http://jpgmag.com/photonews JPG Photography News Wed, 22 May 2013 11:05:58 PST Wed, 22 May 2013 11:05:58 PST http://jpgmag.com/ http://jpgmag.com/images/JPG-logo-red.gif http://jpgmag.com/about http://jpgmag.com/photonews http://jpgmag.com/photonews/display/2118 Yesterday, at a press conference after an “acquisition” meeting of Tumblr, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer was quoted with the following statement: “There’s no such thing as Flickr Pro today because [with so many people taking photographs] there’s really no such thing as professional photographers anymore.” by Jim Colton Wed, 22 May 2013 05:58:15 PST Yesterday, at a press conference after an “acquisition” meeting of Tumblr, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer was quoted with the following statement: “There’s no such thing as Flickr Pro today because [with so many people taking photographs] there’s really no such thing as professional photographers anymore.” by Jim Colton Cathaleen Curtiss http://jpgmag.com/photonews http://jpgmag.com/photonews/display/2117 Search the world's information, including webpages, images, videos and more. Google has many special features to help you find exactly what you're looking for. Wed, 22 May 2013 05:55:30 PST Search the world's information, including webpages, images, videos and more. Google has many special features to help you find exactly what you're looking for. Pepsi Freund http://jpgmag.com/photonews http://jpgmag.com/photonews/display/2116 In Oklahoma, tornados are a common thing. Every spring they occur and every Oklahoman grows up knowing what they are and the damage they can cause. As Wed, 22 May 2013 05:49:27 PST In Oklahoma, tornados are a common thing. Every spring they occur and every Oklahoman grows up knowing what they are and the damage they can cause. As Cathaleen Curtiss http://jpgmag.com/photonews http://jpgmag.com/photonews/display/2115 German photographer Anna Heimkreiter, aka Wandering Heart, captures beautifully dreamy scenes that whisk the viewer away into her fantasy world. The 20-year-o… Tue, 21 May 2013 17:47:44 PST German photographer Anna Heimkreiter, aka Wandering Heart, captures beautifully dreamy scenes that whisk the viewer away into her fantasy world. The 20-year-o… Shayla Simmons http://jpgmag.com/photonews http://jpgmag.com/photonews/display/2114 Pro commercial and celebrity photographer Michael Grecco takes us on the set of his 2-day shoot for Men’s Health and Procter & Gamble in this high end behind the scenes video. The parts of the video you want to watch move pretty quickly so there will be a lot of pausing if you want to see the lighting setups in any sort of detail. The consistent theme with light here is balance. One of my favorite things about Grecco is how he balances strobe and ambient light.<br /> <br /> There are tons of different kinds of moods you can get with this lighting technique and it’s unfortunate but too often it’s done poorly. If balancing strobe and ambient light is something you are unfamiliar with, we have several articles like this one here on Fstoppers to help you along the way. Once you get the hang of setting your exposure up in layers it’s really pretty easy. Tue, 21 May 2013 10:37:33 PST Pro commercial and celebrity photographer Michael Grecco takes us on the set of his 2-day shoot for Men’s Health and Procter & Gamble in this high end behind the scenes video. The parts of the video you want to watch move pretty quickly so there will be a lot of pausing if you want to see the lighting setups in any sort of detail. The consistent theme with light here is balance. One of my favorite things about Grecco is how he balances strobe and ambient light.<br /> <br /> There are tons of different kinds of moods you can get with this lighting technique and it’s unfortunate but too often it’s done poorly. If balancing strobe and ambient light is something you are unfamiliar with, we have several articles like this one here on Fstoppers to help you along the way. Once you get the hang of setting your exposure up in layers it’s really pretty easy. Justin Case http://jpgmag.com/photonews http://jpgmag.com/photonews/display/2113 David Burdeny’s graphic Drift series began while he was studying for a degree in architecture in Canada. Inspired by Mark Rothko’s multiform paintings, the series began as a study in landscape and space, using seasonal color and the horizon as the basis of the project. The initial shots were taken near his home in Winnipeg, Canada, but extended across the oceans to England, France and Japan.