Back in December we hosted a day of live video broadcast with our partners creativeLIVE covering the best products of 2013, live technique demonstrations, shooting advice and a guest panel discussion. If you missed any or all of the live broadcast, don’t worry! We’re proud to (finally) announce that all of the segments of our Cyber Monday live broadcast are now available for replay, in our videos section. Click through to go straight there.
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
Ein Beitrag von: Peter de Krom
Vor drei Jahren zog ich in meine Heimatstadt Hoek van Holland zurück. Es ist eine kleine niederländische Stadt, die sich in der spitzesten Ecke Hollands wiederfindet. Man könnte sagen, dass alles, was irgendwie typisch niederländisch ist, in diese enge Ecke getrieben wird und dort einen wunderbaren Cocktail unserer Kulturen und Angewohnheiten kreiert.
Hier scheinen die Menschen ihr Leben nach dem Motto zu führen: „Verhalte Dich einfach normal, das ist verrückt genug.“ Und das ist wirklich so.
In meiner Arbeit versuche ich, die verschiedenen Facetten, die diese Stadt zeigt, herauszuarbeiten. Von meiner eigenen Straße bis hoch zur See fotografiere ich alle möglichen Szenen, die mir begegnen.
Dann füge ich die Bilder zu meinem Online-Notizbuch hinzu und manchmal führen diese zu größeren Projekten, an denen ich dann für längere Zeitabschnitte arbeite. Und irgendwann versuche ich, die Bilder zu publizieren oder auszustellen.
Durch die Fotografie versuche ich zu verstehen, wie sich eine kleine Gesellschaft selbst erhält, indem sie dem Leben von vielen Generationen Struktur gegeben hat. Es passiert immer irgendetwas Seltsames an diesen Orten, an denen jeder versucht, zu einem gewissen Grad in der „Normalität“ zu leben.
Und diese seltsame Stimmung versuche ich sowohl einzufangen als auch zu verstehen. Ungefähr ein Mal pro Woche fahre ich auf einem Moped durch meine Heimatstadt und besuche ungefähr fünf Orte, an denen interessante Sachen passieren. Manchmal suche ich auch nach bestimmten Ereignissen, wenn Leute Dampf ablassen oder irgendetwas feiern.
Meinen fotografischen Hintergrund bilden die dokumentarische Fotografie und der Journalismus. Drei Mal die Woche arbeite ich auftragsmäßig für das Nachrichtenblatt NRC Next oder andere Kunden. An anderen Tagen arbeite ich an eigenen Projekten, die ich manchmal mit meiner Arbeit für Zeitungen kombinieren kann.
Ich schätze mich sehr glücklich, einige gute Schreiber und Journalisten zu haben, die meine Bilder mit großartigen Texten ergänzen.
Ich versuche, viele Orte in kürzester Zeit zu besuchen, aber manchmal bleibe ich länger an einem Platz und versuche, aus einer Situation etwas herauszukitzeln. Dabei achte ich darauf, nicht wie ein Fremder auszusehen und ein freundliches Gesicht zu zeigen.
Derzeit fotografiere ich mit einer Canon EOS 5D Mark III, die ich mit einer 35mm-Festbrennweite oder dem 24-70 L Mk II bestücke. Der „silent mode“ an der 5D funktioniert perfekt und bewahrt mich vor vielen Gesprächen mit Menschen, die ich fotografiere.
In meiner Arbeit schätze ich den Kontext sehr. Deshalb arbeite ich auch gern mit einer 35mm-Festbrennweite. Ich mag es nicht, Leuten die Kamera ins Gesicht zu halten oder – anders herum – dem Betrachter das Bild unter die Nase zu reiben.
Genauso, wie ich mir Zeit dafür nehme, meine Bilder zu machen, mag ich es, wenn Menschen meine Bilder länger ansehen müssen, um sie komplett zu verstehen.
Weiter mag ich es grundsätzlich nicht, wenn man die Gegenwart des Fotografen in einem Bild sehen kann. Die fotografierte Person wird auf den Fotografen eine bestimmte Reaktion haben, die sehr zu dessen Nachteil werden kann.
Dann sagt das Bild mehr über den (nervigen) Fotografen als über den fotografierten Menschen aus. Auf diese Art wird das Ganze zu einem Trick.
Ich versuche also, einen Moment so pur wie möglich einzufangen.
Dieser Artikel wurde von Martin aus dem Englischen ins Deutsche übersetzt.
kwerfeldein – Fotografie Magazin
Photographer Nicolaus Wegner’s dedication to his craft has produced a captivating time-lapse video of the wild weather and beautiful landscapes of his home state. In the 14 months it took him to complete his Wyoming Wildscapes II project, he saw it all — from meteor showers, to lightning across hills and prairies, and 60mph winds. Watch video
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]
Like so many secret spaces of New York City, this one-room exhibit space (hidden inside an abandoned elevator) is not exactly on the beaten path.
This pop-up project is naturally camouflaged, set behind a pair of rusted metal doors along an inconspicuous alley between a pair of dull gray block walls. Only a few small rectangular punched openings suggest that something might lurk beyond the black steel.
Behind its unmarked entry lies a surprisingly pristine white room lined with red-padded shelves. These in turn support an array of contents, many of which city dwellers may find strangely familiar.
The Elevator Museum‘s collection sports a sampling of everyday urban objects, from discarded coffee cups and potato chip bags to tip jars, found dollar bills and losing lottery tickets.
The exhibits rotate, however, between temporary pieces and a permanent collection featuring some seriously unique and one-off objects. The latter includes the shoe infamously thrown at President George W. Bush during a televised 2008 press conference.
The museum founders Alex Kalman, and brothers Benny and Josh Safdie “want [the] museum to relay the intimate stories behind strange, colloquial items, finding beauty in absurdity.” To construct their secret museum, ”the team gutted the shaftway [at the ground floor] and renovated it to include lighting and shelving.”
It has operating hours, but like most things in NYC, it is worth dropping by any time of the day or night: “Glass peepholes at the door allow passersby to marvel at the collectibles 24/7, and for those visitors who miss the museum’s opening hours, a toll free hotline has been developed that relays information about each exhibited artifact via phone. The 60 square-foot, free museum also accommodates a cafe and shop. It is a fitting microcosm of the essence of New York City, an unusual myriad of characters, quirks, and curiosities congregating in extremely small spaces.”
Unlike all of New York City’s flashy and well-known museums, this particular exhibition space is grungy, quirky and easy to miss. Located in an abandoned …
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A fantastic feat of architectural trickery, this anti-gravity ante-room installation appears to hover in thin air and open up into nothingness. It sports a …
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This incredible transforming theater, built from salvaged pieces of a deserted home, is more than meets the eye. A community theater in disguise, its contents …
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[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]
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We live in a new digital world of social media and computer games which makes it all too easy to keep the real world at arms-length.
Do you ever find yourself thinking you want to do more, feel more and live more, but comfortable familiarity and lack of confidence holds you back?
Think about why you love photography. For many of us it’s that we’re fascinated by the world we live in and want to share our vision of it. To create great photos you need to feel, but to feel more you may need to push yourself to do things that take you out of your comfort zone.
On a Monday morning you probably daydream about doing something more exciting, yet when Friday comes around it ‘s easy to slip into your old routine. How do you break the monotony and start doing something that really excites you, without feeling overwhelmed?
Photography projects that make you feel alive
Start dreaming. There’s nothing wrong with daydreaming. What kind of photography project would have you leaping out of bed each morning? What ideas haven’t been done before? What do you love? What do you aspire to?
Do you have a boiling passion that longs to tell an untold story? Maybe it’s a great injustice that needs unearthing, an unsung hero who needs championing, or a wondrous event that deserves attention.
The human race has an inherent desire for a sense of self respect, achievement, fulfilment and recognition. Any first year psychology student can tell you that. It’s called “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs”.
By endeavouring to accomplish something that has never been tried before you’re satisfying the natural desires the modern world does such a good job of suppressing. To come to the twilight years of your life and be able to proudly state “I did that!” is one of the hallmarks of a life well lived.
“Get busy living, or get busy dying” Andy Dufresne, Shawshank Redemption
A great train of thought to start with when dreaming up this kind of project is “I’d like to photograph every (fill in the blank) in the world, or country”. Alternatively you could be the first person to ever photograph a “blank”.
Most things in this world have been photographed at least once, but there are still many subjects that haven’t been studied photographically for an extended period. If you photographed a year in the life of a dementia care home or a homeless person it would be far more interesting than one passing photo.
If you have the nagging feeling that you want to do more with your life and your photography, then a project that helps others can help you find your mojo. There are many studies that show lasting happiness and fulfilment can be found through helping others. If you can combine helping people with your passion for photography then so much the better. This is the approach I took.
For two years I had an idea that wouldn’t leave me alone. I kept putting it to the back of my mind as the idea seemed too big to handle. The idea was to do something nice for someone from every country on earth.
Finally I took the plunge. I followed my own advice by planning the idea, laying out the rules, and announcing it to the world through my website and social media. I could no longer back out.
A project like this encourages you to keep picking up your camera and exploring the world around you. You end up experiencing things and talking with people you would normally have overlooked. Without this project I never would have reached out to a local care home to create poignant family portraits for the residents. Now I have happy memories and this fabulous testimonial of how my photography touched people’s hearts:
“I treasure the lovely photos that you took of my mother, husband and me at Avery House back in February of this year. My mother became very ill shortly after those photos were taken with advanced Alzheimer’s disease. She also broke her leg and had a partial hip replacement in August of this year, no mean feat at the age of 87. She had to be placed into nursing care at Wentworth Croft, as Avery House couldn’t meet her needs any more. Sadly she passed away on 19th November after seven weeks in nursing care. So you see those photos are priceless to me, everyone says how natural and professional they are and I always tell them who took them. So a BIG THANK YOU to you for a lasting memory of my mum.” Janice Osborne, Peterborough
Visiting and helping an orphanage in Kenya was one of the most humbling experiences of my life. Far more fulfilling than wallowing by the pool like a drunken hippo.
Throwing yourself into situations you’d never normally experience opens up a whole new world of photographic opportunities. Great photos often tell a story and projects like this naturally create the necessary environment and atmosphere to help you produce your best work.
What projects are you working on or dreaming of? When will you take the plunge and get started?
For more ideas on projects see:
The post Photography projects that make you feel alive by Dan Waters appeared first on Digital Photography School.
[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Furniture & Decor. ]
Like photo-realistic art in reverse, these three-dimensional objects are carefully crafted to look like rough-edged, hand-sketched representations. If the approach looks familiar, you might be recalling our previous coverage of work by Daigo Fukawa from the Tokyo University for the Arts.
In this series, Jinil Park indeed also with sketches of this chairs, table and lamp set. The artist then hammered wires to create variegated metal lines in the air that look convincingly like those one would expect to find where pen meets paper. These pieces were then welded together to form the finished products.
If the first set seems to have too fine a point on things, you might prefer the subtler work of Maya Selway instead. This designer has crafted a series of vessels made to look like minimalist outlines. Each piece is perfectly balanced to create the illusion of incompleteness while still being able to stand on its own.
Speaking of the intersection of 2D and 3D, any article would be remiss not to mention the remarkable work of FRONT, a group that takes virtual 2D-captured sketches (drawn by hand in the air) and turns them into 3D-printed models.
A camera-linked computer program extrapolates the form from the gestures of the designers, then extrudes a corresponding shape with surprising (and increasing) accuracy coupled with a strong touch of whimsy (like a 3D Doodler writ large).
These images may look like people photoshopped onto a background of sketches, but look again – those scribbles are actual, three-dimensional furniture. …
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A collection of some of the slickest as well as the silliest bedroom furnitures, furniture sets and furniture designs you can find – just don’t fall victim to …
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15 incredibly creative furniture sets that transform, compact, light up, serve multiple functions and just plain look fabulous.
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[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Furniture & Decor. ]
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In amongst the product releases of the past few months, Fujifilm announced a pair of accessory grips for its X-E and X-Pro cameras. The MHG-Xpro and MHG-XE improve on the original HG designs by providing continued access to the cameras’ battery/card compartments. In addition they reposition the tripod mount so that it’s in line with the optical axis. The MHG-XPro and HMG-XE are available now priced at $ 150 and $ 130 respectively.
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
Photographers often need to find the most powerful solutions possible and cram them into the smallest places. While the MacBook Air once satisfied only the size part of the equation, the newest member of the family makes it a compelling choice for photographers. The MacBook Air provides a professional level of power in a diminutive package without sacrificing functionality. Learn more
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
Hauz Khas complex in Hauz Khas, south Delhi India houses a water tank, an Islamic Seminary or Madrassa, a mosque, a tomb and pavilions. These were built between 700 and 800 years ago. Today, the ruins abut a subsequently urbanized village which includes living areas, boutique shops and many eating places, A great tourist attraction […]
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