There is something very wrong with the head of Snapchat. We’ve all known it for a long time, we’re all watching a car crash slowly unfold and I suspect the headline act for Internet bubble 2.0’s big bang will be the company that trades in ephemerality.
The above is the latest example of a company that not only doesn’t play quite by the rule book, but clearly doesn’t understand Continue reading
There’s a new meme making the rounds on social media and it’s called #Prattkeeping. Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the last 3 months you’ll easily recognise the scene from the raptor pen that’s been taken from current box office smash Jurassic World. Chris Pratt, the loveable raptor tamer finds himself inside the dinosaur enclosure using some quick thinking to prolong his life.
Zookeepers across the globe were naturally compelled to recreate the scene with their chosen harbingers of death. We’ve seen everything from Walruses to pink flamingos to… are those foxes? Continue reading
In one of the funniest instances of Pareidolia we’ve ever seen, Lia Schopmeyer put together a list of 13 different houses that look just like Game of Thrones characters.
It’s pretty hilarious so we’ll let the pictures do the talking.
1. Sansa Stark
2. Catelyn Stark Continue reading
If you ever find yourself getting pulled over by police officer in Sri Lanka be sure to act calm, obey commands, reach for your phone and take a selfie.
Polfie. noun, informal.
Taking a camera phone photo of oneself and a police officer with the intention to upload the picture to social media to garner likes.
Facebook page Dhada Selfie is full of dozens of such incidents and according to a reporter at Cnet it’s not frowned upon by the officer. Continue reading
Before it goes viral we’ll catch it early for you. That video of a spider creepily crawling out from inside the skin of a banana was created by Kaleb Lechowski, a 22 year old animations expert.
Kaleb has achieved some notable acclaim before with this sci-fi digital short that garnered some well deserved Hollywood attention. We doubt it’ll be long before his next viral animation.
It’s pretty good, although you don’t need to be an expert in this things to ask the question why would he be filming a banana anyway. Apart from that the way the arachnid falls out of the skin and flips on to its body is pretty reminiscent of World War Z fast zombies. Digital CGI is getting incredibly good these days with more and more examples of imagery that blurs the line between reality and pixels.
So there you go, it’s a snooty ‘fake’ from us, but nice try Kaleb. But as some commentators are saying “I don’t care if it’s fake, I’m still eating an apple.”
via UniLad
The scene is set, the voluptuous female lead makes her entrance and all but confesses her husband’s murder. Then out of absolutely nowhere Professor Hans Von Puppet interrupts the femme fatale scene to explain depth of field.
In this wonderfully put together ‘Pocket Film School’ web series by Mark W. Gray’s alter ego Professor Puppet goes to great lengths in explaining different techniques and cinematic phrases that we’d otherwise be clueless about. In the short film below we’re treated to an array of samples and how to make the most of our cameras using different aperture settings. That and the Professor’s trademark humour.
It even touches on how focal length is affected by sensor and film sizes as an added bonus, which even some of the more seasoned photographers have troubles realising (though they’d never admit it.)
If you enjoyed that video we urge you to sign up to Professor Puppet’s Youtube channel and look out for more of his Pocket Film School.
Incidentally if you want to commission Professor Puppet for one of your own videos, you can do so here on Fiverr.
Yup. Don’t think I could put it more clearly myself:
Image created by Mason Resnick. Original post can be found here.
In what may be heralded as one of the most important photographic breakthroughs in recent memory, Pizza Hut has unveiled a pizza box that comes with a lens, thus turning it into a projector. Revolutionary!
The instructions say that you’ll require a smartphone and a darkened room. Then as with any cardboard projector the luminescent image of the screen will be projected and focussed through the lens that comes with the pizza. Ingenious. Perhaps they were inspired by Google’s cardboard Virtual reality system. Continue reading
To coincide with the launch of their new photography prize, Source, the Ireland based contemporary photography magazine have commissioned a short film called ‘How do you Make a Prize Winning Photograph?’ A question most of us have probably asked themselves at one point or another.
The short generally makes little to no sense at all, like a lot of contemporary photography without context, however filmmaker Richard West has done a great job of at least sprinkling a hint of inspiration into two minutes.
Entry into Solas Prize costs $30 and there is $11,500 prize money available with the prospect of two exhibitions.
Did you know that adding filters to your photos can result in more views and comments? Well the clever bods at Yahoo Labs have just released a very interesting study on ‘Why We Filter Our Photos and How It Impacts Engagement’ and having crunched a whole lot of numbers they found that “filtered photos are 21% more likely to be viewed and 45% more likely to be commented on by consumers of photographs.”
“We analyzed how filters affect a photo’s engagement (consumers’ perspective) using a corpus of 7.6 million Flickr photos. We find two groups of serious and casual photographers among filter users. The serious see filters as correction tools and prefer milder effects. Casual photographers, by contrast, use filters to significantly transform their photos with bolder effects. We also find that filtered photos are 21% more likely to be viewed and 45% more likely to be commented on by consumers of photographs.”
Wow! When the sheer volume of smartphone images shared online is so massive (apparently Instagram averages 60 million images uploaded a day, and the iPhone is Flickr‘s most popular camera), will a little filtering really help you get noticed amongst all those pictures?
There are other elements to take into account of course. The number of followers you have and having an image with a lot of views already automatically puts you high up in the social networking charts and makes sure even more people see your images. Plus, a high level of social interactivity online will also result in more views and more comments on your own work but still, that’s quite some quantitative analysis they’ve done there!
The study found two distinct groups amongst the filter-using photographers on Flickr – the serious hobbyist and the casual photographer – and according to their study the serious photographer uses a more delicate touch, preferring to use correction tools and less obvious filters while the casual photographers like a big, bold, image changing effect on their pictures. Continue reading
Phogotraphy 
