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  The World Of Signage Photo Contest: Join In and Win a Digital SLR Camera!

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    This one’s easy: take a shot, send us the image and win a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XS digital SLR camera. Typography and icons are everywhere: they surround us, guide us, help us find the right path every day. As Web designers and graphic artists, we can learn from observing the type and public signage around us. How do designers of those graphics combine type, visual design and pictograms? How do they guide us through our day? More importantly, how do they design their graphics to meaningfully serve their purpose in particular settings?That’s what we want to find out with this photo contest. We encourage you to go out with your camera, shoot nice typography or public signage, and send the photo (or photos) to us (see details below). And the best part: everyone can participate.[By the way, did you know we have a free Email Newsletter? Subscribe now and get fresh short tips and tricks in your inbox!]What Are We Looking For?We are looking for original, manually shot photographs of typography and public signage. The most obvious elements that come to mind are street signs, building facades, highway markers and road signs, as well as wayfinding graphics (i.e. directional signage) in public venues such as stadiums, malls, museums, cinemas, theaters and cafés. Bus stop signs, underground signs, park signs, metro signage, hospital room signs, conference, hotel and office signs, emergency and exit signs and signs in shops and stores would work, too. Look around, pay attention and have a camera ready. That’s really all you need! At Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, numbers in each terminal’s letter indicate the walking time. Simple yet beautiful. (Image credit.)It would be nice to see signage in a variety of languages and in globally diverse locations. We’re hoping to find similarities that communicate visually across cultures. Please feel free to submit unusual and humorous signs as well! Check out examples of what we’re looking for to get your creative juices flowing. “This Is How You Find ↓.” A wayfinding sign in IKEA in Sweden. (Image credit.)Contest DetailsSo what do you need to participate? And what are the rules?Curious About the Prize?The camera below can be yours. One participant in this contest will win this best-selling digital SLR camera, the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XS (EOS 1000D), with a 10.1 megapixel CMOS sensor, high-precision 7-point wide-area autofocus sensor, and an Image Stabilizer-equipped EF-S 18–55mm f/3.5–5.6 IS Lens. The winner will be chosen randomly from among all accepted submissions.SpecificationsFormat: JPGAll photos should have a width of at least 700 pixels.The total file size of your submission should not exceed 15 MB.Each participant can send at most three photos.Submission GuidelinesPlease download the starter kit first.The starter kit folder contains a plain-text file, details.txt. Please edit it by adding details about your submission.Please name your photos meaningfully, and don’t use empty spaces or special characters.Please add your photo (or photos) to the folder. Do not include any advertisements.With your images in the folder, archive the folder as a ZIP file. The file should have a clear name (e.g. shining-airport-signage.zip).Please send your submission to contest {at} smashingmagazine {dot} com.Please note: submissions will be processed automatically. Please make sure your submission follows the requirements above, otherwise it will not be processed.Copyright, Labels, WatermarksEmbedding copyright information, a watermark or URL in a photo will spoil it; please avoid adding anything that isn’t a part of the image itself. Participants should own the copyright of any photos they send. You can specify the license under which you want your image(s) to be released using the starter kit. Photos should not be already available elsewhere on the Web.Deadline and AnnouncementSend us your photos by 27 August 2010. The winner will be announced a few days after. We will present all interesting photos here on Smashing Magazine, including the names and URLs of the participants chosen, of course. If we get enough submissions, we will sort and categorize the photos in the article.ExamplesThis contest is all about creativity, so get out your camera and start shooting. Good signage doesn’t necessarily have to be “clean.” On the contrary, some beautiful and original examples can be found where nobody bothers to look. Just be curious, and take a closer look around you. You may want to look at these articles for ideas: Vintage and Retro Typography Showcase and Showcase Of Beautiful Vintage and Retro Signage.Good luck, and get creative, folks!(al)© Vitaly Friedman for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine Post tags: contest, photography

  

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  August 16 2010, 8:43am | Comments »

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  Beautiful Examples of Transparent Screen Trick Photos

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    Two weeks ago we published a showcase of beautiful pinhole photography, and this weekend again we’ve got something unusual and creative to lift up your spirits and challenge your creativity. Illusions can be eye-catching and attractive and when you apply them to computer displays, the results can be quite interesting and deceptive.Take transparent screen trick photos, for example. The idea is simple: you take a photo of your surroundings and set this photo as your desktop wallpaper. Once the display is positioned precisely, the transparent screen trick is achieved. Simple, but what can you do with this simple idea?Below we present a short selection of some original transparent screen trick photos. The environments presented in these photos appear to have a completely transparent screen which creates an optical illusion. We also feature step-by-step-tutorials in the end of this post: and here you go — now you have something fun to do over the weekend![By the way: The network tab (on the top of the page) is updated several times a day. It features selected articles from the best web design blogs!]Transparent Screen Trick PhotosStrobist Lighting6/365 Clear ScreenUntitledPeon.masterFirst AttemptI WIN!!!! alternative 10/365Transparent screen 3Transparent screen. [177/365]ExperimentsTransparent Screen 6Transparent Screen 1Transparent Screen ExperimentTransparent Screen 5My Transparent Screen!Transparent screen 3Transparent Screentransparent screenTransparent ScreenTransparent Screen – Tristantransparent screenBeethovenTransparent screenTransparent iBookMy transparent screenTransparent Laptop ScreenTS-pc2Transparent Screen First TryTransparent TabletSee-thru laptops!Caffè a computerGrayscaleTransparent ScreeniPod touchTransparent Screen 2Added a laptopTransparent Screen LaptopTransparent laptopStanding on ChairKeithconroyPlay Desktop With Me?My transparent macbookPeon.masterTransparent Screen Tutorials and ResourcesJust for Fun – Transparent Laptop TutorialThis project involves taking three different pictures. The first two will be taken at the same time, and the last will be taken after some editing. It is very important that you do not move your computer or tripod during the whole process.Transparent TFT Screen TutorialLearn how to create a transparent looking tft screen by combine smart photographing with some easy photoshop tricks. You will need a camera tripod and of course a digital camera to do this.Transparent Screens Flickr GroupA huge and growing gallery of photos with the transparent screen trick effect.© Aquil Akhter for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine Post tags: photography, photos

  

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  August 7 2010, 10:52am | Comments »

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  The Showcase of Beautiful Pinhole Photography

