Owing to the success of our April POTD Contest, where we received over 1000 awesome submissions from readers all over the world, we are happy to now announce the contest for the month of May. In order to have a shot at a gift certificate worth $100 to B&H Photo & Video, be sure to check out the full post for details about how to submit and what to submit.
Yes, that is a bold claim, but hear me out. Sometimes something so creative yet so painfully simple comes along and just blows me away. This timelapse/hyperlapse video created using Google Street View is just one of those things. My mouth was agape the entire time I was watching this. Teehan+Lax Labs created this project by recording Google Street View movements all over the world and
I have been absolutely fascinated by wetplate processes for a while now: I find the medium absolutely unlike anything else in the world of art and photography, and the one-of-a-kind results from this hand-crafted process are simply beautiful. When I learned that there was a studio in San Francisco that specialized in taking collodion (tintypes, specifically) portraits of clients, I absolutely had to have one done.
Over the past few months, I've been looking at how we can improve our POTD feature to make it more, well, awesome. For a while now, we've been taking your submissions and combing through them to find some interesting shots. But we're going to change that up a bit. We're going to turn it into a contest format for a month, and the best shot takes home $100 at B&H for doing nothing more than sending us an image.
Not only is this video hilarious, NSFW, cute, and lovable, but we also get an awesome look behind the scenes at the cameras and filmmaking techniques used to create it. Matt & Kim, you've knocked it out of the park on this one. Check out the video by clicking to the left, then check out the BTS video inside the post. Oh yeah, the song is super catchy too!
For the longest time, I've been using a 17" Macbook Pro for tethering. The big screen is great. Everything else, however, was a nightmare. I recently saw some colleagues of mine raving about a new product called the CamRanger, which allows you to tether to your Android device (April 2013), iPad or iPhone to your camera and had to try it out, as any solution that would resolve my near-daily tethering headaches would be fantastic.
PocketWizard has just announced the addition of a new trigger to its lineup: The PocketWizard Plus X. Priced at $99 (and already in stock at B&H), the Plus X offers much of the same functionality and reliability as PocketWizard's much-beloved Plus II and Plus III, but with a simpler, no-frills interface and a gentler price. Read on for the spec list, a mini-review, and my thoughts on the new unit.
Karst Country is a collaboration between artists Glen Ryan and Phil Ryan that has resulted in some absolutely surreal infrared imagery. This timelapse, shot with both RED Epic and Scarlet cameras at 4k resolution, is a joy to watch. I always find it so refreshing to see when new techniques are integrated into timelapse movies.
As most of you know, we have a POTD feature which uses a single image for a 24 hour span and then archives them for later viewing in a month/day/year format. While it's pretty neat, to be sure, I know that we could improve on it quite a bit to make it both more interesting for viewers and more beneficial for the photographers we feature.
DC Shoes collaborated with FMXer Robbie Maddison to create this beautiful short of Maddison at an aircraft graveyard which has been converted into a playground for the moderately insane. The film is chock-full of amazing cinematography, created with a number of big-budget cameras, and the color grading is just sublime. DC has confirmed a BTS
Rob Dunlop, creative director and brains behind PrettyInWhite.com, just posted an interesting and also somewhat humorous account of his purchase of a Canon 5d Mark III through DigitalRev.com. Rob, spurred on by a series of bizarre coincidences, ended up doing some research on his new camera, only to find that it had not only been used, but used somewhat extensively by DigitalRev to create a review.
Now here's something I've never seen before. Photographer Mark Gee shot this footage of the moon rising in real time at Mt Victoria in Wellington, New Zealand. The video, shot with a Canon 1d Mark IV, 500mm lens and 2x teleconverter from over 2km away used the extremely long focal length to create an incredibly surreal look, which silhoutted
Rokinon recently released a new offering in the 35mm lens range, and I was super excited to get my hands on it for a number of reasons. The great price, wide aperture, and popular focal length of 35mm makes for a great combo, but never having used a Rokinon product before I wasn't quite sure what to expect. After an extensive review covering nearly two months (thank you Rokinon, for lending it to me for that long!)
About a year ago I posted a short and sweet little film about the phenomenon known as a murmuration, which is when an enormous flock of starlings gather together in one location and create a breathtaking visual feast. Filmmaker Neels Castillon was out preparing to shoot recently in Marseille, France, when a murmuration took place right above his head and he was able to capture the entire thing in beautiful high definition.
Being a member of a lot of online photography communities, I see stuff like this all the time. A photographer just took a shot that I can tell they are really excited about, and want some feedback on it. They'll post it to a forum or a Facebook page with the typical "C&C please." line. And it drives me up a wall.
You've probably seen plenty of Heisler's work without knowing it, and it can be said that he is one of the contemporary greats when it comes to portraiture. His work has graced the cover and insides of many of today's largest publications, and he's responsible for creating countless iconic photos of celebrities. In these videos (part two is in the post), Greg gives some fantastic advice to photographers about getting new jobs,
If you own a DSLR camera, the odds are that you've tried to create an HDR image using one of the many available HDR software programs available on the market, and you might have even created what people call 'disastrous' results. But fret not, because SLR Lounge recently released the end-all, be-all HDR tutorial to conquer all other HDR tutorials.
