‘Horror Vacui’ Depicts Aging Horror Movie Villains Past Their Prime

In “Horror Vacui,” photographer Federico Chiesa tries to answer the question: What if the scariest horror movie villains were still alive today?

Horror cinema may have had golden moments scattered here and there since the inception of film, but you can’t deny that the ‘70s and ‘80s are its most defining decades. After all, it gave us classics like A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Shining, Poltergeist, Halloween, Friday the 13th, and many others that still send some of us leaving the night light on.

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Elizaveta Porodina’s ‘The Lake’ Brings Back Memories of Dreamy Summer Days

All images by Elizaveta Porodina. Used with Creative Commons permission. 

Summer is the perfect time to bum around under the sun. To do nothing but explore the great outdoors or just hang out around the house or in front of the television with the AC on: it’s your pick. To head to the beach or the pool and get a tan. Of course, it’s also a great time to practice natural light portraiture with arguably the best light source you could ever have; the sun.

The Lake by Elizaveta Porodina, a Munich-based fashion and fine art photographer, is a series of natural light portraits featuring a woman in a bright red swimsuit splashing around at the shallow end of a lake. It easily brings to mind those warm summer days spent idly under the sun and keeping cool in bodies of water.

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David Saxe Reveals Brazil’s Fascinating Seaside Rituals on “Yemanja”

All images by David Saxe. Used with permission.

If travel photographers strive to capture a sense of place through their work, documentary photographers often seek the most compelling stories unfolding in a certain place, at a certain time. When New Mexico-based David Saxe decided to visit Brazil for the first time, he decided to enroll in a photography workshop held at the colonial city of Salvador, in the state of Bahia. Part of the workshop was a visit to the beach one early morning during the Carnivale, to witness the ceremonies and celebrations dedicated to Yemanja, a powerful goddess in the Afro-Brazilian religious tradition of Candomblé.

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Arman Zhenikeyev’s Underwater Portraits Look Like Gorgeous Paintings

All images by Arman Zhenikeyev. Used with Creative Commons permission. 

Getting interested in underwater portraiture and in need of some photography inspiration? We had a bunch of stunning underwater works featured in the past, and we have another beautiful one to share today. In his three-part series titled “Come Undone”, Kazakhstan-based Arman Zhenikeyev shows us an unconventional approach to underwater portraiture that produced some pretty interesting and moody results.

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It’s Been Eight Years and This Wedding Photography Meme Is Still So True!

Wedding photographers are still trying to justify this to their clients at times…

It’s very sad, but photographers who shoot weddings are still trying to justify their prices to folks. It’s not unusual to hear, “Oh, we have a budget.” or, “We really can’t afford to pay a whole lot.” And on top of that, it’s also sad that many people aren’t able to understand the difference between what their phone does, and what a proper camera in the hands of an experienced professional with a creative vision can do. Unfortunately, it’s too easy for folks to say, “I can do that.” until they realize that they can’t. Plus, they actually like Uncle Bob.

And that’s why it’s so amazing that this almost 10 year old meme about wedding photography is still true.

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Przemyslaw Kruk Used Infrared Photography to Capture These Haunting Landscapes

All images by Przemyslaw Kruk. Used with Creative Commons Permission.

A quick survey of the portfolio of Polish photographer Przemyslaw Kruk shows imposing landscape photographs of sprawling fields, mountain ranges, hills, and more. I don’t know about you, but I even feel just a little overwhelmed at the power these images give off. It’s probably due to all those wide open spaces and colossal landforms which masterfully blends together. Magical Landscapes. Infrared. Poland, however, is a completely different story – the opposite of Przemyslaw’s usual fare, actually. This series is whimsical, with each image looking as if they’re pages taken straight out of a fantasy storybook. Here, the fields and trees are white, and the skies are unnatural shades of blue.

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Tom Hagen’s “The River Veins” Are a Beautiful Allusion to a Living Body

All images by Tom Hagen. Used with Creative Commons Permission.

Some of the best things in photography are metaphors that spur imaginative thought and add a sense of creativity beyond just simple capture. That’s what Tam Hagen’s The River Veins does for us. Tom, who created the series using a Canon 5D Mk IV, is the man behind the series that is making us think more, not only about how it was exactly done but also about the many implications behind the series.

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Leah Sobsey and Tim Telkamp on Creating Tintype Community Portraits

All images by Leah Sobsey and Tim Telkamp. Used with permission.

While it’s common for photographers to undertake photography projects documenting their communities, only a handful of them get the community itself involved. So when we came across the tintype project of Leah Sobsey and Tim Telkamp, we just had to put the spotlight on it. The aim of Tintypes: A Community Portrait was to engage with the community by bringing people together through the wet plate collodion process. But that’s not the only interesting detail about the project. Sobsey and Telkamp were inspired by the idea to get people to come out of their houses to check out and participate in their project — much like how everyone would head out at the call of the ice cream truck. And that’s exactly how things went down.

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These Photos of Butterfly Wings Consist of 2,100 Merged Images Each

Chris Perani unravels the mind-blowing tapestry of textures that we can only find from extreme close-ups of butterfly wings.

If you think you got your macro photography game going, wait until you get it as strong as Chris Perani’s. In his incredible ongoing project, Butterfly Wings, he takes us to a stunning macro world brimming with exquisite detail unseen to the naked eye. This is macro photography taken to microscopic depths, and the way he creates these photos is in itself impressive.

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Anyone Still Have These Cool, Vintage Girl Scout Cameras?

These vintage Girl Scout cameras will make you want to dig in your grandparents’ basement or attic.  

