photography stories

One weird photo: a space shuttle on a boat

Kevin Hall
Friday, June 1, 2012 - 7:33am
 
NASA's space shuttles are usually busy doing something cool for photographers. (Even in retirement, they know how to put on a show.) This picture, though, is cool in a very weird way: Space Shuttle Explorer crossing the Gulf of Mexico. Never heard of Explorer? We forgive you — it's a secret shuttle.

The insane 'spark art' of French photographer David Keochkerian

Kevin Hall
Friday, April 6, 2012 - 7:36am
 
French photographer David Keochkerian doesn't live in our dimension. Where he's from, one is under constant threat of blinding light-rings forming absolutely anywhere, and showering the surrounding area with a deluge of sparks. Lucky for us, Keochkerian is cool under fire, and has these awesome photos to prove it. If Keochkerian could find a way to get some blue sparks going, he'd be able to capture some real-world Portal-like photographs.

What cities would look like if you were the last person on Earth

Raymond Wong
Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - 6:50pm
 
If you woke up one day and the entire human race was wiped out, what would it look like? A little like the scenes in I Am Legend? Probably. Two artists who go only by Lucie & Simon "used a special neutral density filter that allows for extra-long exposures, which removes moving objects like people and cars. The technique, "normally used by NASA for analyzing stars" works well to create this eerily powerful photo set titled "Silent World."

In photos: The gears and guts of antique calculating machines

Kevin Hall
Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - 1:25pm
 
See that mass of nuts, bolts, gears and belts above? You could walk into a dollar store today and buy a calculator that does more with the spare change in your pocket. Back in the 1960s, however, machines such as the German-built Hamann 505 were computing powerhouses and commanded a $1,000 price tag in the day's dollars, easy. The stripped-down 505 pictured is one of some 50 machines in Mark Glusker's amazingly well-kept collection of antique rotary and printing calculators. Photographer Kevin Twomey swung by Glusker's home to take some pictures of the gorgeous machines' guts.

20 must-see-to-believe 'ant portraits' that don't need special effects

Kevin Hall
Monday, March 19, 2012 - 10:28am
 
Russian photographer Andrey Pavlov takes the craziest pictures of ants you're ever likely to see. He doesn't use CG or Photoshop to get the ants to do what he wants. Instead, Pavlov sets up little scenes, is enormously patient and apparently knows exactly the right way to poke an ant to get it to pose just so. It's a photography collection that's reminiscent of Tokyo's favorite "levitating girl" Natsumi Hayashi, who also took hundreds of photos of the same scene until she managed to capture that perfect, surreal shot.

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