1. Workflow integration

Whether you use a Mac or a PC, Project1709 has got you covered. Photographers can easily and seamlessly integrate the platform into their existing workflow. After an image or a set of images has been created, it can easily be uploaded and stored to the website via a simple drag and drop system, keeping them securely in a safe location that can be accessed from anywhere at any time.

Imagine being away from your computer and wanting to show a client some examples of your work, or the results of your latest photo shoot and being able to simply log on to Project1709, accessing all the images you need there instead of lugging around a cumbersome hard drive wherever you go.

2. Space

It shouldn’t be underestimated just how much space image files can take up, especially if they’re raw files or PSDs with multiple layers. Using Project1709’s cloud service is a fantastic way photographers can free up valuable space on their hard drives.

3. Secure storage

As well as the advantage of freeing up space by uploading images to Canon’s cloud service, there’s also the very big advantage of ensuring your images are safe. You can relax knowing that your photographs won’t become corrupt or inaccessible if your hard drive gets damaged.

4. Sharing

Many professional photographers today use Flickr as a means of marketing themselves, as social media becomes more important. Project1709 conveniently offers the option of sharing bulk or individual images to both Flickr and Facebook, and vice versa. Comments can also be accessed, giving full integration between the services. Ultimately it’s a fantastic way to manage the distribution of images across social networks!

5. Managing EXIF data

Project1709 keeps the all-important EXIF data contained within image files when they are imported to the service. For images that don’t include EXIF data, the service gives you the option to add it yourself. To save time, you can even add a set of default values for bulk uploading images. This is a great feature as it gives photographers further control over their images and centralises photo management in one location.

6. Search

Of course it’s very important to conveniently be able to browse and search through images stored on Project1709. Fortunately, there are a number of ways you can do this. The service allows you to tag images, so that you can easily search via tags. You can now choose multiple tags and select whether you want to view images that match all tags or any of the individual ones. If you don’t want to search by tags, you can also look through images sorting by camera, or date. Easy!

7. Browse

The ability to browse your collection is important for any photographer, and if you’re a professional photographer it’s likely that you have a substantial collection that can easily make browsing through your shots a chore. Fortunately Project1709’s browsing experience offers a slick and intuitive way of doing this through your image library.

Storing your images in different albums is a great way of breaking up your photo collection into easily manageable sections. The Album View option gives photographers more flexibility when sourcing specific batches of images. You can organise your albums through Project1709 too. Alternatively the mosaic display enables you to sort your photo collection using a timeline interface, which is easily scrollable providing a quick overview of your images.

We think Project 1709 provides a convenient and stress-free solution for photographers who want to save time on their photo management, freeing their time up for actually getting out and taking shots!

Which of these features do you think is the most important to professional photographers? Let us know in the comments!

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1. Jeff Bridges

Well known for his role as The Dude in The Big Lebowski, Bridges is also something of a dude in the photographic industry. He has long been a serious photographer, often seen snapping away on set with his Widelux panoramic film camera. Recently he was even recognised by The International Center of Photography for his work behind the camera at its 29th annual Infinity Awards.

Visit his website.

2. Brad Pitt

Pitt was once commissioned by W magazine to photograph his wife Angelina Jolie. The hope was that he would be able to portray Jolie – one of the world’s most photographed women – in a new light.

He used a Kodak Tech Pan film in order to take the pictures, giving the resulting shots a nostalgic and charming feel.

View his photography here.

3. Leonard Nimoy

Mr Spock might not be the first person who springs to mind when you think of photography. But Captain Kirk’s Vulcan sidekick – otherwise known as actor Leonard Nimoy – in fact studied photography at UCLA and has had his work exhibited in numerous museums around the United States. He’s also published two photographic books. What we like about Nimoy’s work is that he’s not afraid to take risks and push the boundaries.

Visit his website.

