Photography News

February 28, 2015 /Photography News/ It isn't that lens hoods are really expensive, but if you hardly ever need one, you can probably find a better way to spend the $10-50 a lens hood would set you back.

lenshoods.co.uk and lenshoods.net are two nearly identical websites that offer free printable lens hood templates for a huge list of lenses. The only difference with lenshoods.net is that it offers hoods that are “optimized” for crop sensor cameras. Whether you need a hood for a Canon prime, a Nikon telephoto, or a Sigma macro lens, you'll find that on both sites. Templates are available in PDF format and nearly every lens has a standard round hood and a petaled hood available.

Here’s what the templates look like:

All you need to do is print out the template (on A4, A3, or A2 paper), cut it out of black card stock, and assemble it with tape or glue.

The resulting lens hood may not make your camera look more impressive, and may not be as effective as the real thing, but you'll get it for the price of the paper you print on. 

If you’d like to have a unique looking hood for your lens, you can also design your own custom lens hood.  

February 24, 2015 /Photography News/ The 2015 edition of the Sony World Photography Awards today announces the shortlists for its Professional, Open and Youth categories.

Recognising and rewarding the world’s best contemporary photography from the last year, the 2015 competition received the highest number of entries in its eight year history – 173,444 images from 171 countries – and a 24% increase on 2014.

Speaking about the shortlisted images, Astrid Merget Motsenigos, Creative Director of the World Photography Organisation and organiser of the awards said: 

“The sole purpose of the Sony World Photography Awards is to celebrate and appreciate the talented artists working in the photographic industry.  Once again, the shortlist demonstrates the vibrancy, diversity and skill of both today’s established photographers and, as importantly, the growing army of citizen photographers for whom the awards offer unpreceded exposure and opportunity.

“The record number of entries gave our expert panel of judges a monumental task but we are incredibly proud to present to you a shortlist which truly showcases some of the world’s best photography.” 

The shortlisted photographers for all categories are listed below and names included are both new and familiar to the competition.  Those recognised again by the awards include: Peter Franck (Germany); Donald Webber (Canada); Amit Madheshiya (India); Brent Stirton (South Africa); Simon Norfolk (UK), Fan Li (China) and Massimo Siragusa (Italy).  New names include Julia Fullerton-Batten (UK) and Sebastian Gil Miranda (France).  

Those in the awards’ Professional categories will now compete for a $25,000 prize and the coveted L’Iris d’Or/ Photographer of the Year title.  The recipient, along with the winners of the Professional categories, overall Youth and Student winners plus the Open Photographer of the Year, who receives a $5,000 prize, will all be announced at the Sony World Photography Awards Gala Ceremony on Thursday 23 April.  All winners will receive the latest digital imaging equipment from Sony.

The winning and shortlisted images will go on show at Somerset House, London from 24 April – 10 May and published in the 2015 edition of the Sony World Photography Awards book.  The images will be printed by theprintspace, WPO's Official Exhibition Printer.  The exhibition will also include an intimate display of still images, books and films by Elliott Erwitt, recipient of the Outstanding Contribution to Photography award.

Here is a selection of the best shortlisted images:

Click here to see the all finalists 

February 23, 2015 /Photography News/ Did you ever wonder what different sounds look like? Thanks to the science behind the Schlieren Flow Visualization now you can see and capture the differences in air pressure caused by various forces such as sound or heat.

So, how does it work?

Here is a graphic that depicts how we are able to photograph movement in the airwaves, thus creating sound waves, by using a a series of objects to reflect and divert the waves for the camera to be able to capture it.

This results in a photograph - like the one below - which shows the sound waves created by a pair of clapping hands.

Check out the full video here, and tell us what sounds you'd most like to see in the comments box.

