Snap Motion Re-Animation

A photo might capture a single instant, but how about stringing together a series of photos to create a video? Cassandra C. Jones has got this down to a fine art. By collecting and sifting through thousands of different photographs taken from hundreds of different sources she makes what are effectively videos. Pretty cool.

If you take a wander over to her site, you can see snap motion re-animations, which is what she calls them, of horses galloping, of a flock of geese in flight, or even a full cycle of the moon waxing and waning. Oh, and lots more, too!

If you’re inspired to have a go at this yourself, let us know how you get on!

(Headsup to Photojojo.)

Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize

If you’ve a little time to spare and you’re in central London over the next few weeks, do pop into the National Portrait Gallery and take a look at the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition. It’ll cost you £2, but there are some lovely pictures to be seen, all 60 of which were selected from the 6,000 competition entries.

The winning entry was taken by David Chancellor on his Mamiya 7 II, and is of a 14 year old huntress on the African savannah, a buck slung over her horse.

'Huntress with Buck' by David Chancellor

That bagged Chancellor £12,000, whilst Claire Shilland won the ELLE Commission with her portrait, Merel. She now has the opportunity to shoot a feature story for ELLE magazine.

'Merel' by Claire Shilland

Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Exhibition runs from 11 November 2010 until 20 February 2011 at the National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Place, London, WC2H 0HE. Between 16 April and 26 June 2011, it will run at the Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens.

Yet another copyright dispute... Texas-style

We’ve seen plenty of disputes in the past over photographs being used illegally for commercial purposes, including lawsuits filed by models… and uhh, astronauts.

Well, the latest dispute is kind of a shocker and involves the Texas Department of Public Safety. Apparently, photographer David Langford’s 1984 photo of a cowboy has been altered and used in over 4.5 million vehicle inspection stickers by the Texas DPS. He’s suing the state for damages and attorney fees.

While the stickers were made by state prison inmates, via contract with the Department of Criminal Justice, it still surprises me that something as simple as copyright-checking went over the heads of such a large government department. But then again, a team of state government workers and prison inmates aren’t exactly an intellectual powerhouse. If you’ve ever had contact with anyone at your local DMV, it’s not so shocking after all, is it?

(via The Online Photographer.)

Three blogs for inspiration

Suffering a bit from photographer’s block? There are a whole heap of ways to help you get over it, but sometimes a healthy dose of inspiration from other photos can be just what you need. If Flickr isn’t quite what you’re looking for, three of my current favourite sites might be. Two of them aren’t solely dedicated to photos, but inspiration can take many different forms. So enjoy!

PhotoDonuts might have a slightly odd name, but they showcase sets of work from four or five different photographers everyday. There’re all sorts of different styles to be seen; I’m particularly partial to the vintage collection, and there are some photos under ‘creative’ that’ll make you go: ‘How did they do that?’ What’s more, if you’d like see your work featured there, they are open to submissions of portfolios for consideration, too.

I Like This Blog isn’t just about photos – you’ll find videos, paintings, fashion, and design throughout its corridors of wow. And of course, you don’t have to take inspiration just from photos, do you? They have a team of people who ‘curate’ the site, but accept emails asking for a review, too.

Finally, there’s Yay!Everyday. Again, they don’t feature just photographs, but if there isn’t an image amongst their quirky posters, unusual paintings, or gorgeous photographs that makes you want to pick up your camera, I’m not sure what will. Go check it out.

And have your camera close to hand.

Our November photo competition

Welcome, welcome! We have another lovely competition with a groovy prize lined up for you this month. Last month, we went technical, so this month we’ve opted for a topical theme. We thought that darkness could make for some fun pictures. Yes, you can get creative with it however you wish.

The competition opens today, that’s Wednesday 3 November, and runs until Wednesday 24 November 2010. Please submit your entries to the Small Aperture pool on Flickr.

The rules are the same as October’s, but I’ll reproduce them here for you. Again, Haje and I will aim to have the results to you within a week of the competition closing (which’ll be my birthday, so’s you know).

Good luck!

