Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
It’s that time of the year again: some of my favorite photography contests are announcing the winners. The Comedy Pet Photo Awards is one of them, and the 2022 winners have just been revealed.
This year’s winner is Kenichi Morinaga with his photo of two cats sitting on a fence cheek to cheek… or better to say neck to neck. Of course, there are category winners as well, and we’re sharing all of them with you today.
It takes tremendous skill to immortalize the iron-willed defiance of a protester, a mother’s tender touch, or the resilience on the face of a refugee. This type of powerful imagery strikes a delicate balance between documenting real-life and inspiring social change. It is commonly referred to as social documentary photography. As we discuss this specialty, you will notice that its applications often bleed into other related specialties, such as humanitarian photography and brand narrative.
Several major text-to-image generators have been launched so far, such as Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, or DALL-E. As you probably know, billions of photos, paintings, and illustrations are used to train these programs so they could render your text into an image with better accuracy.
Have you ever wondered if your photos were used for this purpose? If you have, there’s now a way to check it.
Back in the 1980s, fans weren’t allowed to bring their cameras to concerts, but a Depeche Mode fan had an idea. He threw a roll of film on stage during the band’s concert with his name and address attached to it and a plea to the band to take photos.
It wasn’t only the idea that was cool, it was the band’s reaction, too. They picked up the film, took some photos, and later mailed them back to the fan. His widow recently shared them online and the story made my heart melt.
I love those cute and totally pointless photography-related gifts. But here’s one that may not be completely pointless- and it’s still really cute! Tokina Pieni II is an ultra-compact digital camera. And when I say ultra-compact, I really mean it: it’s about the size of a flash drive. Although it’s a toy camera, it takes photos and videos, so you can use it as décor, a necklace, and as an actual camera.
In an attempt to reduce energy consumption and make street lighting more environmentally friendly, Europe has been switching to LEDs in its street lights. However, it’s not necessarily a good choice, at least not in all aspects.
The switch to LEDs is already visible from space, as well as the light pollution they cause. Of course, it’s not only our photos and the view of the night sky that are being affected. As scientists warm, the increased use of LED lights will also mess with living creatures and their life cycles, including both animals and humans.
Earlier this year, the state of Illinois filed a class action lawsuit against Google over Google Photos’ privacy concerns. The company settled, and it was to pay a total of $100 million to anyone who used the app. And if you lived in Illinois between 2015 and 2022, hurry up: you only have a few days left to apply for your cut of the payout.
If you’re into astrophotography or just enjoy sky-gazing, there’s a real treat ahead. On 26 September, and a few days before and after that, beautiful Jupiter is going to be easy to spot and shoot. It will be so close to the Earth that a good pair of binoculars will be enough to see it. And it’s a truly unique opportunity as the planet will be the closest to us in 70 years.
Perhaps you’ve noticed the recent trend on TikTok and Instagram, with street photographers approaching people, complimenting their style, and asking for a photo. I suddenly started seeing a gazillion Reels and TikTok videos like this, and there’s now a trend that mocks it… And it’s absolutely hilarious. I found a couple of videos to share, and I hope they will make this Monday a little better for you as they did for me.
When it first showed up, BeReal seemed like a breath of fresh air among all those social media filled with filtered faces, staged lives, and fake smiles. This app was dubbed “anti-Instagram,” as its goal was to have the users share the genuine, unstaged moments of their lives.
But is BeReal losing its point only a few months after its launch? I have some thoughts about it, and I believe there are two main reasons why this app might fail before it even properly takes off.
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