<br /> <br /> The photographs are all of bodies of water, shot with film. The ‘blur’ effect is created directly in-camera using a Roundshot panoramic camera that modified the film internally while the body remained motionless. This technique created a horizontal ‘smearing’ of any stationary objects in the frame, similar to the effect a photo-finish camera has in sporting events. Burdeny found that shooting in areas with strong lighting and heavy contrast produced the best results. The final images are essentially digital prints, but as Burdeny says, although the effect could be created in Photoshop, he prefers to create the blur in-camera, which he believes creates a softer, yet stronger effect. Tue, 21 May 2013 10:35:13 PST David Burdeny’s graphic Drift series began while he was studying for a degree in architecture in Canada. Inspired by Mark Rothko’s multiform paintings, the series began as a study in landscape and space, using seasonal color and the horizon as the basis of the project. The initial shots were taken near his home in Winnipeg, Canada, but extended across the oceans to England, France and Japan.<br /> <br /> The photographs are all of bodies of water, shot with film. The ‘blur’ effect is created directly in-camera using a Roundshot panoramic camera that modified the film internally while the body remained motionless. This technique created a horizontal ‘smearing’ of any stationary objects in the frame, similar to the effect a photo-finish camera has in sporting events. Burdeny found that shooting in areas with strong lighting and heavy contrast produced the best results. The final images are essentially digital prints, but as Burdeny says, although the effect could be created in Photoshop, he prefers to create the blur in-camera, which he believes creates a softer, yet stronger effect. Justin Case http://jpgmag.com/photonews http://jpgmag.com/photonews/display/2112 Apparently, it's an official rule at American Airlines that still and video cameras cannot be used – especially to photograph personnel, customers, aircraft equipment or procedures:<br /> <br /> "The use of still and video cameras, film or digital, is permitted only for recording of personal events. Unauthorized photography or video recording of airline personnel, other customers, aircraft equipment or procedures is strictly prohibited."<br /> <br /> United Airlines recently kicked a travel blogger off an international flight for camera use. <br /> <br /> Jeff Hermes, director of the Digital Media Law Project at Harvard's Berkman Center, says the airlines are within their rights to do this. The plane is a private space, they set the rules, and if you defy them on those rules, you could be found guilty of a form of trespassing. Trespassing, because in most private spaces, you have the option of obeying the owner's rules or leaving the premises.<br /> <br /> "There's an interesting issue when you talk about airplanes," Hermes says. "Because it's very clearly a situation in which — so long as you're in the air — you can't leave. So your only option is to comply."<br /> <br /> The fact that airlines seem to enforce the rule arbitrarily — in this case, to try to head off embarrassing videos — doesn't undermine their legal position, Hermes says.<br /> <br /> Mickey Osterreicher, general counsel at the National Press Photographers Association, says he had no idea that American had such restrictions, but that professional photographers have long had to deal with seemingly arbitrary rules like this. What's changing now, he says, is that those rules are starting to affect the general public.<br /> <br /> "News these days is just as likely to come from somebody with a cellphone camera as somebody with a press credential," Osterreicher says.<br /> <br /> While private companies can restrict photography on their premises, police officers may not. They often try, ordering people to stop videotaping them and sometimes arresting camera-wielding civilians and charging them with disorderly conduct or interfering with the police. But the courts have clearly stated that the public has the right to photograph the police, a right recently reaffirmed by the Justice Department.<br /> <br /> The public's right to videotape police is being tested in a , this week. The details are still unclear, but witnesses accuse law enforcement of deleting a video of a police beating.<br /> Police may confiscate videos, if there's evidence of a crime and a warrant. But private entities, such as airlines, may not. No matter what the rules on a airplane, once you've shot a video, airline employees have no right to demand that you delete it or hand it over.<br /> <br /> And once you have that video, you enjoy much greater freedom to "publish" it, such as uploading it to YouTube.<br /> "If it's just a matter of something that's embarrassing to an airline, it's going to be hard for them to get it suppressed — to get it taken down," says Ryan Calo, a University of Washington Law professor specializing in privacy.<br /> <br /> He says the First Amendment is "pretty generous" in this regard. "Even though the press are singled out by the very text of the Constitution, most of us enjoy many of the same rights that the press do." Tue, 21 May 2013 10:33:46 PST Apparently, it's an official rule at American Airlines that still and video cameras cannot be used – especially to photograph personnel, customers, aircraft equipment or procedures:<br /> <br /> "The use of still and video cameras, film or digital, is permitted only for recording of personal events. Unauthorized photography or video recording of airline personnel, other customers, aircraft equipment or procedures is strictly prohibited."