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    Camera is a remarkable piece of innovation. However, it is people — professionals and newbies alike — who make it truly remarkable. It’s the photographer behind the camera. It’s their imagination, passion and talent and knowledge of the medium. You don’t need a high-end costly equipment to get beautiful results. Just your talent, a way of looking at different things and imagination is together more than enough for a great shot. It’s also the ability to envision the final result in your mind which is important.Pinhole camera is a simple home-made camera (toy camera) which only uses film or CCD sensor (more recently) enclosed in a fully opaque container and does not use any lenses or any kind of optical instruments. You can easily construct this camera yourself using things lying around like match boxes or any kind of boxes, paper, duct tape etc. The small amount of light passing through this pin sized hole produces image onto a photographic film or a CCD sensor.If you don’t want to get your hands dirty on creating a pin hole camera by yourself, you can use your DSLR with some modifications (replacing camera lenses with a pinhole). Also, pinhole cameras are available in the market: and they are quite popular, too — after all, you don’t have to worry about the focus and distortions as there are no lenses involved. Also, you might end up with lovely motion blurred photographs.In today’s weekend post we present beautiful and inspiring photographs shot using a pinhole camera. Please notice how photographers use the camera creatively to produce quite remarkable images. At the bottom of this post you will find links to some photographers and references to related resources to get you started. Also, we listed related Flickr pools which contain thousands of further examples of what can be achieved with this techniques. Get inspired, folks![Offtopic: by the way, did you know that Smashing Magazine has one of the most influential and popular Twitter accounts? Join our discussions and get updates about useful tools and resources — follow us on Twitter!]Beautiful Inspiring Pinhole Camera PhotographsTarquin CoatesTetsuyaThe calmness of blue by Andrew WatsonDaniel TückmantelInvader by TEIKOMackesonDanielle HughsonTea RoomA. WallisAn Oceanic Ghost Forest by Danielle HughsonZeb AndrewsMackesonDanielle HughsonScott VanderStouwTea RoomScott SpeckScott SpeckMackesonBruno MaleguegonebikingThe Iron Cycloid by Scott SpeckMatteo BagnoliThe Sleeping Zebra by Scott SpeckSarah KnopfFollow The Tunes by Tim FrancoBill Breslernhung dangDarren C.Scott SpeckTea RoomCeleste BrignacA. WallisDarren C.Zeb AndrewsKakkiKent MercurioMackesonSaraErikZeb AndrewsMichael C. Pasturmist-yZeb AndrewsTea RoomAlways de SunRemarkable PhotographersAnd here is a brief overview of some remarkable photographers from Flickr. These are some of great photographers that will come to your mind every time you think of pinhole photography. They have added a new demission to photography: their photostreams are full of beautiful photographs.Zeb AndrewsTea RoomScott SpeckFurther ResourcesThe Ultimate Guide to Create Your Own 35mm Pinhole Camera.Exposure Times for Pinhole PhotographyPhotography 101 – Light and the Pinhole Camera20 Strange Beautiful Pinhole CamerasTurn Your DSLR into a Pinhole CameraTurn Your Holga into a Pinhole CameraDIY: Pinhole Lego CameraDIY: Panoramic Pinhole CameraPinhole CalculatorFlickr Pool: PinholeFlickr Pool: Pinhole PhotographyFlickr Pool: Color Pinhole PhotographyFlickr Pool: Polaroid PinholeFlickr Pool: Pinhole Perspective© vailrodrigues for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine Post tags: photography, pinhole

  

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  July 25 2010, 7:36am | Comments »

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  The Showcase of Beautiful Photography

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    Sometimes, a picture can be powerful enough to be inspirational material all by itself. To provide you with some inspiration for the upcoming week, this sunday we feature some truly beautiful and impressive images from talented artists and photographers worldwide.Whether in black and white or in colors, they are all related by a strong sense of composition and an emphasis on lightening and colors work. All images are linked to their sources, which you are encouraged to visit. Other work of the photographers we have featured here is certainly worth discovering as well. Please notice that some images are available as prints as well.[Offtopic: by the way, did you know that Smashing Magazine has one of the most influential and popular Twitter accounts? Join our discussions and get updates about useful tools and resources — follow us on Twitter!]Beautiful PhotographyDreamingAmazing sleeping beauty, where the beauty is actually also the beast, by Peter ツ. Prints are available as well.Blue SkyFar And AwayInside Capitol HillThe EndpointBy Jeannette Oerlemans.Falling UpSong of TideBy Wira Nurmansyah from Indonesia.BlueBy Earl A. Jones.Bunny BokehHappy bunny bokeh wednesday, by Little Miss Patricia.The CatAbstractBy tanakawho.Ink SeaBy Hermin Abramovitch.Fan’s EyeA macro shot by LauHi.falltuerPainterBy an unknown artist (please let us know the photographer in the comments).Ant, The DriverBy Raphael Guarino.A purple leafBy National Geographic.Flower PetalBy Alistair Campbell.KeeperBy Wysseri.Who Feels LoveBy Ciuky.In The Mood 4 LoveBy Antonio Navarro Wijkmark.TunnelBy Kleemass.EyjafjallajökullBy Skarphéðinn Þráinsson.Susanna MajuriA disturbing yet insteresting serie of images by Susanna Majuri.San ToriniAbandonedBy tEdGuY49.blue canaryBy Ursula I Abresch.Bearded DragonA macro shot by LauHi.Ant (by Unknown)Please let us know who is the author of this image in the comments.Light Paintings by Twin Cities BrightestLast ClickThe PlugsWell, that’s not a beautiful photo per se, but we are confident that this image will spark your imagination for a more productive workflow — at least when it comes to handling cabels and plugs!Would you like to see more similar inspirational posts? Would you like to see more similar (inspirational) posts on Smashing Magazine?Market Research © Smashing Editorial for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine Post tags: photography, photos

  

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  July 11 2010, 6:35am | Comments »

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  How To Use Photos To Sell More Online

