The 90s were a time of lightning-fast technological development, when the beginnings of the digital camera experience we take for granted nowadays were just coming together for the first time. This fun video takes a look at the capabilities of a typical camera from the time and the experience of shooting with it.
When the idea for “Trans Atlantic” came up between me, Isma, and the crew from Pekat Photography, we quickly fell in love with the concept and decided to make it a joint effort. Since slavery is a sensitive topic, we decided to do our best to approach the topic from a more academic and historical reference point. We hoped our joint effort would offer a new, fresh narrative told in a three-part series that would be presented without bias, social commentary, or cultural or historical analysis.
Using a thin, round, six frame, glass plate, "spy camera", a nineteen year old Carl Størmer (1874 – 1957) captured candid images on the main streets of Oslo, Norway. These atypical images are a rare glimpse into everyday life at a time when most photos taken were of well prepared, composed and stoic subjects. If you're interested in the three part documentary video, be sure to turn on "subtitles / closed captions" and switch to "auto translate" English.
Pripyat, once a town of 40,000 people and now a short distance from the world's single most deadly object, stands inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. As I waited to get a coffee at the tiny shop alongside the Zone's checkpoint, I cringed slightly at the array of glow-in-the-dark knickknacks on sale. Chernobyl, the site of the biggest nuclear disaster in history and now a slightly Disney-fied tourist destination, is a reminder that photography's "truth" is always a little suspect.
For a long time cameras have been used to document history both in still images and in motion pictures. Some of these pictures have been around and publicly available for a long time, others are only available to the individuals who actually own the footage, still there are others that have been kept classified and completely unavailable to anyone without the right security clearance. This has been the case for many videos of the nuclear tests conducted by the United States, until now. The researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have just released 62 of these nuclear test videos that are newly declassified.
The Victorians ushered in an era of dramatic change, principally in the application of science, but being able to do this (literally) on an industrial scale. The impact upon society was tumultuous - throw science, invention, industrial processes, and money into the mix and the way countries developed forever changed, forming the basis for the world we live in today.
I think few people will deny that Ansel Adams was one of the most influential and important photographers ever, his work enduring as a portfolio of striking examples of mastery of the medium. This excellent documentary takes a deep look at his life and work.
If you were raised in the United States, you were taught about the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. You’ve heard the famous description of it by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who called it “a date which will live in infamy.” With a lack of declaration of war and without warning — and killing 2,403 Americans — the surprise attack by Japan’s military on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii was judged to be a war crime, and was the impetus for the U.S. officially entering World War II. You know this, but there’s a good chance you haven’t seen many (or any) photos from that day.
In a world where flipping our images between color and black and white is as simple as the click of the mouse, photographers and cinematographers today aren’t often tasked with knowing the complexity of how those vibrant colors actually come into existence. But in the early days of cinema, when competing processes for color reproduction took turns as the next best innovation, one name reigned supreme: Technicolor.
If you grew up in a house with a football-loving father like I did, you probably had your young little mind blown every NFL Sunday by the yellow line darting under the players' feet. My dad's answer? "Hollywood Magic." Up until the moment I stumbled across this video that was the only answer I had ever gotten.
Over twenty years ago Chuck O'Rear took a photo that soon became part billions of peoples everyday lives. He captured Bliss on his way to see his girlfriend, he pulled over when he spotted the perfect scene in Sonoma County California. On the side of the road with his medium format camera, he took what would soon become the most viewed image of all time as a staple of Microsoft. After twenty-one years of unimaginable fame, O'Rear is back with a tribute to the epic American nature and a reminder for us all to cherish our earth's beauties.
"Instant Dreams" is a feature-length film about Polaroid that explores the magic of this defunct format, the pioneer of instant imagery, and documents the search for the lost chemical formula. Premiering at the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam a few days ago, the film discusses what it meant to produce imagery that is physical, unique, and, as one of the subjects puts it, "an artifact of time."
Adding color to a black and white photo is one of the most fun things you can do in Photoshop. Not only that but it is surprisingly straightforward, only taking a few repetitive steps to accomplish. In this tutorial, I’ll take you through the steps necessary to add color to any photo you like!
Whether you think about conceptual art, impressionism, or high fashion, they are all deviations from the traditional art expressions. Is the emperor naked, or do these forms of art have nothing to do with that well-known story? Is it possible to make more profit from impressionism than from traditional photography?
Philippe Halsman's "Dali Atomicus" is one of the most famous images ever, notable for its complex composition and remarkable timing that captured the soul of its famous subject. This modern re-creation goes to painstaking effort to replicate the original, and the process is very neat to watch.
There have been all sorts of strange trends in photography throughout its vast history. Some of those trends raise the question, where would you draw the line when it comes to taking on commissioned work? Would posing and photographing the dead be considered too taboo in today's society?
As Halloween nears, we are all soon to be bombarded with a litany of images in our social media feeds of our friend’s unwilling pets being forced to don cute/embarrassing outfits picked out by their fawning owners. In fact, it’s highly likely that we have perpetrated this subtle canine fashion abuse ourselves at some point and time in our lives. How can you help it? They’re just so darn cute. But what is far less likely is that any of us will have achieved the rakish heights of the world’s foremost purveyor of canine imagery, William Wegman.
Temples have always been close to my heart. In fact, that is where I started my journey in photography years ago. The divinity in its architecture and the timeless stories etched in it fascinate me. While we can talk about the what and how of temple photography in detail in a future article, this is essentially a list of important things that one has to tick before setting out to photograph temples. Hailing from India, the temples I have shot are mostly rooted here but the points mentioned would apply universally as well.