The Rules

• If you decide to enter, you agree to The Rules.
• You can’t have written for Small Aperture or be related to either me or Haje to enter.
• One entry per person – so choose your best!
• Entries need to be submitted to the right place, which is the Small Aperture Flickr group.
• There’s a closing date for entries, so make sure you’ve submitted before then.
• You have to own the copyright to your entry and be at liberty to submit it to a competition. Using other people’s photos is most uncool.
• It probably goes without saying, but entries do need to be photographs. It’d be a bit of strange photo competition otherwise.
• Don’t do anything icky – you know, be obscene or defame someone or sell your granny to get the photo.
• We (that being me and Haje) get to choose the winner and we’ll do our best to do so within a week of the competition closing.
• You get to keep all the rights to your images. We just want to be able to show off the winners (and maybe some honourable mentions) here on Small Aperture.
• Entry is at your own risk. I can’t see us eating you or anything, but we can’t be responsible for anything that happens to you because you submit a photo to our competition.
• We are allowed to change The Rules, or even suspend or end the competition, if we want or need to. Obviously we’ll try not to, but just so that you know.

October photo competition winner!

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. Welcome to our announcements show for the results of the Small Aperture October photo competition, the theme for which was long exposure. If the sun is over the yard-arm where you are, please help yourself to some virtual champagne and canapes. If that’s slightly early for you, or you don’t drink, we have a selection of virtual teas, coffee, fruit juices and pastries for your delectation.

We received some great entries (you can see them all here), and Haje and I enjoyed the selection process. We are, therefore, delighted to unveil the winner:

'Swingspace 1' by Samuel Hall

Many congratulations to Samuel Hall for his photo ‘Swingspace 1′. If Samuel would like to get in touch with me via email, I can arrange for his awesome prize to be sent to him!

The November competition is coming up shortly. We’re looking forward to judging that one.

Pictures for the neat and orderly

If you’re even ever so slightly OCD and like things organised just-so (my kitchen cupboards are an homage to this), the collection of photos at Things Organized Neatly will sate your desire for straight lines, neat piles, and perfectly formed boxes.

Austin Radcliffe, who runs Things Organized Neatly, thinks of himself its curator. Some of the photos are his, but many are found or submitted by other followers. None is available to buy, which is a pity because some would make terrific postcards.

My favourite happens to be the radial carrots, but go take a look for yourself and let me know what you think.

(Headsup to The Guardian.)

Swings and roundabouts when it comes to rights

The last week feels as if it has been a bit of mixed bag when it comes to photographers’ rights. The Home Secretary, Theresa May, has acknowledged that the Association of Chief Police Officers must play a greater role in ensuring that police officers treat photographers appropriately. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is planning to release guidelines covering online privacy related specifically to images. Meanwhile, I was involved in a run-in with an aggressive security guard.

There’s very clear guidance out there for police officers, informing them what photographers’ rights are. Unfortunately, there have been numerous incidents where it is painfully obvious that some of them just aren’t aware of, or understand it. Let’s hope that the Home Secretary’s clout has a positive impact here.

What the guidelines produced by the ICO regarding the privacy of online images, and in particular those taken in public places, is anyone’s guess. In the past, the ICO has requested that photographers’ adopt a ‘common sense’ approach when placing images online. Let’s hope that they adopt a similarly ‘common sense’ approach.

As for my own experience, you might have noticed that very late on Thursday night I mentioned on Twitter that I had just seen a security guard threaten to toss a photographer’s camera into the Thames. How I ended up on the Thames Path with a group of people, some of whom were taking photos, and being intimidated by security guards is a bit of a long story, but key element here is that we were on a public footpath and the photographer was well within his rights.

This security guard was a singularly unpleasant bully, but he did have a bit a shock when the 5’1″ woman was insistent that no, we were allowed to take photos, really. I’m not sure how much the general public’s ignorance of what can and cannot be done with a photograph and the police’s lack of confidence when it comes to dealing with photographers feeds off of each other, so perhaps both the guidelines from the ICO and increased responsibility laid on police chiefs to keep their officers’ behaviour in check will help.

At the moment, I feel as if we’re taking one step forward and then another backwards when it comes to our rights to be able to take photos. The best solution that I can think of is to just keep on taking them.

(Thanks to Amateur Photographer for some news updates.)

This week-end, try nude photography!

Actress Mae West is known for many things, not least the quote “I’ll try anything once, twice if I like it, three times to make sure.” That’s pretty much my approach to photography as well; you never know what you’ll like (and, for that matter, what you don’t).