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    As a photographer and UX designer, I pay particular attention to the effectiveness of photography when I’m testing with users. Regardless of the context, users rarely fail to comment on or be influenced by photography when shopping online.This article pulls together principles from psychology, marketing, UX design and photographic theory. It provides a set of principles to follow when commissioning and editing photography and when planning and designing profitable e-commerce user experiences.Show Off Product BenefitsThe best way to sell products is to let them sell themselves. Consider the Gorilla Pod shown below. The photo demonstrates brilliantly the benefits of the product. The copy is supplementary; the image does the heavy lifting. Let photography do the selling for you as much as possible.Don’t Give Reasons Not to BuyOne client sold flowers online, and many customers were buying flowers for hospitalized relatives. Many of the arrangements were displayed in glass vases in the photos on the website but were not actually delivered in vases. Not knowing this, many users felt that they couldn’t buy from that website, because hospitals in the UK (where the business was located) do not allow vases onto the wards.Create an Immersive ExperiencePhotographs have the potential to elicit an emotional response. They can also communicate information quickly; they are easier to “read” than text. Photographs give depth and context to a story, thereby creating a more immersive experience than text can do alone. Photos can be used to inspire, enrage, inform, provoke or entertain.Make ‘em LaughPhotos have the capacity to entertain as much as to inform. If it suits your brand, why not inject a bit of humor? If your website asks users to perform chores (such as doing admin tasks or paying bills), a dash of humor can ease the burden—and your customers might love it.Educate and Inform“Tell me and I’ll forget, but show me and I’ll remember.” Learning can be difficult, but supporting theory with visual stimuli can help us grasp complex concepts and confirm our understanding. Images are easy to remember; how often have you met a new person and found later that you could recall their face but not their name?Tell a StoryFrom an early age we are told stories, and we spend our lives telling stories to friends and families. We know that pictures are effective storytelling tools. Even in the news media, multimedia slideshows are produced to give life to news stories.Highlight InnovationPeople have certain expectations of how things should look and function. If you have a product that differs from the norm, expect a large portion of interest to come from word of mouth; friends will show it to friends, who will show it to their friends, and so on.Show People How to Do SomethingI’m usually the first one to toss out the instructions and work it out for myself. How hard could it be?! The example below illustrates how useful imagery can be when conveying a complex procedure.Don’t Mislead UsersPeople often jump to conclusions when shown certain types of images. We showed pictures of shirts during some recent testing, and people assumed they would come with cufflinks and ties, but these were added by the stylist to make the shirt look appealing.Evoke an Emotional ResponsePhotography is often used to communicate hard-hitting messages (about the environment or human suffering, for example) because it evokes strong emotions. Charity campaigns, for example, know that by photography can get them the type of reaction they want.Plug AccessoriesShowing the product’s accessories helps users imagine how they could enhance their experience of a product. Photos of accessories stimulate desire and offer suggestions about where to direct that desire (i.e. what to purchase next).Show Features and VersatilityShowing a product in use communicates what it’s for and how to use it, and it helps users imagine how it will fit into their lives. It can result in a feeling of need; it will solve problems the users didn’t realize they had!Understand NeedsI remember doing some testing for a major automotive client. The fellow was a keen kite surfer, so his primary interest was the size of the car’s trunk. He is the perfect example of a customer who has primary considerations, or “deal-breakers”, on which they are not willing to compromise. Photography can help your website communicate that needs are being met; sometimes, the more photos, the better.Match the Imagery to the BrandBrands are created and reinforced by photography. A mental disconnect occurs when photos don’t accord with the user’s preconceptions about the brand. It feels wrong and makes the user question what the brand is all about.Sell a LifestyleWhether it’s rural life, the good life or city living, everyone strives to live what they believe to be their perfect lifestyle, and we buy things that match that lifestyle. So, when products are displayed in the context of a lifestyle, we assign value to the product based on our desires. For a wonderful example from a TV campaign, check out the John Lewis “Never Knowingly Undersold” TV ad.Demonstrate Exciting FeaturesPhotography is instant communication, so make it about the best features of your product. I hate getting wet when I cycle, but a coat takes up loads of space in my bag; imagine how compelling the Montane image (below) was for me. I bought a Montane jacket.Make It BeautifulThe camera generally lies. That is, beyond setting and context, there are all manner of camera tricks to help you make the subject look beautiful and desirable. Consider the iPad as a photo frame, and see how the picture is enhanced.Avoid Clichéd Stock ShotsWe commonly get feedback from users about their universal loathing of stock photography. A recent project for a university client showed how users preferred “real” photos to stock images, despite their less polished look. Users wanted a realistic vision of what actually went on at that university.Create DesireThe Web is about self-service. It’s also an ideal way to escape reality. Travel websites know how important it is for potential customers to see resorts and rooms before purchase and travel. They know that the customer needs to envision themselves in that hot relaxing place when they book tickets from their cold home in January.Be Stylistically ConsistentJohn Lewis, the UK department store, takes a painstaking approach to product photography, often taking up to 30 minutes to style individual items within a vast product range. The company defines and adheres to a particular photographic style. The results are stunning because the style is applied consistently.Convey the IntangiblesBentley’s sales often result from brand values such as quality, craftsmanship, heritage and tradition. Often, the qualities related to a product are hard to put into words. Photography can help convey those qualities clearly.Show Some PersonalityPhotography can convey the essence of a product or service, but it can surprise and delight, too. I was looking for something recently on the Ikea website and came across the page below. It reinforces the fact that Ikea doesn’t take itself too seriously, which is a nice touch, and easy to do.Be Subtle SometimesI recently conducted some research for Wiltshire Farm Foods. The response to this photo was amazing: users got the impression that food would be delivered to their elderly relatives whatever the weather. This was of critical importance to them because of the harsh winter. It’s amazing how powerful subtlety can be.Look ProfessionalThe rules of portraiture dictate that a simple uncluttered background will focus interest on the subject. This rule is applied well on product gallery pages, where product images are cut out and presented against a white background.eBay unavoidably suffers from inconsistency, and the page below illustrates how much easier seeing products against a simple background is. Research into websites such as eBay and Etsy shows how important product photography is to buyers. Would you bid on a TV that you couldn’t see a picture of?Threadless breaks the rules, but with good reason. The varied backgrounds feels relaxed and shows off the product in a natural setting. The crop on the subject is tight enough that you get an impression of the environment that doesn’t distract you from the subject.Be ConsistentConsistency draws attention to the important things (in the example below, shirts for sale). The eye is drawn to inconsistency, so make sure any inconsistency in your composition is deliberate.A studio is the perfect controlled environment; you can ensure that lighting remains exactly the same between shots. The lighting style reinforces the brand’s image. Examples include hard edgy light in photographs for a youth clothing brand, and soft ethereal light in photographs for an environmental lifestyle brand.Use Unusual Vantage PointsYou can make an otherwise everyday object seem more interesting by shooting it from an angle that differs from the normal human line of sight. Sound advice: get high or get low. Do whatever you can to give a unique perspective.Shoot From the Best AnglesYou will often hear people claim that they prefer to be photographed from a certain side or from their “best angle.” Products also have flattering and unflattering angles. Peruse some automotive websites and brochures; see how many cars are shot from a three-quarter angle. This angle suggests power and scale. The shots are clearly designed to appeal to a masculine audience.Show Objects in Their Natural EnvironmentThe environment in which you place the subject helps the viewer understand the product’s purpose and suitability. A shot of a grizzly in its natural habitat seems much more fitting and “real” than a shot of that grizzly bear in, say, a parking lot. Product shots in an appropriate environment suggest both where and how the product can be used.Convey a Sense of ScaleBuying something online can be problematic. Predicting its suitability is difficult without seeing or touching it. (Will it fit? Will it match? Will it look right?) Including an object with a known size in the photograph presents the viewer with an immediate visual reference.Image Size Is ImportantIncreasingly fast Internet connections allow clients to work with large images. On real estate websites, for examples, images can’t be big enough; users want to fully explore their potential new homes. That said, if you will be offering a “larger view” of a photo, make sure it really is significantly larger. (My experience with testing has shown me that users are annoyed by “larger” images that are only marginally different.)Show the Product in UsePeople want to be sure they are buying what they want or need. Show the product in use to help the user see that it suits their needs. Following the advice “show, don’t tell” removes the need for additional explanatory text. Few people will read it anyway, because a picture is worth a thousand words.Show How It WorksConsider the pineapple slicer (below). You’d pick it up in a kitchen shop and think, “What the heck is this?” Now try explaining how it works on a website without a photo. A nightmare. Again, show, don’t tell.Make Choosing EasyA recent client had over 90 variations of an everyday product available for sale. The variations were meant to offer flexibility, but they bamboozled customers. The example from Ben Sherman (below) is another case of too much or poorly explained variety. How does “mod” style differ from “union” style, for example? I have no idea. The photography should make it clear but doesn’t.Enhance the ExperienceI don’t know why Bing decided to put images behind its search screen, but I like to imagine that they thought, “Heck, why not?” We like things that are emotional or visceral. Good experiences with products and services feed on our tastes and bring return business. So, if Bing helps you find what you’re looking for and is also visually appealing, you’ll use it again and again.Show DetailsHere is a true example of why showing details works. I recently bought a bike. A deal-maker for me was the ability to secure a rack to a fixed part of the bike; I wasn’t going to buy a bike without this. The Evans website provided large zoomable photos that allowed me to check for this detail. I bought my bike from Evans.Show Me What It Looks LikeI’ve mentioned this already in a roundabout way, but showing the product piques interest and brings business.Encourage InteractionA recent test I was involved in asked users to try out the websites of different real estate agents. One user completely reversed their initial opinion of one of the agents when they saw the number of detailed photographs available; they expressed delight and interest. Encouraging interaction by providing functions such as zoom and rotate leads to a satisfying user experience.Show Me I’m in the Right PlaceAn important aspect of way-finding in digital environments is showing people where they are. Google accomplished this in a literal sense with Street View on Google Maps; this was an innovative use of photography. When we meet with clients in unfamiliar locations, for example, we can see what the place looks like beforehand. We feel prepared and less anxious about being late.ConclusionPhotographs play a crucial role in informing, influencing, educating and reassuring customers throughout the buying process. Review your website’s photography and question its role. What is the job of a particular photo at that particular stage of the process? Is it effective? When might customers drop out, and how could photos prevent that from happening?The task of image selection often falls to the designer. User experience professionals should actively influence the process of selecting photos for the buying process. The days of having a placeholder for images in our wireframes and prototypes are over. We should be annotating our work to influence decisions that art directors make when selecting images. Consider these principles to ensure that the images you choose not only “look right” but also work well.Website owners should recall the principles mentioned in this article when commissioning new photos and researching stock. Focus on the purpose of the images, and you will turn photos from window dressing into key conversion tools.How have you used photography to maximize conversion? We’d love to hear success stories and anecdotes from user testing.[Offtopic: by the way, did you know that Smashing Magazine has one of the most influential and popular Twitter accounts? Join our discussions and get updates about useful tools and resources — follow us on Twitter!]Further ResourcesIf you liked this article, you’ll love these.Cracking UX Resources52 weeks of UX Weekly doses of UX goodness.Johnny Holland A rather good UX magazine.UX magazine Another good UX magazine.cxpartners blog The latest thinking on optimizing e-commerce websites and broader UX topics.Inspirational Photography WebsitesThe Big Picture Stunning images from the Boston Globe.JPG Great photos form amateurs who contribute to this online mag.Pictory The best photo stories of readers.National Geographic The original and the best.Magnum Inspirational images from the world’s best photographers.Strobist The definitive online resource for off-camera Flash.Scott Kelby Brilliant books and tutorials.Chromasia One of the best photo blogs around.Chase Jarvis Commercial photographer extraordinaire.(al)© James Chudley for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine Post tags: conversion, photography