<br /> <br /> United Airlines recently kicked a travel blogger off an international flight for camera use. <br /> <br /> Jeff Hermes, director of the Digital Media Law Project at Harvard's Berkman Center, says the airlines are within their rights to do this. The plane is a private space, they set the rules, and if you defy them on those rules, you could be found guilty of a form of trespassing. Trespassing, because in most private spaces, you have the option of obeying the owner's rules or leaving the premises.<br /> <br /> "There's an interesting issue when you talk about airplanes," Hermes says. "Because it's very clearly a situation in which — so long as you're in the air — you can't leave. So your only option is to comply."<br /> <br /> The fact that airlines seem to enforce the rule arbitrarily — in this case, to try to head off embarrassing videos — doesn't undermine their legal position, Hermes says.<br /> <br /> Mickey Osterreicher, general counsel at the National Press Photographers Association, says he had no idea that American had such restrictions, but that professional photographers have long had to deal with seemingly arbitrary rules like this. What's changing now, he says, is that those rules are starting to affect the general public.<br /> <br /> "News these days is just as likely to come from somebody with a cellphone camera as somebody with a press credential," Osterreicher says.<br /> <br /> While private companies can restrict photography on their premises, police officers may not. They often try, ordering people to stop videotaping them and sometimes arresting camera-wielding civilians and charging them with disorderly conduct or interfering with the police. But the courts have clearly stated that the public has the right to photograph the police, a right recently reaffirmed by the Justice Department.<br /> <br /> The public's right to videotape police is being tested in a , this week. The details are still unclear, but witnesses accuse law enforcement of deleting a video of a police beating.<br /> Police may confiscate videos, if there's evidence of a crime and a warrant. But private entities, such as airlines, may not. No matter what the rules on a airplane, once you've shot a video, airline employees have no right to demand that you delete it or hand it over.<br /> <br /> And once you have that video, you enjoy much greater freedom to "publish" it, such as uploading it to YouTube.<br /> "If it's just a matter of something that's embarrassing to an airline, it's going to be hard for them to get it suppressed — to get it taken down," says Ryan Calo, a University of Washington Law professor specializing in privacy.<br /> <br /> He says the First Amendment is "pretty generous" in this regard. "Even though the press are singled out by the very text of the Constitution, most of us enjoy many of the same rights that the press do." Justin Case http://jpgmag.com/photonews http://jpgmag.com/photonews/display/2111 Shutter speed is one of the three factors that directly affect exposure, or the amount of light that enters the lens. It is also a creative tool you can use to achieve a certain look or effect in your photos. Mon, 20 May 2013 10:48:57 PST Shutter speed is one of the three factors that directly affect exposure, or the amount of light that enters the lens. It is also a creative tool you can use to achieve a certain look or effect in your photos. Radwa Samir http://jpgmag.com/photonews http://jpgmag.com/photonews/display/2110 Anastasia Romanov, the youngest daughter of the last Russian Tsar, was already smoking at the age of 15, encouraged by her proud father Nicholas II.<br /> <br /> The anecdote about the Grand Duchess, a key figure in the conspiracy theories that followed the gunshot and bayonet murders of the Romanovs, has been revealed by a series of photographs found in a remote museum in the Urals.<br /> <br /> Taken in 1916 near Mogilyov, where the Russian military was headquartered during World War I, the photo shows the young girl puffing at the cigarette with every encouragement from her father.<br /> <br /> “At the time there was not the same stigma attached to smoking,” wrote the Siberian Times, which described the pictures found in the local history museum of Zlatoust, a small city about 186 miles from Yekaterinburg. It was there that the tsar and his family were slaughtered in 1918 by the Bolsheviks on the orders of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin.<br /> <br /> It wasn’t the first time Anastasia enjoyed a cigarette. According to the report, a year earlier she had written to her father: “I am sitting here with your old cigarette that you once gave me, and it is very tasty.”