4. Brendan Fraser

You might be surprised to learn that Fraser is in fact an avid fan of lo-fi photography and even has a dedication in the book ‘Collector’s Guide to Instant Cameras’. He is the owner of a number of retro cameras, including Polaroids, a folding pack camera, and a Japanese Holga model. What’s more… he’s pretty good!

Visit his website.

5. Tyra Banks

Although Banks is most known in the field of photography for her modelling work in front of the lens, she’s also quite skillful behind it. Her fashion and beauty photography often utilises materials and fabrics in order to cast shadows on her subjects, creating a dramatic effect.

View some of her photography in the video below.

6. Helena Christensen

Christensen is another model turned photographer, who is really making quite a name for herself behind the lens. She has been commissioned to take portraits of Bono, Marianne Faithful and Michael Stipe, among others. She has also undertaken a photographic assignment in collaboration with Oxfam in order to document the impact of climate change in Peru.

View her photography here.

7. Bryan Adams

Image: SASCHA SCHUERMANN/AFP/Getty Images

Although he is most famous for his work as a singer-songwriter, Adams is a well-respected and doubtlessly talented photography, whose pictures have been featured in Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, amongst others.

So well recognised is Adams’ talent for photography that he was invited to photograph Queen Elizabeth II for her Golden Jubilee, and had one of the images from this photo shoot was printed on Canadian postage stamps in 2004 and 2005. One of the images has also been on display at London’s National Portait Gallery.

Visit his website.

4. Ben Folds

Singer-songwriter Folds has an impressive portfolio of black and white photographs that document his life on the road. A collection of his images were featured at a National Geographic Live Event, which is no mean feat.

Visit his website.

8. Michael Stipe

Most famous for being the lead vocalist for American rock band REM, Stipe has also turned his hand to photography and has published a photo book – ‘Two Times Intro: On the Road with Patti Smith’ – which documents Smith on tour in 1995.

He still keeps his hand in photography and frequently updates his work to his Tumblr blog.

9. Viggo Mortensen

Mortensen might be best known for his acting, but he is also a poet, musician, painter and photographer and has released a number of photographic books. He often scratches or writes on his photographs, creating images that are uniquely his.

View his photography here.

10. Aaron Eckhart

Eckhart’s role as Harvey Dent in Batman saw him shoot to fame, but he is less known for his contributions to photography.

His work has focused on humanitarian causes and he has worked for medical aid organisation AmeriCares, photographing medical facilities in the Dominican Republic.

View his photography here.

11. Michael Madsen

Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill star Madsen has had his photography displayed at exhibitions across the world and has even published a photo book entitled ‘Signs of Life’, which, as the name might suggest, features a collection of signs from across the US.

View his photography here.

Are there any celebrities who are also photographers who we haven’t mentioned here? Tell us in the comments!

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Here we pay tribute to these pivotal moments in the history of photography.

1. 400 BC: First known use of Camera Obscura/darkroom

Chinese philosopher and founder of Mohism, Mo Ti, is attributed with the first known mention of the basic concept of a pinhole camera.

2. 1604: Term ‘camera obscura’ first used

Johannes Kepler, a German astronomer, became the first person to use the term ‘camera obscura’.

3. 1826: World’s first photograph

French photography pioneer Joseph Niépce is credited with taking the first ever photograph, ‘View from the Window at Le Gras’. He used a process he developed called heliography in order to create this image.

4. 1838: World’s first photograph of a person

French artist and physicist Louis Daguerre invented the daguerreotype process of photography. He used this process to capture an image of Boulevard du Temple (also the title of the image) in Paris. The street is largely deserted save for one man toward the bottom left corner. This is believed to be the first photograph ever taken of a person.

5. 1839: First portrait of a human and the first self-portrait

Using the daguerreotype process, Dutch-American chemist Robert Cornelius took a self-portrait of himself. The image was not only the first self-portrait ever taken, but also the first portrait ever taken of a person.

