Online Observations » Photography

Amazing landscape photography, with a MAJOR TWIST

The Observer — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 18:45:00 +0000

I am always amazed by beautiful and vivid landscape photography. And there are photographers who take it to a whole new level altogether. Take a look at these landscape photos. They are all breathtakingly beautiful, and the photographer’s skill for composing these shots is amazing.

Now, if you thought that these are not all that great, but just plain old very good landscape shots, please read on (although I don’t know why you would think that since they are amazing shots). First of all, they are shots all taken by the same photographer. You would think that such a person has to be a great adventurer – given that the shots include that of an erupting volcano and also one on the moon.

Well, he sure is an adventurer, but his adventure is confined to his basement. His name is Matthew Albanese. And all of the above photos are models that he created in his basement. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the following photos:

So, what do you think now? Isn’t it amazing? You can follow the link on Matthew’s name above to his Flickr profile. There you can find more of his amazing work, and even links to his process on how he builds these models (for example, the moon landscape was made from the ash at his fireplace).

Great Long Exposure Photography

The Observer — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 17:48:00 +0000

If you are a photographer, or just like to see well executed photography, then here I present (picked up from Flickr) some very cool long exposure photos taken by a number of photographers. There are hundreds and thousands of photos using these techniques on Flickr, so you might want to head over there for more viewing pleasure.

Here are the photos (each photo links to the photo’s Flickr page – you should follow it if you want to know more about the photo or the photographer):

Hope you enjoyed them. I specifically like the last one. Its brilliant.

Crazy trick photography

The Observer — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:23:53 +0000

Here’s a new term that I learned today – Sleeveface – a phenomenon wherein one or more persons obscure or augment body parts with record sleeve(s), causing an illusion.Well, pictures are louder than words, and so, here goes. All photos are taken from Flickr, and are marked under Creative Commons. Click the photo to visit the photographer’s page to see other work by the photographer.

There are hundreds of these out there, go look for your own (just search for sleeveface).

Great photography on a very cute subject

The Observer — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 08:30:00 +0000

Subject: Danbo (meaning Cardboard, an apparently popular action figure for those who follow Japanese animations).

Flickr is just full of awesome photos of an object which is basically a bunch of cardboard boxes put together in the shape of a robot. As you can see in the photos, it is much more than just a collection of cardboards. I have picked out the best ones that I like on Flickr (by various photographers) – each one links to the photo page on Flickr, from where you can find many more Danbo photos by the same photographer.

I could just keep posting these over and over, but here’s the mother load link on Flickr, sorted by interestingness – http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/danbo/interesting/

Amazing baby animal photos at National Geographic

The Observer — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 08:06:23 +0000

I always get excited whenever I see great photos, and I love animal photography more than anything else, and if you add on top of this photographs of baby animals, that is a recipe that makes my day. In the hope that there are others like me, I am sharing some photos that I came across on the National Geographic website. To get a larger view of any of the photos below, click on the photo and it will take you to the Nat Geo site where you can see a larger resolution photo, and even download wallpapers of these photos; and on top read a fact or two about each species.

Baby harp seal

Baby Asian elephant

Baby lynx with mom

Baby black bear with mom

Baby leopard playing with mommy’s tail

Baby bobcat

Mom helping out a baby polar bear

3 cheetah cubs hanging out with mom

A black bear kid learns how to climb trees

A baby crocodile being born

I hope you enjoyed this little collection as much as I did. Of course, the Nat Geo website is a treasure trove for such photos. I will try to gather more photos and post on this site on a more regular basis.

This will take your breath away

The Observer — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:39:39 +0000

Every once in a while you come upon someone’s work which is so brilliant that it takes you breath away. Well, the bird book is one such piece of work. I am posting some photos from the book below, and I will let them speak for themselves. And, following the photos is the link to the website of this brilliant piece of work by Andrew Zuckerman. This book is now one of my things to buy.

You definitely need to go to the website to see these photos in much larger sizes. There are multiple photos of over 70 species.

Here are the photos:

And here’s the link to the website: http://www.birdbook.org.

Awesome pet photography

The Observer — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:34:05 +0000

There are many people who can take excellent photographs of their dogs or cats or other pets. They know how to put in the correct lighting, the right shutter speed, the correct angle, the good pose, the time of the day when the pets would look best, and so on. And their photographs do come out very well. Then there are people such as John Hallam. I don’t think I need to say too much about his brand of pet photography. Here are some of the photos of his two dogs: Ollie and Rufus. Judge for yourself on why he is so different from your ‘normal’ pet photographer.

With each photo, he has a caption that makes the photo complete. I have included the caption below the photo. Clicking the photo will take you to the photo’s page on Flickr.

Can we go Ollie? it says there are real animals! Hang on Rufus, it says here visit our cathouse! dad told us never to go in a cathouse, don’t know why.

You don’t scare me Rufus!

Ollie! What are you doing to Rufus?

No sign of any chickens yet Rufus. just sit on them for another couple of days. I just love chicken Ollie, are you sure this is going to work? Sure it will Rufus, remember we watched it on TV but that was a darn great eagle Ollie!

And his photostream on Flickr is full of photos like this. He is an excellent photographer otherwise also. Have a look at some of his macro shots. To get to his photostream just click here.

The world is full of awesome people.

Now, THIS, is photography

The Observer — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:41:33 +0000

Anyone can click a photo, and then there are some who actually have an idea about what color is and what light is; and how to change shutter speed or aperture to get the right shot. But then there are those select few, who go beyond the basics of how to use a camera and make the subject so interesting that one can’t help but say WOW. I keep seeing such photos every now and then, and in order to appreciate art, you need to talk about it so that others can appreciate it to.

I present to you some of the work of Romain Laurent. You want to see these photos, and then you want to make sure that you visit his website to see the rest (or if you want to see these ones in a bigger size).

There are a bunch of these tilt photos. I just wonder how he did these. But I wonder the same about all his photos. Here are some more to see before you run off to his website.

Well, enjoy his immense talent.