And here is how you can create your own DIY Schlieren Flow Visualization: http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Schlieren-Flow-Visualization/

Want more information on the Schlieren photography technique? Check out the great resources below:

February 20, 2015 /Photography News/ Whether your passion is landscape, portrait, documentary/street or something entirely unique, TeraBella Media (TBM) is interested in displaying your interpretations. TBM is inviting all photographers to send images that best represent their own personal style. The subject matter is open for each photographer. Image files may be in black and white and/or color. Participants may submit up to eight images that are most characteristic of their individual photographic approach. First, Second and Third place finalists will be chosen. Additionally, three Honorable Mentions and Three Merit winners will be selected.

Prizes:

First Place: $400 (USD) cash prize

Second Place: $200 (USD) cash prize

Third Place: $100 (USD) cash prize

Three (3) Honorable Mentions & three (3) Merit Winners will also be chosen.

All finalists will be announced in the TBMPN/WPN newsletter and on Photography News. Finalists will also receive recognition in on line gallery display and social media exposure via Facebook and Twitter.

Copyright: All submitted images remain sole property of artist/photographer.

Entry Fee(s): $20 (USD) for first 4 images

(Up to 8 image entries may be submitted for additional fees)

Color and/or Black and White images will be accepted.

Eligibility: Contest is open to all individuals 18 years and older, worldwide.

Entry Deadline: April 1, 2015 (11:59PM CST)

See more at: http://terabellamedia.com/photo-contest/

February 14, 2015 /Photography News/ Here is a collection of photographs from the beginning of the 20th century. Happy Valentine's Day!

February 12, 2015 /Photography News/ Born 158 years ago today, on February 12, 1857, in Libourne near Bordeaux and raised by his uncle, Eugène Atget’s youth was molded by his time as a sailor. Upon his return from the sea, Atget turned to the stage and pursued an acting career. After minor success as an actor, Atget abandoned the stage and at the age of forty took up painting, then quickly turned to his true life’s work as a photographer. For the next thirty years, until just a few short months before his death in 1927, Atget undertook a systematic documentation of the city of Paris, creating approximately five thousand negatives and nearly ten thousand prints.

Because he refused to work with the latest advances in photographic technology, Atget’s images evoke a sense of timelessness, due in part to the slower exposure times and the pre-visualization of the final image that was required. Atget produced glass plate negatives, using an 18 x 24 cm. view camera that was fitted with a brass rectilinear lens and had no shutter. Rather, Atget would simply remove the cap from the lens and capture the scene before him, allowing any motion to appear as a blur. Atget carried this large camera around Paris as he worked to document its essential elements: streets, shop windows, building facades, architectural details, and the landscape of the public gardens and parks in and around the city.

Atget’s unique documentation of the French capital captured the eye of surrealist photographer Man Ray who worked to promote Atget as one of the pre-eminent photographic modernists. Later, the efforts of Berenice Abbott, who acquired Atget’s negatives and prints after his death, finally situated Atget’s work in the history of photography where it continues to gain in stature and influence.

George Eastman House holds approximately 500 prints by Eugène Atget.

February 12, 2015 /Photography News/ Born 206 years ago today, on February 12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln lived in the era when photography was introduced to the world and then became a mass communication tool. Lincoln was the first U.S. presidential candidate to tap the new technology frequently and has been called the most photographed man of his day. 

The 204th anniversary of his birth offers a fitting occasion to enjoy treasured portraits from the Library of Congress collections. 

February 10, 2015 /Photography News/ National Geographic Traveller (UK) has confirmed the finalists of its fourth Photography Competition 2015. The grand-prize winner will be announced at the Telegraph Outdoor Adventure & Travel Show on 14 February. 

The six finalists (category winners) are:

People: Alecsandra Raluca Dragoi - New Year’s Traditions, taken in Comanesti, Romania

Action: Yanick Targonski - Train from Ella to Kandy, Sri Lanka

Animal: Barry Robertson - Bleaker Island, in the Falkland Islands

Rural: Chris Miller - Son Doong Cave, shot in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, Vietnam

Urban: Philip Braude - Urban Trees, London

River: Claire Carter - Reflections on a Melting River, in Rio de las Vueltas, Argentinian Patagonia

To view the shortlist, visit: http://www.natgeotraveller.co.uk/photo-competition-2015/shortlists/

February 9, 2015 /Photography News/ Born 150 years ago, on 9 February 1865, Wilson Bentley was one of the first known photographers of snowflakes. He perfected a process of catching flakes on black velvet in such a way that their images could be captured before they either melted or sublimed.