The Girl Scouts of yester-decades sure had some cool stuff back in the day, including some commemorative or special edition Girl Scout cameras. We spotted a few of them in a post by Redditor MrRabinowitz during our customary Reddit rounds, and we’ve been wondering where have these been all our lives?

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Stéphane Maugendre Creates a Trippy Paradise Using LomoChrome Purple

All images by Stéphane Maugendre. Used with permission. 

French photographer Stéphane Maugendre is self-confessed to be “analog at heart” and so for his new series he turned to the LomoChrome Purple to lend it a surreal touch. Stéphane has always been fascinated by the old greenhouses that dot Paris. To him, these glass structures are remnants of a time when the only way Parisians could marvel at exotic wildlife from far regions of the world was to visit the zoo, natural history museums, botanical gardens, and the greenhouses. Continue reading…

Salvaging Forgotten Memories With The Rescued Film Project

All images by The Rescued Film Project. Used with permission.

As photographers, one of the greatest pains that many of us will encounter is losing images of once in a lifetime memories. Perhaps you accidentally formatted a memory card, or maybe you left a memory card in a pair of pants that ended up going through the washer and dryer, or your card might have just died of old age. The fear of losing images has come up quite often as of late, with photographers complaining that certain new camera bodies have only a singular memory card slot and are unable to write duplicate copies of priceless images, rendering them helpless with a single point of failure.

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Bax+Towner’s ‘Farmers of Viñales’ Puts the Spotlight on the Unsung Heroes of This Cuban Town

All images by Bax+Towner. Used with Creative Commons permission.

When Jason Bax and John Towner, more popularly known as the commercial photography duo Bax+Towner, went to Cuba in March 2018, one of their main goals was to meet and take portraits of the tobacco farmers working in the fields of Viñales. The resulting series is called The Farmers of Viñales and it’s exactly what it says on the tin. The Oakland, California-based duo shot the men as they tilled the soil and harvested crops, with each image looking unsurprisingly like a print ad.

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LOL! These Film Photography Dad Jokes Are Making Us Giggle

You probably need to take a crash course on film photography if you don’t get these.

Dad jokes are everywhere, and if you think you can escape it in the photography world, you’re sorely mistaken. Today, we bring some brilliant (or face palm-worthy) bits of humor peppered with puns and sprinkled with wit. One thing to note: you’ll have to know your film photography well to get everything and join in the fun.

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Here’s Why the Original Fujifilm X100 Is Still Worth Getting Today

If you’re still learning the ropes of digital photography and mirrorless cameras, the Fujifilm X100 would still be the perfect camera to start with today.

Today’s generation of photographers are certainly spoiled for choice when it comes to gear, and there’s always something new to try or buy almost every year. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean we should always go for the latest releases. In his latest video, photographer and cinematographer Casey Cavanaugh tells us why some of the older cameras, especially the original Fujifilm X100, still make perfect shooting companions today.

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Leica Instant M Concept Describes an Instant Camera With Leica M Lens

If you’ve ever wondered whether it’s possible to have an instant camera with the revered Leica M lens, the short answer is yes.

Leica may already have its own instant camera in the form of the Sofort, introduced in 2016. But, let’s face it: it feels more like a glorified Fuji Instax Mini than a truly premium instax camera with the Leica brand. Shanghai-based product designer Daniel Huang took up the noble challenge to make the first instant camera designed for the Leica M lens. The result is a minimalist masterpiece that will delight the Leica fans, and intrigue instant photography lovers.

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This 1973 BBC Science Session Teaches You How to Make Your Own Giant Camera

Got the talent for prop making? You can probably DIY your own giant camera, with some help from this BBC Science Session episode. 

If you’ve been dreaming of building your own film camera, we’ve got just the stuff to help you get inspired. One thing to note, however — you’d be building a giant version of it! You’d be learning from none other than Michael Rodd, then presenter for BBC programs like the Science Session.

Freshly shared from the Facebook page of the BBC Archive is the nostalgic and fascinating Science Session clip from 1973 which shows how a camera works. Instead of taking apart a tiny point and shoot camera to poke around its parts, TV presenter Michael Rodd gave viewers something more interesting: building and assembling a jumbo-sized version to demonstrate the vital components of a simple film camera.

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Gabriella Marks Crafts a Clever Approach on Food Photography

All images by Gabriella Marks. Used with permission.

When we speak of food photography, we immediately think about how each shot should make the viewers salivate at the food or feast they’re looking at. But as with any genre, being experimental and looking for unique ways to work with it pays off. Case in point is a clever project by Santa Fe-based editorial and commercial photographer Gabriella Marks, who put the spotlight on the produce rather than the final product for a project called Form • Function • Food.

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Feel Good Read: Using Photography to Communicate What You Love About a Place

All images and text by John Reid. Used with permission.

I am a travel and architectural photographer based in London, UK. Over the past six years, I’ve traveled to 55 different countries around the world for Expedia. My purpose is to photograph and film places in a way that will stir interest in that location. My approach to photography is simple: be intensely curious, fall in love with a place, and then use the medium of photography to communicate why I love the place. It is based on the advice of Ralph Valesco who said something like, “Photograph what you love and with 6 billion people around the world, someone is bound to love it too.” Technique is secondary to this approach. It is the language that enables me to communicate, but it does not answer the question, “What do you love about this place?”

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Rebeca Camino Brings the Colors and Textures of Nature to Her Outdoor Portraits

All images by Rebeca Camino. Used with Creative Commons permission.

Many of the outdoor portrait photography we see make use of urban settings to create a youthful feel or cosmopolitan look to their snaps. However, there’s more to outdoor portraits than these locations. As you’ll find in this beautiful set by Spanish photographer Rebeca Camino, shooting somewhere with lots of greens and natural textures is also a good idea.

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