<br /> <br /> Taken by the Tsar himself or his children, the 210 photographs have names and dates penciled on their backs. Historians believe they were put together in a modest album by Nicholas himself while in exile with his family in Tobolsk in western Siberia between 1917 and 1918.<br /> <br /> The pictures date from 1914-1916 and show all members of the Imperial family in their last unguarded and happy moments<br /> <br /> Several photos taken in 1916 portray Crown Prince Alexei, heir to a throne that would be abolished the following year. Clad in a stripy bathing suit, he’s shown playing with his father on the banks of the Dnieper River close to Mogilyov. He’s also seen posing on a tree with his beloved spaniel Joy. The crown prince was known to have a genetic disorder, hemophilia, that impair the body’s ability to control blood clotting.<br /> <br /> “The images of Alexei show a surprisingly strong boy given that his hemophilia saw him portrayed as sickly,” the Siberian Times wrote.<br /> <br /> Alexei was in fact the last to die in what has been regarded as one of history’s most infamous murders.<br /> <br /> The events that led to the Romanov massacre developed just as the album was assembled.<br /> <br /> After his abdication on March 2, 1917, Nicholas II and his family were exiled to Tobolsk, where they initially lived in considerable comfort. But following the Bolshevik revolution in October 1917, their conditions worsened. In 1918 the Imperial family was imprisoned in Yekaterinburg’s Ipatiev House, which would later be referred to by a Bolshevik euphemism as “The House of Special Purpose.”<br /> <br /> As the White Russian troops approached the Urals, threatening to reach and free the Romanovs, the Imperial family met their fate.<br /> <br /> On the night of July 16, 1918, the Tsar, his German-born wife Alexandra and their five children, were roused from their beds and escorted to the basement of Ipatiev House. There they were brutally murdered along with their doctor and three servants.<br /> <br /> Those who did not die outright were finished off by bayonets.<br /> <br /> The horrific story of the Romanovs’ execution — the dull bayonet stabbings, the shots that ricocheted off their diamond lined corsets — spawned an endlessly hyped myth.<br /> <br /> Hundreds of claims were made that either Anastasia or Alexei had miraculously escaped the Bolshevisks’ bullets and bayonets.<br /> <br /> The most famous claimer, dramatized in a 1956 film starring Ingrid Bergman, was Anna Anderson, who 19 months after the tsar’s murder, emerged in Berlin claiming she was the Grand Duchess Anastasia — a claim she maintained until her death in 1984.<br /> <br /> DNA tests revealed she was born in Poland and named Franziska Schanzkowska.<br /> <br /> More recently, DNA evidence from two graves near Yekaterinburg has conclusively shown that Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, the Tsarina Alexandra, died with all five of their children.<br /> <br /> The informal snapshots are now on display at a museum in Yekaterinburg, in a show marking the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Romanov dynasty. Mon, 20 May 2013 10:03:16 PST Anastasia Romanov, the youngest daughter of the last Russian Tsar, was already smoking at the age of 15, encouraged by her proud father Nicholas II.<br /> <br /> The anecdote about the Grand Duchess, a key figure in the conspiracy theories that followed the gunshot and bayonet murders of the Romanovs, has been revealed by a series of photographs found in a remote museum in the Urals.<br /> <br /> Taken in 1916 near Mogilyov, where the Russian military was headquartered during World War I, the photo shows the young girl puffing at the cigarette with every encouragement from her father.<br /> <br /> “At the time there was not the same stigma attached to smoking,” wrote the Siberian Times, which described the pictures found in the local history museum of Zlatoust, a small city about 186 miles from Yekaterinburg. It was there that the tsar and his family were slaughtered in 1918 by the Bolsheviks on the orders of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin.<br /> <br /> It wasn’t the first time Anastasia enjoyed a cigarette. According to the report, a year earlier she had written to her father: “I am sitting here with your old cigarette that you once gave me, and it is very tasty.”<br /> <br /> Taken by the Tsar himself or his children, the 210 photographs have names and dates penciled on their backs. Historians believe they were put together in a modest album by Nicholas himself while in exile with his family in Tobolsk in western Siberia between 1917 and 1918.<br /> <br /> The pictures date from 1914-1916 and show all members of the Imperial family in their last unguarded and happy moments<br /> <br /> Several photos taken in 1916 portray Crown Prince Alexei, heir to a throne that would be abolished the following year. Clad in a stripy bathing suit, he’s shown playing with his father on the banks of the Dnieper River close to Mogilyov. He’s also seen posing on a tree with his beloved spaniel Joy. The crown prince was known to have a genetic disorder, hemophilia, that impair the body’s ability to control blood clotting.