle fireworks to the drone to create a first person gunship type of game. The two had a blast, but it's probably not the brightest idea. (Warning: there's some strong language).

Zak Noyle is a surf photographer based out of Oahu, Hawaii who's considered to be one of the best in the business. He became the senior staff photographer of Surfer Magazine when he was just 25 years old, and his work has appeared in numerous magazines (e.g. ESPN, SI, Nat Geo) and advertisements (e.g. Billabong, Chanel).

Light painting photographer Darren Pearson spent the past year working on the stop motion animation above, titled "Lightspeed." Each of the 1,000 frames in it is a separate light-painted photograph that was captured in various locations across California.

For the past 10 years, 27-year-old Xyza Cruz Bacani has been working as a domestic worker for a wealthy Chinese family in Hong Kong. On her days off, she brings her camera onto her city's sidewalks and captures impressive street photos.

Richard Roberts is a freelance creative retoucher and digital artist based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Over the past decade, he has worked on advertisements and promotional materials for clients that include Fox, HBO, Mountain Dew, Under Armor, Kelloggs, and Gillette.

Artist INSA is known for creating mesmerizing animated GIFs using street art and photos. He was recently recruited by the scotch whisky brand Ballantines to create "the world's largest animated GIF," one that was created with gigantic paintings on the ground and photos from a satellite camera.

For his project "Comfort Zone," Lithuanian photographer Tadao Cern visited a public beach and shot photographs of the people sleeping comfortably on the sandy beach. The images were not staged, and none of the subjects were aware that a photograph was being made.

This isn't related to still photography, but we occasionally share some creative ideas from the world of video. The short film above by Eran Amir is titled "This Video is in Reverse." It may look relatively straightforward at first glance, but get this: everything you see was captured in a single take and then played backwards.

Kevin McGloughlin of Sligo, Ireland created this captivating music video for the song "Never Knew" by Sunken Foal. He tells us his use of "lights and bokeh in an unconventional way" recently got his project selected as a Vimeo Staff Pick.

Japanese photographer Daisuke Takakura takes clone photography pretty seriously. His project "Monodramatic" features some models tens of times, with some of the clones so far away from the camera that they can barely be seen in the distance.

Here's a nice dose of inspiration: above is a beautiful 16-minute mini-documentary that looks at the work of Sydney-based street photographer Markus Andersen. Titled "Belly of the Beast," the profile features Andersen talking about his thought process and love for film photography.

Photographer Jeffrey Vanhoutte of Brussels, Belgium was recently tasked with shooting a series of photos for a coffee creamer company. They ended up doing a mixed photo/video shoot with a professional acrobatic dancer flinging puffs of white powder into the air while doing dance moves.

German photographer Marion Luttenberger was asked by Moodley Brand Identity to shoot a series of infographics for Caritas Kontakladen, an Austrian organization that assists drug addicts. The resulting images convey facts and figure in clever ways through carefully arranged physical objects in the frame.

Photographer Tom Johnson recently partnered up with stylist Phoebe Haines for a project titled The Thirty Three. The team roamed the streets of London for five days, asking thirty three random strangers to put on haute couture (i.e. "high fashion") clothing and pose for portraits.

Photographer Vincent Laforet captured some stunning nighttime photographs of New York City while leaning out of an open helicopter door 7,500 feet in the air. At that altitude, Laforet was able to look down at air traffic around NYC's major airports, and there was no extra pane of glass between the photographer and the city. A few thousand feet higher and oxygen masks would have been required.

In Jessica Shyba's home, nap time is a sacred ritual. At the same time every day, her son Beau, baby Evangeline, and dog Theo take a cuddly nap together in her room. And while nap time is underway, Shyba will often take the opportunity to capture a heartwarming photograph of the little trio cuddling together in bed.

Here's a neat video that shows what you get in a star trails time-lapse if you slowly move your lens' zoom ring over the course of the long exposures. Long exposures naturally create star trails around Earth's axis of rotation, but throw in some motorized zooms and you can turn those ordinary trails into some pretty trippy effects.

Want to see the photographs that made the biggest splash on Flickr over the course of 2014? Flickr's website doesn't have a leaderboard -- the best you can do is explore popular photos -- but luckily for us, the company has just announced the top 25.

Here's a creative (and super meta) idea for a photo project: photographer Sean Hawkey traveled to a silver mine in Peru and shot tintype portraits of the miners there using the silver they mined as his emulsion.

German photographer Jan von Holleben is known for creating imaginative scenes by having kids lie on the ground and carefully arranging everyday objects around them. One of his first viral projects that featured this style was "Dreams of Flying".