One of the many challenges photographers have to consider dealing with is that of nudity; many of us live in frankly ridiculously puritan societies (don’t get me started on how American films don’t think twice about showing someone murdering someone else – which is frowned upon in real life – but god forbid you show a nipple or two…), and yet; nude photography is a long-standing tradition in photo world.

I recently got an email from a reader on Photocritic, Ken, who shared his story of his first steps into nude photography – I figured it was worth sharing…

Go ahead, Ken, the stage is yours…

The annual World Nude Bike Ride is a sobering revelation; turns out that not /everybody/ is shy about being nude, even in public.

I have been an advanced amateur photographer all of my life. I’ve been published in magazines, newspapers and books but had never taken nude photographs until 2007. I friend asked if I would take some nudes of her and I agreed since it had been a life long dream.

She was in her mid-thirties, beautiful blonde hair, slightly overweight but willing to learn. I have read articles over the years of how to take nude photography but this was my first chance.

Since my model was willing I was over the first hurdle but I found that most everything that I had read was useless when it came right down to the shoot. The two of us worked together well and since I was shooting digital and not film the shutter button was almost worn out that day.

In the end we had well over 200 shots in the camera and, together we looked over the pictures on the computer. It was a learning experience for both of us. She was very happy with the results as was I.

We trashed about 40 of the pictures for various reasons but what was left was a nice group of excellent quality pictures.

She was so pleased that she entered ten of them in an on-line photo contest and won third place out of probably 800-1000 entries, not bad if I do say so myself!

Even though your models may be nude, you don't /have/ to 'put it all on display'.

What I learned from the experience is most of the stuff you read in books is common sense; lighting, composition, etc. You really get your education from doing an actual shoot and then being objective about the results. Having a willing model is a big help so find someone who is comfortable with their body.

A little coaxing may be needed at first but you will get there. My model had a thing about keeping something on but when I finally talked her into getting completely nude she was thrilled with the feeling and said “This is the first time I have ever been naked outdoors and it feels wonderful,” as the warm sun bathed her body.

If your model is shy, or worried about what people may think about her in her day job, for example, get creative...

So don’t sit around reading books and dreaming! Find a lady who is willing and learn together! It’s just like any other hobby. You can read every book written on a subject but until you actually do it you aren’t learning anything. Learn by doing.

Good luck to all you want-to-be’s out there. Keep the pictures tasteful and learn from your mistakes but remember you aren’t going to get those nudes in the camera reading books.

Get out there, take pictures and LEARN!

I couldn’t have said it any better myself. Great work, Ken!

Postcards from an iPhone

Imagine that you’re standing on top of Kilimanjaro and you want to send a postcard of your view, right at that moment, along with a note, to your great aunt Phoebe. Well, there’s a groovy little app that’s just been released for iPhones that’ll allow you to do just that.

It’s called Simply Postcards, and the app is free to download. You take your picture, you write your note, you select a recipient from your address book, then it is all down to Simply Postcards. Your first postcard is free, and each subsequent postcard will cost you upwards of $1. You can pay with a credit card of via PayPal.

This might put an end to my tacky postcard challenge, but at least they have a better chance of arriving home before I do.

(Headsup to Photography Blog.)

Fusion: breaking something to make something

Destroying something in order to create something can sound a bit counter-intuitive. Then you stop to think about Eton Mess, and how battering meringues into chunks leads to the creation of a delicious dessert, and it makes sense again. Or you could go look at the gorgeous images in Alexander James’ ‘Fusion’ series.

He’s photographed the results of starting chemical reactions (flames! smoke!) inside of beautiful balls of flowers. The flowers are gorgeous to start with, the chemical reaction within the ball looks incredible, and then eventually there is nothing left but cinders.

If you want to see an edited selection of the images in high res, head over to the DistilEnnui website. You’re even in with a chance of winning a framed limited edition of 10 prints. (It’s worth £1,260!) Either register as a user on Alexander James’ stock library, or follow his Twitter feed!

Nokia's short film

A few weeks ago I mentioned that Nokia had made a short film shot entirely with the camera on its new N8 phone. The idea was to show you just how good the camera on it is, so wasn’t just a recording of ducks in the local park. It was made by the up-and-coming McHenry brothers, and starred Dev Patel, amongst others. Well, they’ve released it now.

It’s called The Commuter and it charts one man’s rather eventful journey to work.

