Instead of relying on photomanipulation, as is common these days, photographer Lara Zankoul creates surreal photos by putting together elaborate sets. For her project "The Unseen," Zankoul spent roughly three months planning and building a large tank set that she filled halfway with water.
For the past 29 years I’ve been traveling to China for my day job as an industrial designer to manage the ramp-up of new products manufactured in China. I’ve discovered that it’s become a common career path for product designers to morph into Asian sourcing managers because of our background in product development. That’s exactly what happened in my career about 30 years ago, with the exception that I’ve remained active in product design plus I’ve become a street photographer in …
Sports Shooter Academy recently released this 3-minute behind-the-scenes video in which Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim director of photography Matt Brown talks about how he uses remote camera setups to cover baseball games.
New York-based stop-motion artist Adam Pesapane, who goes by PES, has earned a great deal of attention over the past few years for his remarkable animations that are made with creativity, hard work, and still photographs from DSLRs. His viral shorts include "Fresh Guacamole," "Western Spagetti,", and "Submarine Sandwich" (his projects often involve ordinary things getting turned into food).
The 67 annual Emmy Awards will be held in Los Angeles today, recognizing excellence in the television industry over the past year, and USA TODAY photographers Robert Hanashiro and Dan MacMedan will be at the Microsoft Theater to shoot the show. The 3-minute video above offers a glimpse into what its like to cover this type of event, as Hanashiro and MacMedan discuss their approach and their spots throughout the night.
We recently published an interview with motorsport photojournalist Jamey Price, who shared some insights into what it's like to photograph top events in Formula One racing. Today, we'll share some behind-the-scenes photos Price sent us that show what a day multiple days in the life of an F1 photographer looks like.
This is the story of how I had to deal with a panic attack during a recent three-day photo shoot. Day three… oh day three.
Red Bull recently came to me with an interesting idea: "We'd like you to photograph NBA star Anthony Davis dunking the sun.” …
Wildlife photographer Jeff Cremer of Rainforest Expeditions recently set up a special DSLR camera trap in the Amazon jungle in southeastern Peru. His goal was to capture some photos of rare jungle animals, but he got a lot more than he bargained for: a termite infestation in his camera.
Three weeks ago, I purchased off of eBay a “junk” Minolta MC Rokkor-PG 58mm f/1.2 lens. I had read so many good things about this particular lens in Minolta’s history that I really wanted to get one for my ever-growing collection. A fully-functioning, good condition one will run anywhere between $450-$700. The listing for the one that I bid on stated, “For parts.” …
After hearing that a hundred-year-old building was soon to be demolished in downtown Vancouver, artist Joel Nicholas Peterson had an idea: why not give the building one last hurrah by turning it into one of the world's largest "disposable" cameras? …
A client named Nick recently approached me as he was finishing his degree, wanting his portrait taken to commemorate the event. With his references, wardrobe, and location, I saw an opportunity to replicate some of the lighting I had seen in Spielberg's Lincoln. As a period film set in the mid 1800s, light "sources" were limited to daylight, moonlight, or oil lamps and candles. My hope was to capture the magic of cinematographer Janusz Kaminski's lighting, while also adapting it for the purpose …
To promote the second season of its post-apocalyptic zombie TV show Z Nation, Syfy recently released an interactive choose your own adventure game called Find Murphy that was shot from a first person point of view. The footage was captured using a special face-mounted Sony a7S mirrorless camera.
YouTube star Ryan Higa recently decided to parody the popularity of “hover boards” that have been flooding the consumer market. In the creative "infomercial" and stop-motion video above, he throws aside an expensive ‘FloBoard’ to find more fun with the cardboard box itself.
Back in 2013, five friends in Arizona decided to capture some photos and video from the edge of space by sending a GoPro up on a weather balloon. The camera made it to 98,000 feet, but the guys lost track of it after it landed out of cell phone tower range. All seemed lost, and the team spent months wondering if they'd ever find the camera.
While sitting in a hotel bar several months ago, photographer Ian Kasnoff came up with the idea of turning his small box trailer into a working ultra-large format camera. After some cocktail napkin sketches, the idea for Kasnoff's TrailerCam was born.