With the release of "Blade Runner 2049," which by the way, is absolutely incredible, Getty Images has put together a collection of production stills from the incredible 1982 original film. The new movie was produced by Ridley Scott, who directed "Blade Runner" thirty some years ago in both the real world and in the film's sequence. The collection of color plus black and white photographs emphasize the detail and grit of this futuristic film noir world.
There is a good reason that Ansel Adams' name has stood the test of time through the years. As one of the photographers in history who gets studied the most, Adams' work continues to be used as an example to photography classes and studies around the world. One of the reasons why he is still revered around the world is because of how carefully his images were crafted and how difficult they are to recreate. Digital and printed recreations of his images just don't quite have quite the depth and quality that his original prints do.
Each day we process hundreds of images from our sessions and turn them over to clients in a digital form or upload to companies for printing purposes. The history of how this digital upload started is quite interesting, coming into the light just after the recent passing of the Playboy creator himself, Hugh Hefner. He left behind a surprising contribution to photographers everywhere.
I’ve written before about the genius of Buster Keaton. Agent Zero on the landscape of cinematic laughter, his influences stretch far and wide. Even nearly 100 years after the high point of his career, you can still see references to “The Great Stone Face” in everything from the films of Wes Anderson to the action comedy of Jackie Chan. In a world without dialogue, Keaton embodied the still-true mantra of motion pictures: show don’t tell. Without the ability, or in his case, desire to draw laughs through witty dialogue, he instead used action, composition, and creativity to tickle our funny bones. The lessons that can be gleaned from watching the master at work are essential learning for any visual storyteller, and this video from Every Frame A Painting helps detail Keaton's approach.
It started in the year 1900 with a trip to Montana to photograph the ritual Sun Dance of the Blackfoot Tribe, and ended with photographer Edward Curtis having photographed 100 Native American tribes, producing 2,200 photographs that would come to comprise a 20 volume anthology called "The North American Indian," bankrolled by investor J.P. Morgan to the tune of $75,000. In the article written by Elisabeth Sherman for All That Is Interesting, you can see 33 of his most stunning portraits.
Whether you’ve thought about it or not, psychology plays a huge role in successful photography. Even when considering technical aspects of photography like composition, exposure, depth of field, etc., psychology is part of the “why” behind proper camera settings. It's no surprise then that color plays a big role in emotionally provocative photography, and Michael Carroll recently published his book, “Retrographic” to document a project in which already emotionally-charged photographs from history are colorized to evoke even more emotion.
Sir Winston Churchill once said: “Success consists of going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” I think that many photographers can relate to this quote from this famous historical figure. The British Prime Minister who led his country to victory during World War II was one of the few giants of the era along with U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. These historical personages are long gone, but Felix Rios, a London-based photographer, managed to go back in time to capture Churchill’s doppelganger for a photoshoot.
For the first announcement of its kind in the United States, Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina has declared October 2017 to be Photography Month. For those photographers who live in and are traveling to North Carolina during October, they will have even more reason to bring their cameras and take advantage of the festivals and photo-centric events while they are there.
My heart is heavy as I write this tonight, 20,000 acres of my ancestors ceded lands and the very fir trees they once lived beneath, are burning to the ground. Not only is the Columbia River Gorge some of the most beautiful land in Oregon venture in to and photograph, it holds a special place in my own heart. Did you notice the red moon across the country Monday night? Many of you likely took a photo of it like I did here in Louisville, Kentucky. It was breathtaking but today I was devastated to learn the moon was painted by the tragedy in my home lands and across the Northwest.
I know that the solar eclipse on Monday made you feel young again. Maybe it made you feel energetic, inquisitive, motivated to keep exploring. But by now those effects have surely started to wear off, and I have some bad news for you. You’re getting old. How do I know that? Because the hashtag just turned 10.
I still remember the first time I heard the word. Senior year of high school. Sitting lazily squeezed into a metallic desk-chair combination unwillingly decorated with the carvings of amateur graffiti artists from years past. The boisterous post-recess classroom went quiet as my favorite teacher, and apparently everyone’s favorite teacher, Mrs. Wallace entered the room. With an ever-present sense of flair, she strode to the chalkboard and wrote out eight letters in big bold type. P-A-R-A-D-I-G-M. I didn’t know what it meant. Heck, I didn’t even know how to pronounce it. But, in that moment, I was introduced to not only a new piece of vocabulary, but given a dynamic tool to develop as an artist, and as a person.
The 1960s represented a powerful awakening, shift, and revolution in American culture, with Hollywood being no stranger to those events. As the Hays Code's grasp on American cinema continued to erode, films that exploded into new territory emerged, with one standing at the forefront of the revolution.
150 years is a long time to lose anything. However, this portrait of the sixth president of the United States has reemerged and taken on a special status: it's the oldest known surviving photograph of a U.S. president.
In a world full of copycats and sequelitis, it isn’t always easy to be inspired. But every once in a while, mixed in among the sea of sameness, you will discover a true original. I am not the only person to be fascinated by the work of Russian Filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. His brief but spectacular canon of films, including the likes of “Ivan’s Childhood” (1962), “Andrei Rublev” (1966), “Solaris” (1972), “The Mirror” (1975) and “Stalker” (1979), stands among the most innovative cinematic careers in world history.
Just after lunchtime on July 28th, 1851, Julius Berkowski took the first accurate image of a total solar eclipse. As we prepare to shoot the eclipse on Monday, let's take a look at history behind this unique astrophotography.
Humidity, sunlight, water, and most of all, time, are just some of the culprits in the damage most printed photographs will endure. However these memories of loved ones do not need to be thrown away or thought to be unrepairable. A few layers in the digital world can bring it back for your clients.
The inauguration of Donald Trump meant the end of Pete Souza’s position as official White House photographer. Stepping into his shoes, Shealah Craighead has spoken for the first time about the experience of shadowing President Trump.