Now, when I saw it on a big screen there were a few moments that made me wince a bit, but I thought it was a cute story and a fun way to show off what the camera can do. I especially liked the scene with the bankers. What do you think to it?

Ten Awe-Inspiring Apples

So, what did you do for National Apple Day yesterday? Nothing?! Nothing at all?! You mean to tell me you didn’t graze on a Granny Smith? Gobble a Golden Delicious? You didn’t so much as bother a Braeburn? For shame. Next you’ll be telling me you didn’t partake in the annual apple-based food fight – it’s a bit like the Spanish Tomatina festival, except with significantly more injuries.

OK, so I’ll admit, I didn’t do anything for National Apple Day, either. I’m feeling a wee bit guilty, so I thought I’d alleviate that guilt a little by trawling through the Flickr dungeons (so you don’t have to) and finding some interesting, beautiful or generally noteworthy apple-themed images. You wouldn’t believe how many people have inserted some rather distinctive white headphones into an apple. None of those images will feature.

That said, here are ten of the best. Chomp away. You can count this as part of your five-a-day.

1 – Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost by petervanallen

2 – The Untimely Death of Granny Smith

The Untimely Death of Granny Smith by Mr. Moog

3 – Rinfrescante…Refreshing…Refrescante

Rinfrescante...Refreshing...Refrescante by Oceano Mare

4 – Qué

Qué by Ibai Acevedo

5 – Apple Jumping Out of the Water

Apple Jumping Out of the Water by AHMED

6 – Frost Crab Apple in the Garden

Frost Crab Apple in the Garden by Steven House Photography

7 – Apple

Apple, by Dragan*

8 – Temptation, Taste, Venom

Temptation, Taste, Venom by dogfaceboy

9 – Pools of Sorrow, Waves of Joy

Pools of Sorrow, Waves of Joy by au tum n

10 – Wet Fruit

Wet Fruit by Leo Druker

All photos used in this article are used as ‘fair dealing‘. If you have strong reservations against your photos appearing on Small Aperture, please contact us, and we’ll get them taken down. Please support the artists creating these photos by clicking on the photos to take a closer look at their work!

Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year

The winners of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition have just been announced, and boy are there some cracking photos on display. You’d hope so, as well, knowing that the winner was bitten all over by chiggers when getting his shot, one guy lost his camera to a polar bear, and another had to avoid being chomped on by a caiman!

Last year’s competition might’ve been bathed in scandal, as it emerged that the winner’s photograph of a wolf wasn’t quite as authentic as he’d claimed, but that didn’t deter the entrants (or the organisers) this year. If anything, it made them up their game and submit some eye-watering images.

A Marvel of Ants, by Bence Máté

The overall winner was Bence Máté, with his picture of leaf-cutter ants doing their thing in a rain forest in Costa Rica. The Young Photographer prize went to Fergus Gill, for a glorious shot of a fieldfare feeding on a frozen Rowan tree.

The Frozen Moment, by Fergus Gill

The exhibition of the winning and commended photographs opens at the Natural History Museum in London tomorrow. But if you can’t make it there, then spend a while wandering through the online gallery. It’s all worth a look, but I’d especially recommend the young people’s photos.

The Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition runs from 22 October 2010 to 11 March 2011 at the Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, UK.

Sony World Photography Awards

If you haven’t already entered the Sony World Photography Awards competition, you should probably think about it. Whether you’re a professional or an enthusiastic amateur, there is almost certainly a category that you can enter, and there are some pretty neat prizes on offer, too!

It’s divided into two sections: professional and open. Okay, so the pros do have a substantially larger prize fund available to them: $25,000 compared to $5,000, but if you win the open competition, you’ll be flown to the next Sony World Photography Awards ceremony and World Photography Festival in London. (I wonder if that means they’d fly me out of City Airport and into Heathrow?)

There’s a vast array of categories into which you can submit images, and a fairly awesome judging panel.

You can be any age to enter the open competition, but if you’re under 16 you will require consent from parents or guardians. Closing date is 5 January 2011.

The competition is free to enter and supports the Bill of Rights for Competitions. What are you waiting for? Lots more information is available here for the open competition and here for pros!

The 1,096 face collage

Have you ever wondered what Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus might look like if it were a collage composed of 1,096 images of people? Well, Samsung, together with the artist Samira Harris and photographic contributions from people affected somehow by breast cancer have created it.