When particles of dust and debris get on your camera sensors, they can cause frustrating spots in your shots that ruin entire batches of photographs. Thus, many photographers like to regularly give their sensor a cleaning to make sure it's free of spots. In the 10-minute video above, PhotoRec Toby offers a detailed look at how you should go about dry and wet cleaning your image sensor.
Shane Reetz is a photographer whose Panasonic GH4 developed an issue recently: the lens mount began to wobble in and out. After sending the camera to Panasonic’s repair service and finding out a fix would cost $762, Reetz decided he would try performing surgery on his camera himself. The total cost for fixing the camera turned out to be only $5, and Reetz learned quite a bit along the way.
My name is Andre Oliveira. I’m 24 years old, and I began learning how to use DSLR cameras in 2008 starting with a Canon Rebel Ti that my school supplied. I worked my way to my first Nikon, the D3100, and then eventually up to a D7000. My best upgrade was buying a Nikon 50mm prime lens 4 years ago.
We’ve seen Photoshop’s median stacking process used before to remove tourists from photographs. Now, photographer Andy Astbury takes the time to show us how the same technique can be used to reduce noise in high ISO images. The process involves snapping a couple of the same photos and is best suited for still lifes.
Want to see how wet-plate collodion photography is done but have the attention span of a goldfish? Our buddy Sam Cornwell over at Phogotraphy has created an unusual step-by-step wet plate walkthrough -- everything is crammed into a 6-second Vine video.
So an image of mine (@lightbrekkie) appears to be doing the rounds lately on Instagram and you may have seen it.
What's the largest print you've ever made in a darkroom? If you've never done anything larger than the most common sizes, then you may find the video above illuminating.
Here's a gorgeous 3-minute infrared short film titled "Nostalgia." The project was an attempt at creating "the world's most beautiful drone video" by experimenting with new ways to capture images with a drone.
I had kind of a hard time coming up with an appropriate title for this post... I'm still not totally sure if it conveys what I'm trying to show you today. As you may hopefully have guessed by looking at my new image, I'm going to be talking about how I made the shadow that the eagle is casting. The problem was I couldn't really call this post, "How to Create Long Shadows Cast By A Subject That Is Suspended In An Epic Beam Of Light." It's just a bit too wordy... So anyway this is how I did it!
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.
Photographer Raymesh Cintron recently ran the Titans Race 10K ultimate outdoor challenge in Puerto Rico, an intense endurance challenge that's filled with mud and water. While competing, Cintron also carried along his Nikon DSLR and GoPro camera to document the race. Needless to say, he's is a firm believer in the idea that camera equipment should be used rather than babied.
Nothing seems to be a more tedious task than the need to fill out paperwork. Especially if the paperwork has to be sent back and forth between you and a client multiple times. Luckily, Agree.com is a website that aims at making contracts easy to compile and sign for photographers (and videographers, designers, and more). Let’s take a moment to try out the service and is if it delivers on its promise of simplicity.
Every year, Crankworx Whistler hosts a Deep Summer Photo Challenge that pits six elite mountain biking photographers against each other. The shooters have three days to put together the best and most epic slideshow they can, and the results are judged by a panel of judges, the audience at the event, and online voters. Two photographers each walk away from Whistler, British Columbia, with a $3,500 prize.
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.
Back in May, a body painter offered to collaborate with me for a photo shoot with airbrushed models. This offer gave me a reason to finally experiment with black light photography, which I've wanted to try for years now.
While shooting a recent series titled American Made, Los Angeles-based lifestyle and advertising photographer Caleb Kuhl needed a dusty scene, so he had someone drive an SUV around to serve as a DIY smoke machine. Above is a 2-minute behind-the-scenes video of the shoot.
Washington D.C.-based wedding photographer Sam Hurd has quite a wild backup system for his clients' images. In an article and video Hurd posted on his blog, he explains the extensive setup behind his apocalyptical-style backup protection. If you thought you had your files well protected, you might feel otherwise after watching this (unless you're careful to the same degree).
Photographer Tanya Musgrave shoots weddings professionally, but she also dabbles with photo manipulation on the side as a hobby. A groom she worked with recently asked her to do a special Star Wars photo based on the Battle of Hoth seen in The Empire Strikes Back. So, Musgrave shot a special photo on the way of the ceremony and then did the rest of the magic in Photoshop.