  

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  June 25 2010, 3:43am | Comments »

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  Uncovering Toy Cameras and Polaroid Vintage Effects (With Photoshop Tutorials)

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    Since its emergence, the digital photography market has gradually supplanted the traditional one. APN and digital SLR cameras entered our lives, and some people announced the death of silver-based images. This is not all lie, and yet old-fashioned images have been particularly popular in the past few years. All we do seem to do now is try to recreate the atmosphere of those bygone times anyway. Blurry, distorted and over-saturated images are not just a fad anymore. People have became familiar with the style and even consider it a full-fledged photographic genre.And this is where toy cameras play a role. These devices, made entirely of plastic, including often the lens itself, are not only toys. Sure, they cost next to nothing and have no controls to speak of, but this is what people like about them: they create unpredictable pictures, with equally unpredictable vintage effects. Once you understand this, the rest is a beautiful game. Take them anywhere, anytime, and photograph whatever you like. Photo credit: Pirouetting, by helenannsiaHow does this apply to modern design? Now that vintage websites are so trendy, why not look to this type of image for inspiration? You probably don’t want to go through the trouble of taking up silver-based photography because that would mean buying, developing and scanning film, maybe even making prints. That takes time and is expensive.What you can do, though, is use the magic of Photoshop to make your ultra-sharp, high-definition images look like they were taken with one of these cameras. Below are a list of the most famous toy cameras and some tutorials that can be used to recreate their famous effects. Most of them are part of the Lomography movement, but you might also want to consider some other options in trying to recreate that authentic look. You also may be interested in our previous article “The Disturbing Beauty of Oversaturated Pictures and Lomography.”By the way, what was the last time you visited our sister site Noupe? Subscribe to Noupe's feed for more inspirational and design-related articles.Famous Toy CamerasToy cameras are cheap, low quality and yet functional. As such, the deformations in the photos they produce are pronounced, and not all images are guaranteed to be perfectly exposed. Still, there are just so many of them these days that picking a few is hard. The ones presented here have paved the way for the success of the others. You may know them but not the stories behind them?DianaLet’s start where it all began. Picture yourself in Hong Kong in the early ’60s, when a factory starts producing the Diana. This inexpensive plastic-body camera was at the time usually given away as a novelty gift. Occasionally, it would be used by actual photographers who took advantage of the various effects it produced. And many effects there were. Because of the poor quality of materials used, the Diana camera was disposed to light leaks, leading to film damage, an effect typically fixed by sealing the seams with light-proof tape. Handy, huh?But the plastic body wasn’t the most interesting part: it was the lens, also made out of plastic. Not only did it enhance the already low contrast created by the light infiltration, but it also made for odd color rendering, chromatic aberration and blurry images. As if this weren’t enough, the image circle only marginally covered the diagonal of the film frame, which is why Diana images have heaving vignetting. Photo credit: elZekahAs photographers started to deliberately exploit these characteristics, production grew through the ’70s and opened the way for other toy camera manufacturers. Photo credit: chomdeeLomo LC-AThis is where things get a bit tricky, so pay attention. It’s now the beginning of the ’90s, and for a few years the Russian factory Lomo PLC has been producing the Lomo LC-A camera, which basically has all of the characteristics of a toy camera (vignetting in particular). But production was stopped, and the camera was all but forgotten until two Austrian students found one at a flea market in 1991 and decided to exploit its marketing potential. They convinced the director of the Lomo PLC factory to relaunch production and negotiated an exclusive contract for distribution with their brand-new company: Lomography AG. Photo credit: maakuAnd here begins the Lomography movement. If the term is familiar to you, you probably know at least two things about it. First, it promotes casual snapshot photography. Second, it is associated with over-saturated and high-contrast images. To confuse things, this second characteristic has nothing to do with the LC-A camera itself or with any other cameras for that matter. It is actually the result of the way the film is processed, which would usually be cross-processing. But Lomography is a movement, not a technique, and it was certainly the first to promote camera imperfections as an aesthetic. The success of the LC-A camera helped spread this aesthetic. Photo credit: citronnadeHolgaWith the success of this movement, Lomography AG became interested in other low-cost cameras, such as the Holga, which had been produced in China for a decade. Even though it was made by a different manufacturer, the Holga was considered the successor of the Diana. Inspired by its predecessor, the Holga was designed as an inexpensive mass-market camera. And like the Diana, it is not of the best quality and has the same flaws. Photo credit: babyabby10But the Holga became popular and was even exported to the West over time, mostly for photo-reporting, for which its low profile was appreciated. Its problems were no longer problems, and now it is not surprising to hear of Holga photos winning awards. Because it is entirely manual, one can create effects, such as double exposure and panoramas, by not winding the film. Photo credit: Bill Hansen (website)ActionSampler, SuperSampler, OktomatThese three cameras don’t have many differences. They all take multiple shots in a set period of time, thus creating micro-images that look like short animated movies. The Actionsampler and Supersampler have four lenses each, while the Oktomat has eight, fitting eight frames into the standard 35mm. Photo credit: amylynnthompsonTo make them a bit more fun, what you see through the viewfinder is not exactly what you get. Photo credit: golfpunkgirlLomo Fisheye 2As the name suggests, the Lomo Fisheye camera has a fish-eye lens. It was the first 35mm compact camera to offer such a wide angle (170°), and unlike the other toy cameras covered here, it gave surprisingly good results for the price. The second edition came with several enhancements, such a viewfinder that covered the same angle as the lens (it was blocked off before). Photo credit: aapnootmiesThe effect created, often seen in sport images, can serve many other purposes. But the user should be aware of two major characteristics: strong deformation and light leaks. Photo credit: fahaPhotoshop Tutorials And ResourcesNow, let’s put all this into practice. Even if you are familiar with these effects, have ever actually tried to replicate them? There are a lot of different effects, and you can combine them to create unique images.Faking the Holga Camera and Fisheye LensHow to Fake a Holga Photograph This tutorial shows you how to fake Holga photographs in a few simple steps.Another Way to Fake a Holga Photograph Another tutorial on faking Holga photographs.Fish-eye effect This shows you how to create a fish-eye effect for a picture taken with a regular lens. This one is a video and it addresses two important points: the lens circle border is not supposed to be so sharp when taking a fish-eye photograph, and one often deals with light infiltration.Fish-eye effect Another fish-eye tutorial. It doesn’t show how to distort the image, so you will have to add this step yourself, but it adds a nice final touch to the image by using a picture of the inside of a fish-eye lens.Recreating Low-Quality Camera FlawsVignetting A very simple tutorial on recreating the vignetting effect.Soft-Focus Lens Effect What if you’re already happy with the contrast and color saturation of your image and just want to recreate the effect of a soft-focus camera lens or diffusion filter? In this tutorial, you’ll learn a fast and easy way to add a more traditional soft-focus lens effect to images.Faking Barrel Distortion and Chromatic Aberrations Here is a nice Photoshop plug-in to fake barrel distortion and chromatic aberrations. Adding these effects to your pictures will make them look even more authentic.Light Leaks Effect, Part 1 and Part 2 Of course, this article wouldn’t be complete without a great tutorial on light leak effects. Here is an awesome one, divided into two parts, each covering a different effect: a white-blur light and a colored bar leak.Working on Colors and Light ExposureGetting That X-Pro Lomo Look This tutorial is fairly quick and easy. It shows you how to get that great x-pro Lomo look by tweaking color. You’ll be exploring a new method of vignetting, and you’ll be widening and blurring the image a little.Cross-Processing Tutorial With so many possible permutations of film stock and processing techniques, there is no single, identifiable look to cross-processed images. The most common combination is C-41 as E-6, in which slide chemistry is used to process color negative film; and mimicking it in Photoshop is a quick job. Image contrast is usually high, with blown-out highlights, while shadows tend towards dense shades of blue. Reds tend to be magenta, lips almost purple and highlights normally have a yellow-green tinge.Cross-Processing Another cros-processing tutorial.Vintage Effect Age your images a give them a vintage effect.Using Textures and Double ExposureThrough the Viewfinder Did you know that Flickr has a Through the Viewfinder group? The idea is that you shoot through the viewfinder of an old camera using your modern digital or film camera and create an interesting framing effect. Here is a tutorial on how to create this effect.Resources of Speckle Pattern Yes, there is also a Flickr group called “Noise and Dust Through the Viewfinder.”Paper Texture Effect Here is a quick and easy tutorial for those who want to learn the art of taking a photo and turning it into an old-fashioned vintage picture.Some More Paper Texture Effect Another tutorial (this one a video).Filmstrip Effect Download a filmstrip template and use it to create negatives of your pictures.Double Exposure When you take a double-exposed photograph, the results are usually a bit unpredictable. With Photoshop you have much more control over the result.Another Way to Create Double Exposure While the most common way to create a double exposure is by using a different blending mode on the top layer and adjusting its opacity, this method accurately simulates how a camera takes a double exposure.Other IdeasNo tutorials are needed to create these effects. They are included here merely to give you more ideas. You’ll still need to work on your pictures to get that vintage look. Then, just put them together and enjoy.Shoot Series Like the Oktomat and the Actionsampler Draw inspiration from the Oktomat and Actionsampler cameras. You’ll get either four or eight images in the same frame, each of them having been shot after an interval of only a few seconds. Photo credit: Look!, by MoyöShoot Series like the Supersampler The Supersampler effect is quite similar to the Actionsampler: four images in the same frame, but spaced differently. And remember that you can arrange layers both horizontally and vertically. Photo credit: moving clocks run slow, by aleinsomniacPanorama 1 Panorama images don’t necessarily have to be perfectly arranged. Here is an example of what else can be done. Photo credit: Christophe Dillinger (website)Panorama 2 Another inspiring panorama. Photo credit: bruceberrienPanorama 3 The panorama view can be combined with a filmstrip effect. It simulates a double-exposure panorama taken on a manual camera. Photo credit: mikrofoniuszWant More?PolaroidIf cheapness is a defining characteristic of toy cameras, it surely isn’t for Polaroids. The Polaroid camera itself is not expensive, but because Fuji is now the only company that produces the film for it, getting affordable ones has become difficult. But this may change in the next few months thanks to the Impossible Project.Going back a bit, the world’s first commercial instant camera was the “Land” camera, unveiled in 1947. Since then, Polaroid has become synonymous with instant photography, because most of the cameras have been created by the Polaroid Corporation. Nowadays, the cameras are used by photographers mainly to preview their work before actually shooting. But as toy cameras, they are fun to play with and can make for nice effects. Photo credit: paine666Polaroid and Transfer EffectRetro Polaroid Coloring on Your Photos This is a simple tutorial on how to get that retro Polaroid coloring in your photos.Polaroid Transfer Effect This Photoshop tutorial shows you how to create a cool old photo transfer edge effect using a piece of stock photography, an alpha channel and the burn and dodge tools.Showcase of Beautiful PicturesConsidering that Flickr has a group for almost every subject, it is no surprise that there is one for toy cameras. Here is a showcase of the most beautiful images from it. Photo credit: have I told you lately, by cHr1st1an S Photo credit: ubu84 Photo credit: 000038, by qwj Photo credit: 54330027, by etara Photo credit: Ipanema Beach – Brazil, by marcelo_maia Photo credit: Hélicoïdal, by Cathy Lehnebach Photo credit: Purgatoire, by stiveune Photo credit: untitled, by Greg Zauswoz Photo credit: untitled, by bradbrochill Photo credit: .., by cjlomo Photo credit: spree1, by hellomelly Photo credit: Love me two times, by laszlo_ototh Photo credit: exit, by renaishashin Photo credit: untitled, by Sergio Conde Sánchez Photo credit: Akhirnya buat lomba juga -__-, by febryanyovi Photo credit: Cosy Clausterphobia, by miss_michelle Photo credit: svema_test1, by ashtonleee Photo credit: untitled, by poppart Photo credit: lomographicsocietyinternational Photo credit: La Bòfia – Redscale, by fgali1964 Photo credit: chomdee Photo credit: offcenter Photo credit: Holga Tennis, by Nick Whitmoyer Photo credit: golfpunkgirl Photo credit: eyetwistFurther ResourcesOld Toy Camera – Photoshop action This Photoshop action makes images look as though they are aged prints, shot on a toy or antique camera. Also included are two actions that create borders similar to those seen on photos from many antique and toy cameras.Toy Camera Contest FILE presents here a selection of images submitted for its Toy Camera Contest. This collection gives an idea of the challenge facing the judges to find three winners. The range and quality of the submitted images are impressive.Gallery This project is home to photos taken with toy cameras. Most are plastic: Holga, Diana, Dorie, Debonair, Lubitel, Banner, Snappy and Yunon. Distortion, blur and imperfection are some of the characteristics that endear these cameras to enthusiasts.Abduzeedo: 60 Interesting Lomo Fisheye Shots Gathered here are a few Lomography fish-eye shots. Some were taken with Lomography cameras such as the Diana and the LC-A+ with a fish-eye lens adapter attached.Lomography.com Lomographic Society International Website.(al)© Jessica Bordeau for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine Post tags: photography, photoshop, toy camera, tutorial, Tutorials, vintage