5. 1856: First underwater photograph

William Thompson became the first person to take an underwater photograph. He did this by mounting a camera on a pole and lowering it 18 feet into the water, allowing for an exposure time of ten minutes. The image was of seaweed and the quality was bad, but it’s doubtful that Thompson minded – he had, after all, taken the first ever underwater photograph.

6. 1858: First aerial photograph

Aerial photography was first practised by Gaspard-Felix Tournachon, who photographed from a hot air balloon over Paris, France. Sadly these images no longer exist.

7. 1861: World’s first colour photograph

James Clerk Maxwell was a Scottish mathematician and theoretical physicist. His significant contribution to photography was to lay the foundations for colour photography. The first ever colour photograph shows a tartan ribbon. It was photographed three times through red, blue, and yellow filters, before being combined into one single image.

8. 1877: First colour landscape

French photographer Louis Arthur Ducos du Hauron used the three-colour principle as developed by Maxwell as a foundation for experimentation. His photograph ‘View of Agen’ is the first recorded colour image of a landscape and shows a view of southern France.

9. 1878: First high-speed series

Image credit: Wikipedia

Eadweard Muybridge made enormous contributions to the motion-picture industry, essentially laying the foundations with his forward-thinking work. His investigation into whether horses’ feet were all simultaneously off the ground when galloping resulted in the first high-speed photo series and the first motion picture ever made.

10. 1895: 35mm film invented

Thomas Alvas Edison is widely credited with the invention of 35mm film in around 1895. This quickly became the most popular type of film and continues to be so.

11. 1913: The first commercial 35mm camera was produced

The first commercial 35mm camera was known as the Tourist Multiple and was made by Herbert and Huesgen, an American company. Only about 1000 of these cameras were made.

12. 1926: First underwater colour photograph

Dr William Longley Charles Martin took the first underwater colour photograph, which is of a hogfish. He did this in the Gulf of Mexico with National Geographic staff photographer Charles Martin. The two are credited with pioneering underwater photography.

13. 1946: First photo from space

On October 24 1946, the first image was taken from space. It was shot by a 35mm motion picture camera riding on a V-2 missile at an altitude 65 miles from Earth.

14. 1957: First digitally scanned photograph

Russell Kirsch – who was a computer pioneer at National Institute of Standards and Technology in USA – was responsible for producing the first digital photograph. The photo is of his 3-month old song Walden and measured just 176×176 pixels.

15. 1972: First full-view photograph of the Earth

The Blue Marble is one of the most famous photographs ever taken. It was captured on December 7, 1972 by the crew of Apollo 17.

16. 1975: First electronic camera

Engineer Steven Sasson at Eastman Kodak built the first electronic camera using a charge-coupled device image sensor.

17. 1989: First digital camera to be marketed commercially

Japanese company Fuji were the first to take the digital camera into a commercial market with the DS-X in December 1989.

And the rest is history!

Did we miss any important moments in the history of photography? Let us know in the comments!

The post 17 firsts in photography we’ll never forget appeared first on PhotoVenture.

1. EyeRing

Image credit: Fluid

EyeRing is a small camera designed to be worn on a finger, as you would wear a ring. The prototype camera has been developed by Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT Media Lab. The group aims to rethink human-computer interaction, making user experience more natural, and this is the concept behind EyeRing; a device that allows a person to point at an object to find out more information about it. This idea could be a potential game-changer for people who are visually impaired.

The post 18 unbelievable cameras you won’t believe are real appeared first on PhotoVenture.

The project says that it is ‘dedicated to reconnecting people with the wildlife on their own doorsteps.

Niall Benvie and Clay Bolt are the brains behind the project and the pair are nature photographers themselves. They’ve managed to get a worldwide crew of photographers on board for their project, many from the US and Europe. However, they’re encouraging more people with DSLRs to join the project, especially those living in the tropics.

The project also encourages kids to get involved by way of ‘Backyard Naturalists’. This program consists of eight weeks of lessons and will also include a nature photography workshop.

MYN’s photography is characterised by bright white backgrounds, showing the subjects off in dramatic detail. The brilliantly-lit white background, they describe, encourages you to appreciate the subject as an individual rather than a species, and allows their form to constitute the composition. If you want to recreate this look yourself, they provide some great tips for doing so.

The website is already home to a fantastic selection of images showing a wide variety of plants and wildlife that is fascinating to view, and we’re looking forward to seeing more from MYN.

Via PetaPixel

The post Worldwide photography project aims to introduce you to your wild neighbours appeared first on PhotoVenture.

1. Jared Polin

Jared Polin often goes under the name ‘FroKnowsPhoto’ and has uploaded many videos to YouTube over the years. His videos are fun, full of personality, and he has understandably gained a large following. They’ve been a constant source of inspiration for us, and we’re sure they will for you too.

The post 13 photographers on YouTube every beginner should follow appeared first on PhotoVenture.

We’ve listed 10 of the best tutorials for you to follow.

1. Photoshop CS6 will easily (and skillfully) fake a shallow depth of field by Andrew Liszewski

In this tutorial, Andrew argues that you can still create an effective depth of field using Photoshop CS6’s Blur Gallery even if your image was taken on your smartphone.

2. Fake depth of field in Photoshop by Howard Pinsky

In this video, Howard takes just 1 minute 36 seconds to demonstrate how easy it is to create depth of field using Photoshop.

3. Background blur: how to fake a shallow depth of field in 15 minutes by Digital Camera World

Digital Camera World gives a more realistic timescale for perfecting depth of field using Photoshop in their tutorial!

4. Fake depth of field in Gimp by Tutorial Geek

Tutorial Geek provides both a beginner’s tutorial and an advanced tutorial for how to fake depth of field using the Gimp software.

5. Three tricks for faking depth of field in your photos by Photojojo

Photojojo have a totally different technique for faking depth of field that doesn’t include the use of a computer. Their kit list includes a camera and a glass window, steamed up glass window, or a foggy day!

6. Taking control over depth of field by Digital Outback Photo

Glenn E Mitchell of Digital Outback Photo describes how to create depth of field using the Lens Blur Filter in Photoshop.

7. Faking depth of field in Photoshop by Jeff Finley

Jeff’s technique for faking depth of field is to create a new Channel and add a reflected gradient before applying Lens Blur and making a few adjustments. He does this in just six steps.

8. Faking depth of field by Domen Lo

Domen uses a similar technique to create depth of field, and it is interesting to compare his tutorial with Jeff’s (above).

9. Fake a shallow depth of field in Lightroom 4 by Matthew Gore

This 8 minute video shows you how to achieve depth of field using Lightroom 4

10. Learning Lightroom: fake depth of field by KerryG

This video shows you how to using Lightroom’s Local Adjustment Brush to ‘paint’ a blur effect to give the depth of field look.

What is your favourite technique for faking depth of field? Tell us in the comments.

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Does in-camera technique really matter anymore?

With the release of Adobe Lightroom 5 this week, you can’t blame anyone for wondering whether in-camera controls are getting increasingly pointless.

For generations photographers have been told to tick off an increasingly long mental checklist before they actually take the shot – aperture, tick; shutter speed, tick; metering, tick; and in our digital age, exposure compensation, ISO, white balance… the list goes on.

But with so much great software around, do we really need all this hassle?

Of course, photographers have always tweaked their images post-shoot, be it in a smelly old film darkroom or in Photoshop, but nowadays, we really are in age where it’s about image making as much as image taking.

Just look at how professionals are working, particularly in the portrait, advertising and travel spheres.

Fashionably distressed, contrasty, ‘breathed on’ images are now de rigueur, and most commercially used people shots seem to have had as much work done on them as any ageing Hollywood C-lister.