This has got to be one of the most beautifully filmed behind the scenes videos I have ever seen. Sigma recently released this tour of their factory, set to an incredible ambient soundtrack by Voytak and cut with scenes of the Japanese countryside. The juxtaposition of the clinical interior scenes with the natural outside world were very effective and to be honest, I found the whole video somewhat powerful. Then again,
Everyone who has ever taken any interest in photography has thought about attempting to take one picture a year in order to fuel creative growth or to create an interesting and varied body of work in a relatively short time span. Jonathon Britnell put his own spin on the 365 project (technically a 366) by shooting one second of video every day for a year and compiling into a very cool documentary look at his life over the last year.
If you're a geek like me, you love to reverse-engineer images you come across, view EXIF data, or otherwise pull as much info out of an image you like as possible. A recently released browser extension allows you to view the histogram of any image on the web, and boy oh boy do I love it.
As a way to spread some love this holiday season, Flickr has given us all a nice Christmas gift: three months free of Flickr Pro. Just navigate over to this page to claim the free upgrade (or extend your paying subscription by three months at no cost). Pretty kind of them!
The New York Times just released an absolutely incredible piece of journalism titled 'Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek,' which is a story told through the use of still images, video, computer animations and one hell of a piece of writing. I have to say that this looks like (I at least hope) the future of editorial journalism. It's been a long time since I've read, watched, or looked at a piece that captivated me like this one.
Tara Minshull is a rather successful fine art photographer based in Los Angeles who specializes in conceptual and cinematic images, oftentimes utilizing mixed media to realize her vision. Tara was kind enough to give us some of her time for an interview, in which she discusses the merits of art school, her motivations and the constantly evolving themes of her work.
Looking for your daily inspiration? Look no further. As a result of the famous Blue Marble photograph, author Frank White coined the term 'The Overview Effect.' The Overview Effect is the reaction most astronauts have to seeing the Earth from space: common features of the experience are a feeling of awe for the planet,
I know that many of our readers are real estate photographers or have at least tried their hand at real estate photography. The most common method used to create 'good enough' real estate photos is HDR: whether it is tonemapping or exposure fusion, HDR is definitely the most-used method for real estate and beginner interior photographers. In this post, I'll do a comparison between tonemapping, exposure fusion, single on-camera flash, and multiple off-camera flash, and show you the benefits (or disadvantages, rather) of each.
Vinny Picardi is a successful fine art and advertising photographer based in Los Angeles, CA, who has exhibited work all over the country and around the world. I recently came across Vinny's work and I have to say that I'm a pretty big fan, so I thought it would be interesting to share not only just a photo series with our readers, but also to take some time to ask a few questions to get inside the head of a successful fine art photographer.
Just a quick heads up to the many of us who have been waiting for this camera: It's finally in stock and ready to ship! Just in time for a nice holiday gift to...yourself. Because let's be honest, if you're as excited about this camera as I am, you're not going to let anyone else in your family get their paws on it before you.
I recently was introduced to Making View, a Norwegian company that specializes in creating 360-degree panoramic video. Yep, you read that right. Panoramic video. Much like a 360-degree photo tour, you can zoom and move around the video as it plays. It is without a doubt one of the coolest things I've seen in recent memory, and I can see the technology being used in some pretty incredible ways.
We've featured Erik Johansson's Ted Talk before, as he is a digital artist and photographer who is on the cutting edge of his genre. Using clever pre-visualization and a lot of Photoshop, Erik is able to create some brain-melting pieces. In this BTS video, he'll show you how he created one of his newest pieces, titled Cut & Fold.
Detroit-based fashion photographer Paul Manoian recently released this informative (and cold!) BTS video of him shooting models using vintage automobiles, clothing, and styling.
Jeff Cremer recently traveled to Machu Picchu with the goal of creating the highest resolution image ever taken of one of the most incredible places on Earth. Using a Gigapan robotic head, Jeff swept a Canon 100-400mm lens back and forth over the scene, taking hundreds of photos, which resulted in one incredible image. He even had a close call with the law,
Many of you are familiar with Scott Hargis, who has made his living as both a successful architectural photographer and in recent years, teacher. Scott has cris-crossed the world to teach his methods, including a recent trip to Dubai to teach at Gulf Photo Plus. Scott recently released a multi-part video tutorial that teaches his methods for shooting high-quality photos for real estate photography using off-camera flashes, and Scott was kind enough to send us a copy to review.
Astronaut Donald Pettit has spent more than a year of his life in space. Between two long-term stays on the ISS and a six-week Space Shuttle trip, he's racked up an incredible 370 days living, working, and photographing in the most hostile environment known to man. In this video, Donald shows us the techniques he's developed to create some of the jaw-dropping images and timelapses that he's created
With the United States' presidential election decided with Barack Obama as the winner, I thought the timing would be perfect to share this video created by Reuters' White House photographer Jason Reed. Jason follows the president on his campaign trail, and offers some interesting behind the scenes views of a job that most of us dream of having.
Alpine photographer Kamil Tamiola has made quite a name for himself shooting landscapes and people in hostile high-altitude environments. His work is stunning, and he admits that a large part of what sets him apart from other photographers is his use of nighttime and twilight imagery, which can be incredibly difficult to capture in this environment. In this video, a very cold Kamil will walk us through what it takes to create one of his gorgeous high altitude images.