  

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  March 10 2010, 6:23am | Comments »

• I posted to smashingmagazine.com

  Showcase Of Beautiful Shadow Photography

  http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/03/01/showcase-of-beautiful-shadow-photography/

  By Daved Brosche and Smashing Editorial Team Shadows can add a lot to a photograph. They can emphasize emotions, create surreal images, and be used in a variety of ways. While strong use of shadows in color photographs tends to be mostly used in silhouettes, it can also appear in a variety of other forms in color photos as well. In my opinion though, shadows are most powerful when used in black and white photographs. Below we present a showcase of truly outstanding photos that make strong use of shadows in a variety of ways. All images are linked to the sources where they were found. Please feel free to explore further works of photographers showcased in this post. You may also be interested in the following related posts:

  Urban Decay Photography Motion Blur Photography Reflective Photography Night Photography Tilt-Shift Photography

  45 Beautiful Examples Of Shadow Photography Ricky MontalbanoJust a neat, artistic picture of a skateboarder and his shadow.

  deadstar

  Philippe Sainte-Laudy

  Newbaro

  Vic Nicholas

  John Sloan

  Vilhjálmur Ingi Vilhjálmsson

  Nuuttipukki

  teddymb

  Thomas Mues

  Bill Hinton

  TJ Scott

  Valerie (pearceval)

  Gazza or Garry

  Darvin Atkeson

  F. A. Ecker

  William HundleyWilliam Hundley is the fan of the so-called “Entoptic Phenomena”: cover your friends with a cloth, ask him/her to jump in the air and make photos while they are jumping.The result is the effect which is called Entoptic Phenomenon in digital photography.

  madolina

  Kap’n'Kaos (Mike)

  Jason Swain

  Lara FairieA stunning silhouette of a beautiful young lady. The light and shadows here create and excellent beauty shot.

  Paul Bredow

  Rosie HardyA very creative use of shadows to help portray a powerful feeling and emotion in this picture.

  Massi MilianoA combination of deep shadows, dark colors, creativity, and perfect time make for a very interesting and surreal photo.

  David Herreman“View from the top of ‘Levant Terril’ at Mons in Belgium. A ‘terril’ is a hill made from mining waste. There are still a lot of them in the old mining regions like Mons, now being appreciated as green areas. I’ve used a ND1000 filter in order to have an ‘evening effect’ even if the sun was high in the sky. This is NOT a tone-mapped HDR but a digital blending of 3 exposures. The main exposure was of 30 sec.”

  Alonso Díaz

  Leley Noronha

  Fred Eerdekens

  Katarina Stefanović

  Kevin McNeal

  Josh Exell

  ms4jah

  Michael McAreavy

  Watari GoroOriginal picture – no Photoshop or image manipulation is used.

  duesentrieb

  ViaMoi

  Ciscophotography

  Sarah France

  GloredelCreate use of shadows to create some abstract tears.

  Last Click Joshua Liberman

  Related Posts You may also be interested in the following related posts:

  Urban Decay Photography Motion Blur Photography Reflective Photography Night Photography Tilt-Shift Photography

  © Daved Brosche for Smashing Magazine, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Submit to Reddit | Submit to Facebook | Who is linking? | Forum Smashing Magazine

  Post tags: inspiration, photography, shadows

  

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  March 1 2009, 3:36pm | Comments »

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  10 Easy Steps To Advanced Photography Skills

  http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/02/17/10-easy-steps-to-advanced-photography-skills/

