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06 Jul 2011 15:21

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U.S.: Incredible footage of the climatic Phoenix dust storm

  • Adventures in time-lapse: Here we have some videos (credit to Mike Olbinski and Blaine Coury) of the colossal dust storms that touched down in Phoenix, Arizona on July 5th. As always, safety is crucial during extreme natural events. We’ll admit, though, it’s hard to watch this footage without feeling wonderment and stark awe towards the natural world. source

18 Feb 2011 20:12

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U.S.: Tucson shooting: Christina Taylor Green’s photographer may sue. Ugh.

  • Christina Taylor Green’s death may have been the saddest of the many that took place in Tucson last month. But now that Gabrielle Giffords has started to recover and the dust has mostly settled, ugliness is starting to seep in a little. Photographer Jon Wolf, who owns the copyright to this photo of Green, has pressured a number of media organizations, including the Arizona Republic, and the Tucson Citizen, to pay a licensing fee for use of the now-iconic image. He wants $125,000, which he’s said he wants to mostly give to charity, and he’s, uh, threatened to sue. Green’s family doesn’t support his actions, the charity has refused to take any of Wolf’s money, and there’s a Facebook campaign against Wolf’s business picking up steam. It’s a photo of someone who died. If we were him, we’d just take the modest licensing fee (which the media organizations have offered) and be done with this. source

30 Sep 2010 20:26

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Tech: WebP: Google wants to upgrade, shrink your JPGs for some reason

  • What the heck is this? It’s Google’s attempt to replace the venerable JPEG format on the Web with something else. Nobody supports this format at the moment, so it’s a halfway-between PNG, but you get the idea, right? Think of this as an image-only extension of their already-well-regarded WebM open-source HTML5 video format. We like the idea behind it and think the Web could use an upgrade from JPEG, but these things load very slowly on Chrome right now. source

29 Sep 2010 02:39

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Culture: Hells Angels, circa 1965: Life Magazine’s photo archives strike again

  • That’s quite the badass. In 1965, Life Magazine documented the trials and tribulations of the Hells Angels, but never printed the images. Fortunately for us, they decided to print them now, years after the magazine faded away. Really awesome, but wouldn’t it be great if Life Magazine itself were bringing great new photos like this one to the world? source

06 Aug 2010 12:55

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Culture: Pop quiz: What year was this photo taken? Take a guess.

  • The winner gets a PBR the next time we see them in person. We can afford it. They cost what, 65 cents in Portland? (Hat tip Charles Apple and others) source

25 Apr 2010 10:36

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World: The Hubble Telescope is celebrating another birthday all alone

  • The Hubble telescope turns 20, but like most of its effective life, it’s stuck in space today, all by itself. It needs friends. Endless photography is a good hobby, but not a normal lifestyle. Anyone got any ideas on how to make this massive telescope’s life a little less, you know, empty? source

04 Feb 2010 10:36

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Offbeat: Awesome nerd decides to mix photos and math together

  • Consider it the merging of art and math. Photography and mathematics student Nikki Graziano has been merging her two majors (which she studies at the Rochester Institute of Technology), finding cool images of clouds, shrubs and other things and then graphing how they would repeat in mathematics. Nerd. Arty nerd. source
 

30 Jan 2010 11:25

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Biz: Designers, photographers say creation’s a decimated market

  • Seemingly overnight, a publisher who wanted a picture of a sunset could choose from thousands on any number of databases. Why pay a photographer hundreds, or thousands, of dollars to go out and shoot a new one?
  • L.A. Times columnist James Rainey • Regarding the change in the graphic design and photography freelance market, which has led to people not being able to make a living wage in the business. With the rise of lower budgets and outsourcing and sites like iStockPhoto, it’s just not reasonable for many to make a career out of selling their content anymore. Which sucks for people who rely on the work. source

10 Jul 2009 16:16

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Tech: The iPhone gets some lovin’ from St. Petersburg Times’ photographer

Melissa Lyttle recently completed an assignment…for a newspaper…using only her iPhone. Relax. Breathe. They actually look pretty good. source