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Man takes selfie with walrus, pays with his life

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As the selfie bar keeps getting higher, we report more and more sad selfie stories, and while some may argue that selfie caused deaths is the new natural selection (or Darwin award candidates), no one should pay with their life for a stupid photo decision.

According to the shanghaiist, a man visiting the the Yeshanko Wildlife Zoo in China took a selfie with some of the animals, including a walrus. In what speculated to be a “game” or a “hug attempt”, the walrus drowned the man to death. A zoo keeper, who according to the report, was caring for the animal for over 10 years jumped to the rescue, but was also drowned to death.

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Asher Svidensky Isn’t Shooting Anyone: On Photography As a Language

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“Photography is the youngest language in the world,” says photographer Asher Svidensky in his most recent TEDx Talk, but why are the words used to describe photography so violent?

Join Asher on his 11-minute talk about how photography can be a bonding tool, rather than a dividing one, how he uses it to express himself and about the universality of photography as a language.

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500Px Pulls The Switch On Chinese Sister Site

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Photo sharing site 500px started a Chinese sister site and the service users were not happy. What started as a small snowball has evolved into a full avalanche, with many users taking their profiles off (or at least threatening to do so if action is not taken).

500px tried several steps to remedy this PR nightmare, with the last one being removing the Chinese beta altogether. But it took some time….

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500Px In Hot Water For Creating A Chinese Sister Site

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Users of the (recently rebranded) photo sharing site 500px, are gathering to protest that Chinese now have access to all of their photos on 500px in seems to be a 500px sister site.

500px user Anne Sorbes came out with an angry post titled “Publication without authorisation” to the community forums stating that she is extremely unhappy with her 500px photos published on Visual China Group‘s (VCG) site:

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Photographer Incites Outrage Over Nude Photos Inside Forbidden City

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While China typically seems content with simply taking our souls in exchange for feeding our rampant materialism with affordable products, they seem to have picked up a little American prudishness along the way.  Chinese photographer Wang Dong (stop snickering, thou perverts) has sparked a considerable deal of outrage after posting nude photos of models taken inside the Forbidden City.

The images, which surfaced on the Interwebs in May, depict bare-chested and fully naked models posing throughout the palace museum. One model is even pictured riding a stone dragon that is part of the architecture.  (Creativity…what will they think of next?). The 2 corresponding tumblr posts [NSFW] received over 3,100 notes and reblogs.

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Searching for the Miao Goddess

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It’s a funny thing, how these little things in life lead us to places. When I left china at the end of 2013, I forgot to exchange some of my Yuan bills (Chinese local currency). When I was traveling in China, we used to call them “Mao bills”… 20 mao, 50 mao, 100 mao due to the big Mao Zedong portrait on them. As I was struggling to find entertainment during the 12 hour flight, I started looking at the bills and that was the first time I noticed it, something I didn’t see before: every bill has a beautiful painting on it. each showing a different place in China. In a way, with these bills in your pocket, you carry a “piece of China” with you wherever you go.

Originally, these paintings were the inspiration for my 2014 photo project entitled “The Yin-Bou fishermen of China”. In January 2015 I decided to follow the bills once more. This time it was one of the smaller bills that got my attention and directed me to my next photo project – “The Miao Tribes”

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How Breaking the Ice Can Lead to Incredible Photos

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Asher Svidensky travelled to south China to photograph the Yin-Bou fishermen. Famous for using cormorants birds to fish, and located in a gorgeous setting, the fishermen are quite the attraction for any photographger.

After capturing the “right” and “pretty” images in the same location as every other photographer who goes there, Asher asked to move to another location to get better lighting.

The fisherman immediately refused stating that’s not how they do it, so how did Asher get them to change their mind and end up getting astonishing one-of-a-kind photos? Believe it or not, but with the then-viral ice bucket challenge.

You don’t need to drench yourself in water, however, and you’re not limited to trying it in China, so check out Asher’s story in the video below to see how it can help you become a better photographer.

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The Pros and Cons of using Cheap China Brand Lights

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My first ever off-camera flash was a Nikon sb-24 speedlight (1988), which I got. After a while I bought my first ever Nikon speedlight an sb-600 (it was around $250 back then). I was very happy with it until I wanted to get a studio strobe. There weren’t many choices to pick from here in the Philippines; it’s either you get one that cost around $300 per strobe or you can buy a “kit” with 3 off brand studio lights, light stands and softboxes for around $220. I got the latter.

(As a reference, a 400WS Broncolor Siros 400 which is one fine branded strobe – yet one of the cheaper branded strobes – will set you back $1000. A Cowboystudio 400WS strobe will only cost $150. A Square Perfect 400W/S strobe will only set you back a $100 or so. Those 3 are obviously not comparable strobe)

CHEAP doesn’t always mean bad, I have used these lights for more than 6 years now, and I want to share with you the pros and cons of using cheap off brand lights.

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Daredevil Climbs The Unfinished Skeleton Of The Tallest Building In China. ‘Aerial’ Photos Are Amazing

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I am not even sure how to tag this one. 26 years old Daredevil Keow Wee Loong snuck into the yet-to-be-finished Ping An International Finance Centre in Shenzhen, China. When it is complete, it will be the tallest building in China, and second tallest in the world at 660 meters. For now it is “just” a 660 meters tallest under-construction site in China. If you are thinking of pulling a similar stunt, know that it is not easy (and may not be legal):

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Faceless Portraits Of 4th Graders Offers Telling Look At Family Life For Children Around The World

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While volunteering in a fourth grade reading class in the United States, Judy Gelles found many of the students couldn’t relate to the stories they were assigned to study. To help get the children more interested in reading, Gelles had the idea to ask each of the 9 and 10 year old students to tell her their own stories. Gelles took it upon herself to write down all of their individual stories before reading them back to the children.

Gelles was intrigued almost instantly by the touching, and often sorrowful stories the children would candidly explain. Already an established photographer, Gelles was driven to share the poignant memoirs of modern childhood the most impactful way that she could. Thus, Fourth Grade was born. A five year long photography project that would take Gelles to classrooms across the US, India, China, Korea, and England, meeting with fourth graders and asking them all the same three questions:[Read More…]

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