  By Trey Ratcliff (aka Stuck in Customs), one of the most famous and renowned HDR photographers on Flickr. In his article Trey describes some professional insights and useful photography tips that he collected over the years of his career. A camera does not work like an eye; film does not work like memory. There is a fine line between a photo that is quite nice and one that is quite breathtaking. At some unknown point, a photo can cross the Rubicon and be forever a piece of beautiful art. That hinterland between a regular photo and evocative art is a shifting area from person to person and taste to taste. However, that zone can be narrowed a bit once you start to consider the way the brain stores memories and emotions. And yes, it gets a bit touchy-feely here trying to determine if your work has crossed that line. With rigorous practice and peer feedback, you can start to appreciate where that zone is and, consequently, improve your hit ratio. The back of the Taj Mahal during a summer sunset. The good news is that divining your way to more beautiful photos does not require rune rites of scapulimancy. There are some basic things and mantras to keep in mind as you practice and fail, then practice and succeed, then practice and fail, then practice and succeed, and rinse and repeat. We’ll detail a few of these below. 1. Think About The Brain I’ve always thought about photography differently. I grew up seeing out of only one eye, thanks to several botched surgeries in the 1970s using refurbished archaeological tools of the Australopithecus medicine men. When you see out of one eye your whole life and then start using a camera in your mid-30s, something happens to you! You come to realize that a camera works nothing like the eye. Forget 3D; I’m talking about the way the brain stores images and scenes. Upon birth, you have legs, but it takes a few years for your legs to get along with your brain well enough to actually walk you around the savanna a bit. The eyes are the same. They get wired faster than the legs, but the neural pathways from the optic nerve to the parts of the brain that matter take a while to find their chemical trails. You start to sense light levels, then shapes, then edges, then relative positions and the like. And then, around the age 2 or 3, you finally come up with a tagging system that allows you to know generally what a “barn” looks like. Your brain has been working nonstop over that time to give you the visual and memory infrastructure to enable this watershed event. Fourth of July on Lake Austin: the first HDR photograph to hang in the Smithsonian. Now, let’s fast forward to today. You’re older, your brain is more or less fully formed, and you happen upon a barn in a field. But it’s not just any barn: it’s the barn you’ve been wanting to see your entire life. And in the distance, a storm is brewing as a gentle sun sets. It’s beautiful; you lock it into memory. The way you lock it into memory is nothing like the way a camera records the image on film (or a CCD). This is what I quickly came to realize as I sat there, looking at a photo I took with a fabulously expensive Nikon and showing it to a friend. “Well, you really had to be there.” I’m sure you’ve all said that! Now, this first step is a big step: it’s a philosophical re-assessment of how the camera works in contrast to how the memory maps a scene, the latter being a process of layering visual reality with the emotions and memories linked to that scene. You see, you are not just remembering that barn but are remembering every barn; you are not just remembering that storm but are remembering every storm. A beautiful photo must tell the epic tale of the memory, linked with the other emotions that fold into a whole. 2. Engage In The New Global Salon In the 1860s, all art roads led to the Salon in Paris, which was the most important judged competition of art in the western world. During a period of just over 10 years, the Impressionist masters battled it out in a competitive and cooperative tour de force that created a panoply of creations that we now cannot imagine the world without. The reason Paris became the center of the art world and an explosion of new art is the combination of new technology in travel and communications combined with Napoleon III’s focus on infrastructure around the Salon. Hong Kong from a peak on a summer night as the city comes alive. Today the same thing is happening, although perhaps not everyone really realizes it in a grand historical sense. It’s called Flickr. Flickr has become a techno-Salon, allowing the world to easily use the Internet to enter the competition and force each other to evolve and improve their art. The automated “Explore Algorithm” does a pretty good job of automatically filtering the best photos that are uploaded every day. Go ahead and look at some of the current best of the last 7 days. Click “Reload” a few times and I promise you will have seen something that impresses. It is quite unbelievable the level of art and beauty that is created every single day. Now, all of this amazing art on Flickr can either inspire or intimidate you, depending on your mindset for competition. I hope it inspires you to upload one photo a day and see if you can make it in the top 500 or even the top 10. And don’t give up. Competition makes everyone better; this is an undeniable truth, and you are not realizing your full potential if you remove yourself from the process. I can think of a number of things Flickr can do to improve this new global competition. Its AI algorithm to find the most interesting new artists still makes many mistakes. Maybe I will save that for another article! But in many ways, Flickr is close to squandering an amazing opportunity to set the art world on fire. 3. Get Rid Of Your Toy Camera Oh, look at that camera you have! It’s so tiny and slim and techno-looking. Look! It fits right in your pocket! Oh my, you can take it to parties and sporting events, and it’s so convenient. Oh, it is 10 megapixels, too? Oh my. Well, that is a good camera then! No, it’s not. It’s a toy: give it to your kids or the nearest gradeschooler (for whom it was designed) and get serious. I know that 19-year-old punk at Best Buy told you that your compact camera is really neat and just what you need. But are you gonna listen to him or me? Get yourself a DSLR (I have suggestions on my page that aren’t very expensive for people just starting out). For those of you who don’t know, a DSLR is one of those cameras you see the pros carrying, but it doesn’t have to be a giant one like what you see in the NFL endzone. Sorry to be rude about the toy thing, but you want to take more beautiful pictures, no? Well, a decent DSLR has such a good sensor chip, combined with more flexible lenses, that your batting average will dramatically improve. An ancient Hindu temple at sunset in the jungles of Indonesia. Also (people with DSLRs already know this), it is important to have a good wide-angle lens for landscapes. Beautiful photography does not have to be of a landscape, but it commonly is, and this is what many people envision when they want to make their own beautiful photos. So, we should talk about wide-angle lenses here for a moment. If you are used to using a toy camera, then you have never really seen the world through a good 10 to 24mm lens. It’s almost the difference between regular TV and HDTV. The vistas are wide and bold; the clouds, sun and mountains all fit; the river and bridge are easy to compose; and so on. Once you go wide-angle, your landscape will never be the same! 4. Carry A Tripod For Those Beautiful Sunsets And Sunrises Oh, what’s that? You don’t want to carry a tripod? What are you, a 9-year-old? Now, come on. You’re a grown-up, and you want to take some seriously beautiful photos. Do you think pros carry around tripods because they like the extra weight? No, of course not. They know what the heck they’re doing. If you bit off on getting a DSLR, then you are going to need a tripod, especially for sunset and night shots. Unless you have the steady hand of a T-1000, you are going to get some camera shake. A tripod allows you to do the following things with landscape photography (in no particular order): set up and take your time to compose a photo with serious intent; keep noise low as the shutter stays open longer; look cool as you carry it around; keep the shutter open for 5 or more seconds for those fleeting sunrise and sunset shots; use it as a weapon in a tight spot while traveling (not kidding). Dresden, Germany So, are you still worried about carrying it around? The problem, you understand, is mostly your attitude. Let me provide a different perspective. Nothing in life is worth doing unless you’re serious about it. Believe that you are going to shoot that sunset, and you are going to take your nice DSLR and tripod out there and make it happen, and no one is going to stop you. You’re carrying that tripod around because you’re serious about it. Otherwise, you could just go sit on a pretty beach at sunset and drink beer with your friends and not be serious about it. Go ahead… but you won’t be getting any beautiful photography out of it. 5. Admire Impressionism I spoke earlier about the Salon of Paris and what