“What single moment defines a skydiver?” This is the question I kept asking myself as I prepared to photograph Sarah. At the time of this shoot, I only had a few tandem jumps (attached to an instructor.) But still, that "moment" -- for me at least -- had always been getting in the door before a jump. You can put the gear on, you can ride the plane up, but getting to the door is where you really have to face yourself. And so it was this moment that I chose for our shoot: at the door, arms …
Professional free runner Jason Paul recently teamed up with Red Bull to create this wild optical illusion video that you have to see to believe -- or not. The video’s description says that “Life as a free runner means the world is your playground… or is it just one big illusion?” It's a mind-bending visual experience that will have your brain questioning reality.
Last month, we shared a glimpse into the intense gym workouts of renowned adventure photographer Jimmy Chin, who constantly trains his body for his next extreme shoot when he's between assignments. If you'd like to see what those workouts are for, check out this new 5-minute feature by VICE Sports.
Here's my story on what it's like to have a photo go totally viral around the world. After accidentally capturing a portrait with the ISS in the background, I sent it to a lot of local news outlets in the Netherlands, along with a lot of big international photo blogs (PetaPixel was one of them).
Nikon has been taking us behind the scenes in a series of new videos published on YouTube. Now, we get to see what it is like to be a zoo photographer as we follow Nikon Ambassador and naturalist Ron Magill to Zoo Miami. Armed with a Nikon D7200 and two Nikkor super telephoto zoom lenses, Magill captures a majestic herd of giraffes.
Photographer Pontus Lindström made this 4-minute point-of-view video that shows how he photographed the Swedish royal wedding between Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia back on June 13th, 2015. We see how he hustles around to various locations along the parade route in order to capture special moments during celebrated event. If you get motion sick easily, beware: Lindström moves around quite a bit.
Helsinki, Finland-based photographer Lauri Laukkanen was recently hired to shoot the official poster for the 2015 Helsinki International Film Festival, which had the theme "Love & Anarchy." …
When photographing Czech aerobatics and fighter pilot Martin Šonka recently, photographer Dan Vojtěch wanted to capture the plane in a different light than other photographers have done in the past. He then decided that he would shoot the plane in motion, but light it like he would a studio photo using flashes firing around it.
Here's a daily dose of cuteness: this 3-minute behind-the-scenes video shows how Long Island-based photographer Faryl Loew goes about shooting portraits of newborns and their parents. We see how Loew gently handles and soothes the infants to capture happy and relaxed expressions on their tiny faces. You can find a gallery of her newborn photos here.
This past weekend, New York-based photographer Brian Maffitt set up an angled mirror underneath his bird feeder and photographed hummingbirds for a few hours. Afterward, he combined a large number of the photos into this single, surreal composite photo showing ruby-throated hummingbirds swarming.
Want an inside look at how The Impossible Project makes its instant film? The folks over at Highsnobiety recently paid a visit to the company's factory in Enschede, which it purchased from Polaroid and rebooted. The 3-minute video above shows various steps of the instant film creation process, from development, to assembly, to boxing it up for shipping.
Wet plate collodion photographer Alex Timmermans recently shot a new photo titled "Swan Lake" for his surreal Story Telling project. Here's a look at how the image was made.
Turns out my great-great-grandfather was a photographer. Born in 1850, Robert Stapleton served in the US Army for two five-year tours in the then-wild-west.
With a little bit of patience and a whole lot of luck, I was able to capture this photograph of myself perched on a rock above the Pacific Ocean. When I set out to photograph the annual famed Perseids Meteor Shower last week, I had a specific goal of capturing a "selfie" photograph with myself in frame and hopefully a meteor streaking overhead (along with a variety of other images throughout the evening). My hope turned into reality in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.
In 2013, my then-girlfriend Martina and I were in Queenstown, New Zealand at the end of a two-month trip. The evening before our journey back home, we went out for a walk, absorbing the magical streets.
Photographer Casey Mac created this wild image by shooting ~800 photos of kite boarders at California's Waddell Creek Beach and then blending the shots together in Photoshop. The photo is titled "Rush Hour." (Here's a larger version.)