<br /> <br /> “The images of Alexei show a surprisingly strong boy given that his hemophilia saw him portrayed as sickly,” the Siberian Times wrote.<br /> <br /> Alexei was in fact the last to die in what has been regarded as one of history’s most infamous murders.<br /> <br /> The events that led to the Romanov massacre developed just as the album was assembled.<br /> <br /> After his abdication on March 2, 1917, Nicholas II and his family were exiled to Tobolsk, where they initially lived in considerable comfort. But following the Bolshevik revolution in October 1917, their conditions worsened. In 1918 the Imperial family was imprisoned in Yekaterinburg’s Ipatiev House, which would later be referred to by a Bolshevik euphemism as “The House of Special Purpose.”<br /> <br /> As the White Russian troops approached the Urals, threatening to reach and free the Romanovs, the Imperial family met their fate.<br /> <br /> On the night of July 16, 1918, the Tsar, his German-born wife Alexandra and their five children, were roused from their beds and escorted to the basement of Ipatiev House. There they were brutally murdered along with their doctor and three servants.<br /> <br /> Those who did not die outright were finished off by bayonets.<br /> <br /> The horrific story of the Romanovs’ execution — the dull bayonet stabbings, the shots that ricocheted off their diamond lined corsets — spawned an endlessly hyped myth.<br /> <br /> Hundreds of claims were made that either Anastasia or Alexei had miraculously escaped the Bolshevisks’ bullets and bayonets.<br /> <br /> The most famous claimer, dramatized in a 1956 film starring Ingrid Bergman, was Anna Anderson, who 19 months after the tsar’s murder, emerged in Berlin claiming she was the Grand Duchess Anastasia — a claim she maintained until her death in 1984.<br /> <br /> DNA tests revealed she was born in Poland and named Franziska Schanzkowska.<br /> <br /> More recently, DNA evidence from two graves near Yekaterinburg has conclusively shown that Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, the Tsarina Alexandra, died with all five of their children.<br /> <br /> The informal snapshots are now on display at a museum in Yekaterinburg, in a show marking the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Romanov dynasty. Justin Case http://jpgmag.com/photonews http://jpgmag.com/photonews/display/2109 Photographer Nicolas Reusens has always been interested in insects, so when he purchased his first DSLR three years ago, he immediately dove into the art of macro photography. By using the technique known as focus stacking — combining several images taken at different depths of field — he’s generated some truly eye-popping photos of creepy crawlies from all over the world.<br /> <br /> When we say all over the world, we’re not exaggerating. Reusens is half Swedish by birth and lives in Spain, but over the past three years, he has travelled to Costa Rica three times, Malaysia twice, South Africa twice, the Peruvian Amazon, Ecuador, Mexico and more to find and photograph his subjects.<br /> <br /> His choice to user focus stacking arose from a need to increase his depth of field without stopping down his aperture. Stopping down the aperture requires longer exposure times, and in some cases leads to diffraction and reduced sharpness.<br /> <br /> By combining anywhere from 2 to 200 exposures (no, we didn’t add an extra zero, Reusens actually uses that many exposures for some of his more extreme macro shots) using Zerene Stacker, he creates images that he tells us would be “physically impossible with normal imaging equipment”: Mon, 20 May 2013 09:55:42 PST Photographer Nicolas Reusens has always been interested in insects, so when he purchased his first DSLR three years ago, he immediately dove into the art of macro photography. By using the technique known as focus stacking — combining several images taken at different depths of field — he’s generated some truly eye-popping photos of creepy crawlies from all over the world.<br /> <br /> When we say all over the world, we’re not exaggerating. Reusens is half Swedish by birth and lives in Spain, but over the past three years, he has travelled to Costa Rica three times, Malaysia twice, South Africa twice, the Peruvian Amazon, Ecuador, Mexico and more to find and photograph his subjects.<br /> <br /> His choice to user focus stacking arose from a need to increase his depth of field without stopping down his aperture. Stopping down the aperture requires longer exposure times, and in some cases leads to diffraction and reduced sharpness.<br /> <br /> By combining anywhere from 2 to 200 exposures (no, we didn’t add an extra zero, Reusens actually uses that many exposures for some of his more extreme macro shots) using Zerene Stacker, he creates images that he tells us would be “physically impossible with normal imaging equipment”: Justin Case