happened during the Impressionist movement. While the process and examples of what happens when artists start cooperating and competing is interesting from a social-group evolutionary perspective, this section is more about the art itself. Early critics of the art form found it crude, sloppy and unconventional, to the point that they felt it didn’t even deserve to be placed alongside the classic masters. But the public was awestruck by the new art form. It doesn’t take a critic to know good art, but it does take a careful and discerning eye. Consider the colors and styles of Degas, Cézanne, Monet and Renoir. There is not a single detail about any well-known Impressionist painting that is the slightest bit “realistic.” But yet, the rough shapes and colors still make sense. Something about it just feels right. What is that something? An icy lake at sunrise, fed from the seasonal melt at Glacier National Park; a panorama of 90 shots. To me, what feels right about Impressionism is what we discussed above. These Impressionist images go deep into viewers’ brains and evoke memories of shared scenes and events. The memory is in fact an Impressionist playground of fleeting colors, shapes and edges. A face here, a blur there, a hint of something almost there, but not quite. Look at Monet’s work. Think about how the yellows of a sun in the distance is the same yellow as an up-close flower. But something about the colors makes the sun feel brighter than the flower. How does he do that? Can you get closer to achieving this with your photography? As you look at Impressionist paintings, juxtapose them with your own photography. If you want to evoke the same sort of feelings, then consider how it was done without resorting to realism. 6. Practice With HDR What is HDR? It’s short for High Dynamic Range photography, and it’s all the rage. I have a tutorial on HDR on my blog. But here, I’ll explain HDR in a circuitous but meaningful way. About 80% of my photos are in HDR, but I do something a little different. As you start looking into HDR (many of you already have), you will begin to notice how absolutely horrible most HDR looks. When many people begin experimenting with it (myself included), it is overdone and looks too psychedelic. Over time, mine have improved via rigorous self-examination and an evolving methodology. Remember that bit about me growing up and seeing the world with one eye? Now, we come to the second part of this daring mini-biography as we are cross the stepping stones to my point. My background in college was Computer Science and Math, so I’ve always thought about things in terms of algorithms and software. The very first time I used a DSLR camera, when I was 35 or so, I very quickly came to the realization that something was missing. A young Amish boy allows me to freeze time after I help him carry wood with his sisters. That missing something was the “software” layer between the eye and the memory. Consider what you do with the barn and apply it to how the camera works. You survey the scene. Your eye jumps around from interesting object to interesting object, sometimes moving slowly, sometimes quickly. Your eye lets in more light in some areas, less in others as your pupil dilates. You squint into the setting sun and see warm colors splashed across the clouds, grass and barn. You remember other barns, other storms, other sunsets. You may have been with someone or were alone, but you certainly remember. You lock it all up in your mind’s eye forever. Because we are visual creatures, a photo or painting can evoke great memories. But the only way to trigger some of those intense memories on a deep level is to adjust the light levels in the photograph, so that the light levels and color match those buried in your head. The HDR process can help achieve these goals. 7. Take Your Camera Everywhere Don’t just take your camera out on those rare occasions when you actually decide to set aside a portion of your day for photography. Face it: we’re all busy people with real lives, and setting aside three to four hours for anything extracurricular is tough. But it takes only a few seconds to get inspired for a photo, and it’s no good if your camera is back home. Gulfoss in Iceland. Catholic theologians of old believed this was the entrance to hell. Keep it in the trunk of your car in a fun little photo backpack, with a small selection of lenses. You never know when you will see something wonderful. Use this opportunity to take at least one photo a day. It doesn’t have to be a grand landscape; just something small and nice that you may not have noticed before. 8. Understand The Fantasy/Reality Membrane Do you have kids? Are you a kid at heart? Think about when you were a kid and what happened when you turned into a jaded old grown-up. Maybe by the end of this section you can ask yourself some new questions about reality. Kids have this remarkable “membrane” between fantasy and reality. They can jump back and forth between the two in an effortless way. In fact, the membrane itself is wonderfully “thick,” in that there is a vast dream-state wilderness where the world is both fantasy and reality. When pressed, kids will tell you what is real and what is pretend, but that is often a painful process that pries them from the escapism they felt so viscerally just a few moments before. My personal foray over the last year into learning how to draw. When we are all grown up and serious, that membrane is razor thin, and there is little tolerance of “pretend” and “fantasy.” Why is this? Is it because we are surrounded by other serious people and want to conform? Is it because fantastic escapades are what “kids” do and thus not pertinent to our lives? Obviously, we can all still get into that fantasy zone, and we all love it. That’s why movies are still such a potent force; they give us social permission to be like kids for two hours, once a week. It also explains the growing relevance of online games. But when we start talking about photography — well now, that is a different subject! Photography is a serious art form, practiced by classically trained masters whose reality is quite serious indeed! There mustn’t be anything fantastical in the art form. The process goes from camera straight to the film, you see! Poppycock. 9. Learn To Draw This is a weird one, eh? Who on Earth has time to learn to draw? Well, you would have time if you stopped wasting it on less important activities. You’ve got one life here, so you might as well start applying yourself. “I don’t have any time! I have kids to look after, a full-time job, a bunch of cool games to play, books to read, exercising to do, a bit of photography, and blah blah blah.” As a personal experiment, I wanted to see if anyone could learn to draw. This is similar to an earlier experiment I did on myself to see if I could take something I hated and turn it into something I enjoyed. That experiment was with coffee, but I was afraid that learning to draw would be harder, particularly because of the jitteryness introduced from the first experiment. A tame wild-haired horse on the windy fjords of Iceland. I’ve always admired people who can just grab a pencil and paper and make something amazing. Man, I’ve always wanted to be able to do that! I began the experiment with the hypothesis that great natural artists can draw anything without any instruction whatsoever. These are true masters, and I was unlikely unlikely to reach that level. However, I thought I could become adequate at drawing and be at least satisfied with myself. A great side-effect, I envisioned, would be new insight into photography: into line, shape, light and composition. All of this turned out to be true. So, if you have hit a rough spot or are in the doldrums with photography, take up drawing. A few instructional books out there are practical hands-on guides that give you basic pointers. I think you will be quite impressed by how it starts to bleed into your photographic art! 10. Make Mistakes Make a lot of mistakes. Throw yourself and your art out there and see what works and what doesn’t. Show your stuff to true friends who will give you frank feedback. Don’t be like those sorry saps on American Idol who make fools of themselves in big auditions because they’ve spent their whole life listening to their tone-deaf mom tell them they are incredible at singing “Over the Rainbow” or because Aunt Mabel enjoyed it so much during the grade 2 play. Get yourself online and begin making friends by finding other photographers who you respect. Beg and plead for them to come look at one or two of your photos and give frank feedback. They will cut you apart, but just take your medicine, lick your wounds, and go out there and improve. Fin And there we have it: 10 things to shake up your world a little bit. I’m no Baudelaire when it comes to writing these sorts of polemics. However, just as he drove Manet to be Manet, perhaps I can do my own little part to stoke the fires and help drive a new art revolution. Evolve and evoke, or whither into nothingness. Extra Credit To end off, here is a random selection of some of my other favorites. The Lonely Trinity An elderly woman, who has never cut her hair, ascends the stairs to her daily Hindu pilgrimage

  Dante’s Gates of Hell, a sculpture by Rodin, captured in proper lighting

  About the author Trey Ratcliff describes himself as a slightly evolved monkey that happens to carry a camera. He’s become unintentionally popular from his photography blog, mostly because his mom emailed about 350,000 people to tell them about it. Trey can found there on his blog or followed on Twitter at @treyratcliff, where you’ll be the first to get news of his latest daily creations. (al)

  © Trey Ratcliff for Smashing Magazine, 2009. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Submit to Reddit | Submit to Facebook | Who is linking? | Forum Smashing Magazine

  Post tags: inspiration, photography

  

  • Tags:
  • inspiration
  • How-To
  • photography

  February 17 2009, 3:54pm | Comments »

• I posted to smashingmagazine.com

  35 Beautiful Examples Of Animals Photography

  http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/02/15/35-beautiful-examples-of-animals-photography/

  By Tim Mercer, Vailancio Rodrigues and Smashing Editorial Team Animal photography is probably one of the most dangerous types of photography. The outcome totally depends on the skills of photographer and the time when the shot is taken. A photographer who uses good exposure, color and blur settings along with appropriate shutter speed and focusing techniques can produce stunning photographs. Animal photographers have to be prepared and be ready for the unknown. They need to study action and language of animals to know every move. Many animal photographers use camouflage to hide themselves and to give photographs a natural and “natural” look. When shooting in wildness, photographers usually shoot with long telephoto lenses from a distance. Below we feature 35 beautiful examples of animal photography, photos of wild, tamed and other animals. All photographs are linked and lead to the source - the respective photographers. Do not forget to explore further works of these talented photographers. Please notice that the collection presented below is supposed to only give you some inspiration, it can and should be extended; please feel free to suggest links to further resources in the comments to this posts. You may be interested in the following related posts:

  50 Stunning Examples Of Reflective Photography 60 Beautiful Examples Of Night Photography 50 Stunning Underwater Photos 25 Beautiful Macro Photography Shots 35 Beautiful Examples Of Rain Photography

  Beauty Of Animal Photography Cyrus Khamak

  Thijs Giesbers

  Douglas Roesch

  Sushyue Liao

  Francesca Birini

  In Cherl Kim

  Hernan Vargas

  Leon Baas

  E Dorj

  w e n d y

  AnyMotion

  Pepa Martín

  Khumakhod

  Terrie K

  Unknown

  Land Nick

  Gordon Glen

  Sushyue Liao

  Andreas Saladin

  Nat Ge

  In Cherl Kim

  BBMaui

  christopher

  Marieke IJsendoorn-Kuijpers

  Maurizio Peddis

  Ken Bondy

  Nathan & Jenn Clark

  jaeWALK

  Robert Taylor

  Mariam Almazroui

  Hans Viveen

  Unknown

  Tim Flach

  Guiri R. Reyes

  Last Click Kjunstorm

  Further Resources and Sources

  Animals in Love Flickr Group: The Wildlife Photography Flickr Group: Nature, wildlife and outdoors Flickr Group: Wildlife of the world Flickr Group: Indian Wildlife Club Flickr Group: California Wildlife Flickr Group: Wildlife Photography National Geographic Animal Photo Galleries Photographers Gone Wild Fllickr Pool Nature’s Finest Flickr Pool Nature Photographs Flickr Pool Spectacular Animals Flickr Pool Animal Kingdom Flickr Pool

  © Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz for Smashing Magazine, 2009. | Permalink | Be the first to comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Submit to Reddit | Submit to Facebook | Who is linking? | Forum Smashing Magazine

  Post tags: animals, inspiration, photography

  

  • Tags:
  • inspiration
  • photography
  • animals

  February 15 2009, 2:27pm | Comments »

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