Even documentary photographers aren’t immune from this trend; I interviewed an up and coming documentary guy recently who admitted sending off all his reportage shots to a post-production house in Italy so the colours could be deepened to near psychedelic levels, the contrast could be kicked right up and so on.

“But I never crop anything” the photographer admitted, without a trace of irony.

It’s certainly not beyond the bounds of possibility to envisage programs like Lightroom to come with a bunch of ‘pro’ presets – click here to give your travel shots the Steve McCurry look for instance, or your landscapes the Ansel Adams treatment.

In-camera processing is getting more and more powerful too – many new DSLRs, for instance, enable you to add HDR effects and other creative art filters, as well as carry out more basic camera adjustments. Surely this is the shape of things to come.

Just look at the success of smartphone apps like Instagram or Snapseed – their one-click retro-effect applications are hugely popular, to the point of crashing tedium.

Sure, there are a still a lot of in-camera effects that can’t be replicated in software – the look of a polarising filter for instance, or advanced flash techniques (and while panning and motion blur can be replicated in Photoshop, it’s about as much fun as eating your own arm).

So to conclude…

…surely it’s only a matter of time before photo-editing software catches up?

I for one can certainly envisage the day when the classic Program, Aperture, Shutter and Manual dial at the top is replaced by a bunch of quick buttons for easy photo-editing.

But that’s just my view. What do you all think – is camera technique dead? Are cameras now so good that it doesn’t matter if you know the once-essential skills?

And, I guess, more importantly… do we care?

The post Does in-camera technique really matter anymore? appeared first on PhotoVenture.

1. Lens cap still on
This has to be at the top of the list as we’ve all done it, and unless lens caps are consigned permanently to the bottom of a camera bag never to be used (not wise), we’ll continue to do it. As is often the case, the best defence mechanism when someone points out your mistake is a hearty laugh. But you could claim that you are contemplating taking a pinhole shot and the cap has a microscopic hole – hmm maybe not.

The only sensible way to avoid making this classic error is to get into the habit of tipping the camera up as you lift it to your eye and having a quick look for the lens cap.

2. Flat battery
Another face-palm moment. There’s a great shot to be had and your camera is as dead as that flightless big-billed bird. Repeatedly flicking the power switch won’t help. It’s dead, move on.

The best way to escape this photographic hiatus is to have two batteries, one in the camera and the other in your bag, fully charged. Yeah, that’s what the smart kids do – but then they would’ve also charged the original battery as soon as they had the chance. The lesson here is to charge batteries as soon as you can after a shoot and carry a spare for long shoots or lengthy gaps between charging opportunities.

The post 10 stupid mistakes all photographers make appeared first on PhotoVenture.

Here we pay tribute to eleven Magnum photographers who, often putting life and limb on the line, have done no less than change the world with the images they have taken.

1. Henri Cartier-Bresson
Nationality: French
Quote: “To take a photograph is to align the head, the eye and the heart. It’s a way of life.”

Together with Robert Capa, George Rodger, David ‘Chim’ Seymour and William Vandivert, Cartier-Bresson founded Magnum Photos. But his other great contribution to photography was to coin the term ‘The Decisive Moment’; a concept that has had a profound influence on street and reportage photography ever since. As such, Cartier-Bresson is widely considered to be the father of modern photojournalism.

In an interview with Washington Post in 1957, he described the notion of the decisive moment: “Photography is not like a painting. There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative. Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever.”

2. Robert Capa
Nationality: Hungarian
Quote: “If your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.”

Robert Capa was a co-founder of Magnum Photos and is celebrated as having redefined wartime photojournalism. Perhaps his most notable contribution to photography – and to the world – was to photograph D-Day as the American troops landed on Omaha Beach. Tragically, however, only 11 of his 106 images survived a photo lab accident back in London. These few pictures became the images that told the story of D-Day, and went on to influence Steven Spielberg when directing the blockbuster Saving Private Ryan.

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