December is almost upon us and being that time of year we thought we’d save you a “Gifts for Photographers” Google search with this incredibly cute photography book with a twist.
It’s a camera!
Designed by the brilliant Kelli Anderson, this wonderful little stocking filler would be a joy for child or adult alike. At a price of just $29 it’ll be hard to resist for Continue reading
Remember in September we shared that Annie Leibovitz was dropping models in favour of strong independent women for the 2016 Pirelli calendar? Well one of the headline acts, Amy Schumer just posted a risqué candid from the shoot on Facebook.
Amy describes herself in the image as a “Beautiful, gross, strong, thin, fat, pretty, ugly, sexy, disgusting, flawless, woman.” What we see at Phogotraphy is, as Leibovitz intended a strong, independent woman. Continue reading
I remember when John Stanmeyer’s photograph was unveiled as the World Press Photo of the Year award in 2014. There was the usual controversy but, uncommonly it was understood immediately by most. The importance and prevalence of mobile phones in society was all the explanation a casual viewer needed. Beyond that it was perhaps seen as something quite comical by mimicking an experience anyone with bad cell reception has had.
The filmmakers behind Photo Wings caught up with Stanmeyer to find out the story behind the image in this lovely short film:
Video description on Vimeo:
“Longtime National Geographic photojournalist John Stanmeyer shares the poignant story behind his World Press Photo of the Year winning image, “Signal.” John touches on the value of “getting lost” as a part of his process, the importance of communication, and the distances people will travel in pursuit of hope and opportunity.”
As Stanmeyer explains the people in the image holding their phones aloft are doing something called “catching” where they try to catch a signal from neighbouring Somalia where cell networks are among the cheapest in the world. Those lucky enough to manage it are able to Skype and phone their loved ones back home at a far cheaper cost.
Thanks for the tip, Matthew.
Via Photo Wings
The unfaltering juggernaut of daily Space photographs APOD shared a remarkable image of Mars last night.
Yes, Mars.
Don’t get too excited though, despite their appearance those blackened tree like structures cresting on the rolling hills are just an illusion of perspective. The photograph Continue reading
Filed under: Just For Fun
Mark Zuckerberg just uploaded a photo of his cloud shaggy dog “Beast” to his public Facebook page. If we think we know how the Internet works, this’ll be a meme by the end of the weekend.
The photograph was taken last year by another Internet sensation, Noah Kalina, star of the 2006 ‘selfie’ film Everyday.
Beast, who has his own Facebook page with over 2 MILLION fans is a Puli breed which is sometimes referred to as a Hungarian sheep dog. Incidentally, Mark if you’re reading this, why is Beast listed as a public figure and not a pet? Do as I say, not do as I do, right?
In the spirit of this holiday weekend, I want to share the most joyful photo of Beast jumping I’ve ever seen. Even after living with this guy for five years, seeing him bounce around still makes me smile. I hope your holiday weekend has been joyful too.
Even for the emotion-void billionaire Zuckerberg, that’s a pretty funny photo of a dog.
Have a great Thanksgiving weekend, folks.
It’s a thought often provoked by contemporary photographers creating surreal images with their new found technology. The absolute speed and ease manipulation can be obtained on a colour digital photograph is frightening nowadays and more and more agencies are beginning to notice and put up safeguards to protect against, for want of a better word, lying.
So when veteran war photographer, Don McCullin, nigh on superstar of the photography world speaks up and proclaims the digital domination of photography is “a totally lying experience” you have to stop and take note.
In conversation with Isaac Julien at the art fair Photo London, the Guardian reports McCullin discussed a wide range of topics with regards to photography including his own problems Continue reading
The year book, staple souvenir of any American school kid born in the last century is the subject of a study undertaken by university researchers into the way our smile has changed over time.
The study analysed almost 38,000 unique frontal-facing portraits taken from American high school year books to compile an impressive snapshot of each decade since the year 1900.
Because of the photographic typology of the portraits contained within they are perfect for computational data Continue reading
Canon have released another promotional film aimed at inspiring photographers to unleash their inner creativity. However the well intentioned advert shows us anything but. Instead of creativity we get to witness adults acting like children who still like to break everything they touch.
Creativity or Destructivity?
During the episode a group of 6 photographers take turns in manipulating an object and taking a single image unlike any of the previous. The premise is quite neat, kind of like their last Continue reading
Music videos can be a hive of experimental photography. Often a director will take an idea they’ve seen and put it into practise to produce surreal often breathtaking results using unorthodox camera techniques.
Richie Johnston is one such filmmaker that demonstrates how subverting a traditional photographic process called slit scan photography can be used to create mesmerising visuals for the musician’s audience.
The film was made to coincide with the Just Music’s Ambient Zone 2 compilation and clocks in at almost an hour in length.
Throughout the performance ballet dancer Rachel Bodger moves in a slow, rhythmic motion drawing on the obvious quirk of photography to elongate her body and draw patterns within the frame. The result is hard to turn away from. After a few minutes it’s clear that the dancer’s improvisation is geared towards the photography used rather than the music, although it compliments it perfectly.
We compiled a few screenshots that show the different patterns Bodger and Johnston’s collaboration achieved and at Phogotraphy we truly think they are marvellous!
If you’re interested in slit scan photography and want to try to do something similar in a project of your own, Richie Johnston put together a short ‘making of’ video to guide us through the thoughts and processes involved in the production. It’s well worth a look, maybe more so than even the highly polished film above.
Check it out:
Video and stills used with explicit permission of the Richie Johnston.
If you’ve not seen this already, prepare for it to appear on your respective news feeds imminently. Here we have a photograph that will no doubt make it into every Buzzfeed listicle imaginable, appear in the spammy ad section that appears at the bottom of most blogs and probably spend a good hour or so on the front page of the Internet.
To the non-UK friends of Phogotraphy the guys either side of the pretty young lass are well known children entertainers Barry & Paul Elliott, also known as The Chuckle Brothers. Those of us Continue reading
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