photo projects

before i die i want to…

Just saw this on Photojojo, so I wanted to repost if you don’t subscribe (why don’t you subscribe, it’s so good!) The project is called Before I Die I Want To… and basically people send in polaroid photos of themselves and finish the sentence underneath. The about page on the site has a very interesting explanation for the project, I highly suggest you read it before looking through the photos. I’ve posted some of my favorites below, but check out the site, there are so many to look through.

Some of the responses are funny, some are really touching, some are ambitious and some are… well, very attainable. My least favorite response? Before I die I want to live. My most favorite response? Before I die I want to have a traveling family band. Me too! Call me!

pictory

I’m very excited about this new online magazine, Pictory! Instead of (badly) rephrasing, I’ll just post Laura Brunow Miner’s editor letter, so you can get an idea of how cool this magazine really is:

I love photography. Few things make me happier than a beautiful image—online or in print. That said, I’ve become a little complacent about some photos. The Internet is brimming with eye candy, but the vast majority of these images have lost their original context. Photo credits are rare and captions usually garbled, so I find myself often wondering: Who made this? What does it mean? The forces of the Internet can sometimes turn good work into confusing shrapnel.

I hope to do the opposite with Pictory. I want to collect images and stories directly from their sources: the people who create them. And then I want to make the best work that much better by editing, proofing, and compiling submissions into glossy online showcases. Big images. Careful details. Practical design. Credit and context.

Maybe it’s a new model for online magazines. Or, maybe it’s just the best I can do from my living room.

Sounds like an amazing idea. I do love sites like tumblr, weheartit, yay!everyday, and ffffound where users can curate and collect images they like. A lot of the time though the photographer’s name gets lost in the numerous reposts and I never get to find out who shot that amazing image. Pictory aims to connect images with photographers and the story behind the photograph. BIG photographs.

I’d repost some of the amazing photos in the first feature “Overseas and Overwhelmed” but that somehow seems to defeat the purpose. Go check it out for yourself!

(I should add, the design of the site is also pretty awesome.)

tattooday

According to the dates on the photos, this flickr set Tattooday is about a year old, and it doesn’t look like it spanned an entire year so it can’t really qualify as a 365 project (and I do love those) but I think it’s still pretty cool. Flickr user xtrapop decided to write a different saying on his arm every day, kind of like a temporary tattoo. He says, “Hopefully the sayings will stick in my mind if I look at them all day. Maybe the meaning of the words will also sink into my body, along with the ink.” I hope it worked! Here’s a few I liked the best, but check out the full set to see them all:

dailybooth

Someone had to invent it, right? Social networking + digital photography = DailyBooth. Basically it’s a website that lets you post a photo of yourself daily, as though you went into a photobooth and took a picture every day. You may ask why? But aside from the obvious (it’s the internet so of course this has to exist), I do think it’s a pretty cool idea. It’s pretty interesting to look back on yourself or your friends a year later, or even years later, see how you’ve changed. Since everything is on the internet these days, why not another way to share your life?

There’s also this cool map feature that updates people’s pics in real time, which I spent an unusually long time watching…

scanwiches

Seriously, what would we do without the internet? We would not be able to enjoy random things like Scanwiches, which is basically exactly what it sounds like, scans of sandwiches “for education and delight”. Amazing.

rafal milach

I just came across this interesting interview with photographer Rafal Milach on feature shoot. Check out the link to read the interview. Something to note is that Rafal won the Grand Prix from Photography Book Now from Blurb, which is pretty impressive considering the amount of talented photographers he was up against.

I checked out his website to learn more about him, and I loved his photo series and the way he presents them. He takes you to this other place, and leaves you wanting to see more. You can preview his winning book here. I’ve also included a small gallery of some of the images from the book. Very inspiring and exciting!

doubles with you

It’s no secret I’m a fan of lomo cameras. I know they have their critics, but I really do think they encourage creativity. I came across this photo set on the lomo blog called Doubles With You: faefaefae and northwardnimbus. It’s a pretty cool idea; two people exchanged rolls of film and both took photos with the same rolls creating double exposures, one in Manila, one in New York. Since they didn’t know what the other had shot, I think the results are surprisingly interesting and quite good. I’d love to try this experiment some day! Check out some of my favourites from the set below:

chase jarvis: the best camera

Photographer Chase Jarvis has release a new iPhone photo app called The Best Camera, as well as a new book to go along with it called The Best Camera Is The One That’s With You. You can find out all the info on thebestcamera.com.

The app looks pretty good, I haven’t tried it yet but it has a bunch of cool filters with cute names (jewel, paris, slate, candy, light, dark, fade, contrast, warm, cool, desaturate, vignette, square, frame) that make me want to try them. It gets even better though because the app lets you easily share your photos online, which I think is what a lot of photo app’s are lacking. So you can upload to Facebook, Twitter, email, or even to thebestcamera.com which is probably the most interesting option because then it will post the combination of filters you used, and in what order you used them so other people can get the same look.

I love the idea behind the app and the book, because I also believe everyone should take more photo, and why not use your phone? Also, the images from Chase’s book are pretty amazing considering they were taken on an iPhone. I love anything that reinforces the idea that it’s not the camera, but the photographer that makes a good image.

Check out this video and get inspired to start taking more mobile photos:

Here are some images from the book, The Best Camera Is The One That’s With You. Makes me want to make my own iPhone photo book!

fotopedia

I’m really excited about this new project Fotopedia. It’s like Wikipedia, but with photos! It’s still in the process of building photos for all topics, so you probably won’t be able to find everything at the moment. For example, I did a search for “Guitar Hero” and found no result. Someone needs to get on that!

I like that the photos are user voted so hopefully the community will continue to maintain the high quality of photography that is currently on the site. I love that the photos are big too. What an amazing resource this could be for bloggers eventually, considering most (if not all?) of the photos are Creative Commons licensced.

Check out some of my favourite photos from “India”:

20 x 200

I’m really excited about this website I just found called 20×200. I’ll paraphrase from their about page, but basically what they are is a virtual art gallery. They bring together artists and people who want to buy art via the internet. It doesn’t sound too complicated, and it’s not, but it’s a great idea because their site is so well designed and nice to look at, and more importantly, they feature some really amazing art.

The line in their description that really summed it up for me was, “We’re really excited about creating a place where almost any art lover can be an art collector.” Too many people worry that they can’t afford really great artwork and it’s only for serious collectors, but you can have a house full of amazing art and not have to spend all your savings. They believe everyone needs art (and I have to agree) and they make it affordable and attainable.

Each week they offer two new prints, a photograph and a work on paper. The prints start at $20 editions and range upwards to $2000, so you can pick the size you need for your space and budget.

There’s a lot of amazing work on the site, and since they update so frequently, it’s well worth going back often and checking to see if anything catches your eye. At those prices, there’s no reason to have bare walls!

Here are some random photographs I liked from their recent editions, you can see how the work varies, so there’s something for everyone: