20 Apps You’ll Need for Better Instagram Pics and Videos

Instagram can be a powerful marketing tool when used correctly. But plain cell phone photos with vintage inspired filters can only go so far. Luckily, there are plenty more apps available to enhance Instagram photos and videos even further. We asked around to find some favorites among Instagram users. Below are 20 of them.
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via HolyKaw

Photographer Explores Beauty Through Facial Symmetry

Both Sides Of is a series by photographer Alex John Beck that explores the definition of physical beauty. Each image in the British-born, New York-based photographer's collection is a composite offering two sets of symmetrical faces. One image takes the left half of the subject's face and mirrors it into the beauty shot of a seemingly whole face, while the adjacent portrait offers a similarly symmetrical rendition of the right side of the face.

Beautiful faces, both in fashion and real life, are often described as symmetrical. As such, Beck decided to reproduce the faces of several people, as though each half of their face was a mirrored replica of the other. Neither of the portraits in each pair of images offers a realistic portrayal of the subject, but rather a greatly manipulated version. It reveals how unsymmetrical faces really are and how different one would look, were they to be completely equal on both sides. The series also forces one to think about the definition of beauty.

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Civilian Photography, Now Rising to New Level

Five years ago, the DJI Phantom 2 Vision would have seemed like a science fiction film prop or a piece of surveillance hardware flown only by the sexiest of superspies. But it is the first camera-carrying drone you may want to own — and you could do that without spending thousands of dollars.
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Herei s a link to National Geographic's photo of the year: Link

The 50 Most Popular All That Is Interesting Pictures

For over three years, we’ve published our favorite photographs and pictures from around the world on a daily basis. We crunched the numbers to determine the most-viewed pictures and the results were fascinating given their breadth and depth in subjects. From the frightening to the humorous to the bizarre and enlightening, we present the most popular All That Is Interesting pictures:
Read more at http://all-that-is-interesting.com/popular-interesting-pictures#zkfr5BqJcCoGKzLB.99

Sweeping Photos Span an Entire Day in a Single Frame

Stephen Wilkes is the first to admit the huge photos in his Day to Night series take an absurd amount of time and effort to produce. And he knows you might wonder why he’d spend 15 hours shooting an image and weeks editing it. But in an era when anyone with a phone can snap a pic and edit it in less time than it takes to say “OMG,” his fanatical approach is his way of cutting through the visual noise and make an impression on people.

Wilkes says he is “maniacal” in his attention to detail when making these his information-dense, hyper-curated and highly polished accounts of a single day in some of the world’s most iconic locations. Every inch of his photos, some as big as 10 feet wide, are meant to tell a story. He says telling that story is an all-consuming process.

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Siri the Would Be Photographer

Most of you don’t know I grew up in Cupertino. Yep, graduated Cupertino High School class of 1970 (Go Pioneers!) Lived in Cupertino back when the big business in town was Mariani Brothers dried fruits. I had the pleasure of visiting again recently, and some of my Apple friends took me over to nearby Santa Cruz to show off some new photographic functions they’ve been working on. Here’s how it went:

Me: Siri, take a picture.

Siri: Here Thawm, I've found 242 things to take a picture of.

Me: Take a picture of the sunset.

Siri: Sure. Take a picture of the sunset. What would you like me to do with the dog in front of the camera?

Me: Silhouette the dog

For more--go to thegearophile.com  link

How this camera mimics the human eye

Developed by Swiss engineers, the Dynamic Vision Sensor captures motion by operating like the neurons in our eyes..

The retina is an enormously powerful tool. It sorts through massive amounts of data while operating on only a fraction of the power that a conventional digital camera and computer would require to do the same task.

Now, engineers at a company called iniLabs in Switzerland are applying lessons from biology in an effort to build a more efficient digital camera inspired by the human retina.

Like the individual neurons in our eyes, the new camera—named the Dynamic Vision Sensor (DVS)—responds only to changes in a given scene. This approach eliminates large swaths of redundant data and could be useful for many fields, including surveillance, robotics, and microscopy.

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The iPad as a Hand-Held Darkroom

To transfer the photos from your camera, you plug a connector into the base of your iPad, connect your camera with a USB cord, then turn the camera on. The iPad will detect that the device is connected and allow you to select which images you would like to import. It’s quicker than a Polaroid.

The immediacy of digital has pushed photographers to want to edit their photos and then share them right away. A number of applications allow you to do this, some free and some costing as much as $20.

For a list: Link

Scott Kelby's Annual Gear guide

For the photographers out there..
Uvealblues 

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Instagram inspires insta-resting Instaglasses concept

Instaglasses is a new product concept by German designer Markus Gerke. Influenced by Google's Project Glass, Gerke decided to combine the idea of a camera-capable pair of glasses with the various filters of the Instagram photo-sharing mobile app.
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The concept Gerke posted to Behance suggests a pair of Instagram-branded sunglasses with a 5-megapixel camera embedded in the frame. One eye views the world as it really is, while the other views the world through the filter selected by the wearer. If the wearer spots a scene worth shooting through the selected filter then they can take a photo right there and then with the single click of a button. Aside from the 5-MP pinhole camera Gerke's suggested specs include Wi-Fi and 4G connectivity, 2-GB of internal memory, and up to 7 hours of battery life.

Like recent versions of Instagram, Gerke suggests that the glasses will allow users to add filters while the shot is still being lined up, rather than simply applying filters retrospectively.

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Pete Eckert – seeing without sight

A photographer with Retinitis Pigmentosa who takes amazing images...

Nice video at this link

Eye photos

Nice photos of eyes here.

Photo Gallery: African Marriage Rituals

Beautiful photos here.

Uvealblues

Afar Daughter, Djibouti

100 meters of existence

This is a very cool  100 meter long montage of 127 people shot in the same place over the course of 20 days...
It evokes the uniqueness of time, place, and societal connectivity with existential solitude in a unique way in my opinion
...similar to the  feeling I experienced when I first visited the Vietnam memorial in D.C.
Kudos to the creativity of the photographer..Simon Hoegsberg
Uvealblues


(via photojojo)

UPI's top 50 images of 2009

Pakistani internally displaced children queue for food at a makeshift camp in Swabi, Pakistan, on May 25, 2009. Pakistan's military said Monday it was facing "stiff resistance" as it battled to wrest Swat valley out of Taliban hands, in an offensive that has now scattered 2.38 million civilians. (UPI Photo/Sajjad Ali Qureshi)

UPI 2009 Top 50 News Pictures (50 images)

Ami Vitale Movie of India

Check out this link to see what happens when one combines incredible photographic talent with the newer DSLRs, which can also do video...

Science in Pictures: Honeybees, Artificial Monkeys, and a Rare Crow

Neat images here

Pictures of the Day

Many great pictures here...

Sunrise At Nudgee Beach in Australia

What a beautiful photo taken by Christolakis at Flickr...