It is part of Samsung’s ‘Everyone is Art’ project, which aims to bring support to people across Europe whose lives are affected by breast cancer. They picked the number 1,096 because that’s how many people are diagnosed with breast cancer every day in Europe.

The images were uploaded to Samsung’s ‘More than talk‘ project in September this year, before Harris used them to compose her collage. It was unveiled at a rather glitzy event last Thursday.

Now, I might not be able to raise massive sums of money for charity by doing it, but I wouldn’t mind having a go at creating a giant collage a bit like that.

Around the world in 80 days

If you’re in or near London over the weekend, you must pop down to the Old Truman Brewery, just off of Brick Lane, to see Bookzilla: the largest photobook in the world. This thing is monstrous and marvellous: it measures 20 feet by almost 14 feet, which puts it at about the same size as a double decker bus, and it features the most glorious, radiant selection of photos from all over the world.

Earlier this summer Photobox launched a competition to go around the world in 80 days using pictures. Over 30,000 entries were received, and every single country was represented in an image. These 30,000 photos were narrowed down to 300, which are those that appear in Bookzilla. Of those 300, six over all winners, one image from each continent (but not Antarctica), were selected.

North America winner: A Piece of Land to Call Home, by Bob Brewer

Apart from getting to look at gorgeous pictures, I don’t envy the judging panel one bit. The photos featured portraits, landscapes, wildlife, and architecture and as Annabel Williams, one of the judging panel said, the standard was extremely high. The winners get to go on the holiday of a lifetime as their reward. Not bad at all!

Pop down and be amazed. Bookzilla’s almost three times taller than me and filled with captivating pictures. If you can’t make it, though, you can see the 300 shortlisted pictures here.

Around the World in 80 Days runs from Friday 15 to Monday 18 October 2010 at the Old Truman Brewery, Hanbury Street, London.

Taking 'shooting self portraits' to a new level.

In almost every picture #7 tells the story of a Dutch woman whose life is seen from the point of view of a fairground shooting gallery.

The chronological series begins in 1936, when a 16-year-old girl from Tilburg in Holland picks up a rifle and shoots at the target in a shooting gallery.

Today, aged 88, Ria van Dijk still makes her pilgrimage to the Shooting Gallery.

Every time she hits the target, it triggers the shutter of a camera.

The prize? The girl firing the gun gets a copy of the photo.

And so, a life-long love affair with the shooting gallery begins.

This series documents almost every year of the woman’s life (apart from a not-too-difficult-to-understand six-year hiatus between 1939 and 1945) up until present times.

In almost every picture #7 is a biography of one woman’s life from an unusual perspective.

The series enables us to witness the times she lived in, as well as acting as a revealing look at the changing face of photography through the decades.

If you’re interested, you can buy the book here, or take a look at a selection of the photos over on their website!

(via Uggclogs)

Who actually invented photography?

Most people think of the Daguerreotype, named after Louis Daguerre, to be the first photographic process. However, Joseph Nicephore Niépce, a French inventor, is actually known by experts to have created the first etched ‘photographs’ on plates made of pewter. And now, scientists from the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles are revealing that Niépce used a previously undiscovered chemical process that consisted of baking lavender oil.

Dusan Stulik of the Getty stated that scientists are now ‘able to create a fuller picture of Niépce, how he worked, and we can really demonstrate that everything related to photography that surrounds us today – digital cameras, film, TV, even 3D and video games, go back to his inventions.’

The new analysis of Niépce’s plates are being announced at a conference in the UK at the National Media Museum this week. Current literature regards Niépce as a key pioneer in the field of photography, however the new studies clearly show that his contributions are far more valuable than previously thought, and Niépce should be regarded as the true inventor of photography.

Headsup to The Guardian

What time is it? Oh, it's f/5.6 o'clock!

Lately, photography-related novelty items have appeared all over the web. Look around online and you’ll see things like bowling ball camera bags, lens coffee mugs and camera dial laptop decals, just to name a few. So what have they come up with now?

The latest is the F-stop Watch. What makes this watch fun is its lack of hour and minute labels. Instead, it features several aperture stops in order to help you tell time. While the design might make things tricky when someone asks you what time it is, I’m sure it’s easier to read than on some of these watches.

The F-Stop Watch is available through NeatoShop for $36.