Bentley first became fascinated with snow during his childhood on a Vermont farm, and he experimented for years with ways to view individual snowflakes in order to study their crystalline structure. He eventually attached a camera to his microscope, and in 1885 he successfully photographed the snowflakes. More than five thousand of his snowflake photomicrographs supported the belief that no two snowflakes are alike, leading scientists to study his work and publish it in numerous scientific articles and magazines. 

Bentley also photographed all forms of ice and natural water formations including clouds and fog. He was the first American to record raindrop sizes and was one of the first cloud physicists.

He died of pneumonia on December 23, 1931, after walking six miles in a blizzard so he could photograph more snowflakes.

February 7, 2015 /Photography News/ Send your suggestions for inclusion in our next weekly roundup:

Twitter: @PhotoNewsPro 

Facebook: PhotographyN 

In a rough part of Mexico City, shooting with cameras instead of guns 

What makes a photograph worth publishing in an age when images are shared in an instant, around the world?  

A new exhibition questions familiar images of suffering around the world to broaden our notions of beauty, brutality and civil rights 

In an age of increasing social media–driven isolation, what does community look like in America?  

7 Days of Photography Give Aways from SNAP Photography Festival

See World Famous Photographs Recreated in a Studio 

He really is king of the swingers! Photographer gets a rumble in the jungle when he's clobbered by 30-stone gorilla

 

Did you know you can easily check children for eye cancer using flash photography? 

100 Naked women captured in photography series to help liberate the female form 

Magnum photographer Elliott Erwitt's favourite photographs, in pictures 

February 2, 2015 /Photography News/ 

© Kevin Meredith aka Lomo Kev

© Emma Case and Pete Smyth

India through a lens: the nation embraces photography as art

Spanish Civil War: Rediscovered photos in Navarra museum

Gregory Crewdson’s Photographs Look Like Eerie Cinematic Crime Scenes

January 27, 2015 /Photography News/ Born 183 years ago on 27 January 1832, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was an English writer, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer.

From today’s perspective, his most notable career is that of writing, as it cemented his pen name in pop culture: Lewis Carroll. But only acknowledging his literary accomplishments would do him a grave injustice.

In the days when photography was just starting to establish itself as an art form, Dodgson took notice of the extremely precise and mathematical aspects of it. Influenced by his uncle Skeffington Lutwidge and his friend Reginald Southey, he picked up the hobby and - as with just about everything he tried in his life - he excelled almost immediately.

Throughout his 24-year career as a photographer he became a master of the medium, boasting a portfolio of roughly 3,000 images and his very own studio. His subjects were most often people, although he also photographed landscapes, dolls, dogs, statues, paintings, trees and even skeletons, as seen above.

From the 3000+ photographs taken by Dodgson, only 1000 have survived due to the passage of time and deliberate destruction, of which just over half are of children (mostly young girls) - 30 of whom are depicted nude or semi-nude.

His affection for younger girls, many of whom inspired the stories he wrote, has led many to conclude that Dodgson may very well have been paedophilic in nature, including Morton N. Cohen in his Lewis Carroll: A Biography (1995), Donald Thomas in his Lewis Carroll: A Portrait with Background (1995), and Michael Bakewell in his Lewis Carroll: A Biography (1996).

Most famously, Carroll obsessively photographed the young Alice Liddell, daughter of family friend Henry George Liddell and inspiration for Carroll’s most famous fictional character.

Carroll’s carefully staged child photographs are very much like those of other photographers of the period like Mary Cowden Clarke and Julia Margaret Cameron, who also photographed Alice Liddell, even into her adulthood.

Below are a few more photographs from Lewis Carroll's collection: