What you see above is a “map” of Paris created by collaging thousands of photographs shot in the city. It’s just one of the amazing pieces in Japanese photographer Sohei Nishino‘s Diorama Map project. The series contains maps of many of the world’s most famous cities, and all of them are photographed and collaged by hand.

To create each diorama map, Nishino visits a city and shoots thousands of photographs while walking around within them. His goal is to capture his personal memory of traveling around that city, and this stage often takes weeks — or even months.

Hundreds of rolls of black-and-white film and tens of thousands of photographs later, he develops and prints the film himself in a personal darkroom, brings everything into his studio, and then begins to edit them. He selects thousands of photographs that are representative of what he would like to show, and then sets to work creating a collage.

Using a sketch of the city’s layout on a giant white canvas, he spends months cutting photographs and gluing them onto the map in the locations they belong. The maps are not meant to be accurate recreations of exactly what a city looks like from above, but are instead more representative of his personal memory and experiences.

The process is tedious, but Nishino still manages to produce them at a rate of about three per year.

Here are some of the diorama maps he has created so far:

Berlin, Germany

Tokyo, Japan

Shanghai, China

Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

New York City, New York

London, England

Jerusalem, Israel

Istanbul, Turkey

Hong Kong, China

Here are a couple of time-lapse videos showing Nishino creating one of his diorama maps:

You can see more diorama maps and more of Nishino’s work over on his website.

Diorama Maps by Sohei Nishino (via POTB)

Image credits: Photographs by Sohei Nishino and used with permission

Want to have some fun as you’re learning how to use Photoshop for image editing? Try creating a “Photoshop Chimera.” In Greek mythology, the Chimera was a monstrous creature composed of three different animals: the lion, snake, and goat. The term “chimera” has since come to describe any imaginary creature that’s the mashup of two or more real animals.

Reddit user Arne Olav has attracted some attention as of late for his humorous chimeras created by compositing two different photographs of animals.

The photograph above shows a “Guinea Lion,” or what you get when you combine a guinea pig and a lion.

Olav doesn’t claim to be the originator of this concept; you’ve probably seen similar photo mashups floating around since the advent of the Web. He tells us that he personally began dabbling with the idea while going through a particularly difficult exam season in school back in 2012.

Needed a break from his studies, he decided to de-stress by splicing guinea pig heads onto various animals. He soon started combining all kinds of animals, and his work started attracting the attention of humor sites across the web.

Here is a selection of Photoshop Chimeras Olav has created so far:

Regarding his technique, Olav tells us,

It’s important that the pictures are taken from approximately the same angle, so that the animals can be put together in a natural way. For example, let’s say I’m making the cross between a proboscis monkey and a bird. First, I put the pictures in two layers.

Then I adjust the size and start erasing the bits that are superfluous:

After that, the rest is fine tuning. Edges between the animals need to be smooth, which can be done using a soft semi-transparent eraser tool, and colors and lighting have to be adjusted. Then the picture is finished.

Olav says his interest in Photoshop first developed through his photography hobby. In addition to use it to post-process his photographs, he decided to experiment with (and improve in) Photoshop by getting experimental with it and using it for leisure.

You can follow along with his strange animal mashups on his Reddit submissions page. There’s also an entire sub-Reddit dedicated to this concept called Hybrid Animals.

Thanks for sending in the tip, Sam!

Want to see what lava from a volcano looks like up close? Photographer Daniel Fox has spent a number of weeks this year photographing lava near Kalapana on the Big Island of Hawaii. Rather than photograph the lava in the context of its surroundings, he decided to get in close and create abstract images showing its intensity.

Fox tells us he focused more on shooting abstract, artistic photos (rather than landscape photos) by using a telephoto lens rather than a wide-angle one. He shoots with a Canon 100-400mm and Canon 100-300mm on his Canon 7D.

He tries to leave the photos relatively untouched, but he does occasionally do some masking, rotating, and cropping in addition to basic Lightroom image adjustments.

Here is a selection of Fox’s lava photographs:

Fox also shot some footage of the lava to create this piece titled “TIME”:

Compared to the free flow of lava, active and fast, these clefts are the result of a constant but slow force. One fracture at a time, earth is moved forward to form new landscapes, erasing old ones behind. Invisible at day, their presence and intensity is only revealed at night, cracking the dark world open, light a lightning splitting the sky in pieces.

You can find more of Fox’s work on his website and on Instagram. He’s planning to hold an exhibition of these lava photos in San Francisco come fall.

Image credits: Photographs by Daniel Fox and used with permission

We all know by now how Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer unleashed the collective fury of photographers and the creative community during her presentation of the new Flickr with a few poorly chosen words. She has since clarified her statement, but the real issue is that the distinction between photographer and professional photographer is fuzzy at best in the minds of most people, particularly those that know little about the world of photography.

An “amateur” photographer is someone that takes photos for fun and passion. They enjoy the art of photography, and appreciate the ability to preserve memories and moments. Despite being “amateur”, they can (and do) take some of the most beautiful and breathtaking images you’ll ever see.

A professional photographer is consistently compensated for their photographic work. They have practiced and trained themselves to become at least competent at photography and to do it for others.

The other hallmark of a professional photographer is that they are a business entity, from one person operations all the way to large studio outfits with many full time employees and assignments.

Professional photographers use proposals, contracts, and have insurance. They know how to perform at a consistent level every time through practice, perseverance, and effort.

The label of “professional” has less do with skill and talent and more to do with business operations. There are great professional photographers who are not great photographers, but they have mastered the other areas of their business that are an integral part of being successful.

They work hard at the accounting, the marketing, the networking, the client relationships, and the professional outreach. And those parts are often much more important than the latest Photoshop technique, fancy gear, or firmware update.

A professional delivers on a promise to get the shot. Oftentimes passion led them to choose to become a professional photographer, but they now have many added pressures that are not optional anymore.

The analogy would be someone who loves to cook versus someone who makes a living cooking. Both can be called “chefs”, but one is a professional by definition while the other person is someone who is passionate about food and cuisine but does not depend on it for their livelihood.

What does this mean for you, the professional or aspiring professional photographer?

Well, for one, don’t let the words of a tech company CEO get you upset. And actions speak louder than words when it comes to attracting positive attention. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “Well done is better than well said.”

1. Act professional

Don’t be a hipster with a sweet Micro Four Thirds camera and call yourself a professional photographer. Be the hipster with a great camera that also knows how to run their business. Show your potential clients that you can return calls and emails, be on time, invoice properly, know what you’re doing on set (or know how to fake it).

People are hiring you for more than just your photographic expertise, they are leaning on you for other services as well, particularly if they haven’t retained professional services before.

Can you help them find great models, locations, make-up/hair/food/prop stylists, get permits, etc.? You’re being hired to solve a problem and provide solutions – make your clients’ lives as stress free as possible and you’ll be worth more than you charge every time.

2. Share your expertise

Why do so many successful professional photographers blog, use social media, create tutorials, and look to mentor others? One, because it’s always good to pay it forward. But it also demonstrates expertise and authority and it educates potential clients.

When you write a beautiful blog posts with gorgeous images and screen grabs it shows a prospective client who is vetting you that you know what you’re doing. And it offers a “behind the scenes” look at the process beyond the click of the shutter and validates your costs and fees.

Too many people think professional photography is easy because all they ever see is the shoot. They are not aware of the hours spent downloading, cataloging, editing, and uploading.

If people knew how much effort and work goes into your craft, they would better understand and be more willing to pay your fees because they would see the value in what you do.

3. Get testimonials and recommendations from clients

Have them write or say on video how wonderful and professional you are. Potential clients want to see satisfied clients. You can tell everyone in the world what an amazing professional photographer you are until you are blue in the face. But having someone say it for you will carry a lot more weight.

4. Don’t get caught up in the online hype

A professional photographer is pursuing financial success, not just fame or exposure. Does having a really popular Instagram account really further your business goals? For most aspiring professional photographers, basic classes in accounting, marketing, and business at a community college would be worth far more than any lens, set of actions, or photographic workshops.

W-9s, contracts, and business insurance may not be sexy, but if you want to make a living as a professional photographer they are absolutely crucial to your long term success.

About the author: Alex Ignacio is a professional photographer based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Visit his business site here and his photography site here.

We’ve featured quite a few “bullet time” projects in the past that involve freezing time using rigs of tens or hundreds of cameras, but have you ever seen the technique done with pinhole cameras? That’s what you’ll see in the music video shown above. It’s for the song “Wasting My Young Years” by London Grammar.

The project was carried out by Bison and Academy Plus. The effect wasn’t faked: wanting to “trap people in space” in a creative way, the team actually built giant rigs containing 625 individual pinhole cameras.

The pinholes were placed at small distances from one another in the rig, and long strips of 35mm film were placed into the rig in order to “load the camera.”

A challenging part of the project was loading up the camera without accidentally exposing the film. The team turned off all the lights in the studio and then had 7-8 people feeding the 35mm film into the rig in complete darkness.

The rig was then ready for the shoot, which involving having models/dancers/band members jump into the air while the pinholes are briefly uncovered.

Once the film was exposed, the team spent 2 hours developing the strips themselves in large buckets. Finally, the processed film was digitized and animated into the “bullet time” “stopped motion” footage seen in the video above.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes video showing how the project was carried out:

(via DIYPhotography)

Photographer Joshua Lambus has put together a beautiful series of photographs showing luminous creatures of the deep glowing with light against a pitch-black background. The project is titled “Blackwater.”

The photographs were captured in the ocean during the Hawaii-based photographer’s deep dives. “My photos are to show people things they haven’t seen before… or maybe things they see all the time… in a way they’ve never cared to look,” Lambus writes.

Lambus is a veteran of deep dives, having logged hundreds of dives for both personal and commercial purposes. The dives are held in the darkness of the night in water that is thousands of feet deep. Lambus ventures deep under the surface to photograph the animals as they float by.

In an interview with Underwater Photography Guide, Lambus compares photographing the faintly glowing creatures to taking pictures of a piece of aluminum foil and a piece of plastic wrap in a your closet with the lights out. If you can photograph them in focus and well exposed, then you’re fit for this type of underwater photography.

Does your camera focus well in low light? If not are you good at manual focus? Which is better? Next is lighting. Best positions for strobes? How do you light up your subject without lighting up the rest of the plankton around it? Do you expose for the reflective part of your subject or the transparent part? How do you do both? How comfortable are you with knowing where the controls are on your camera? Because at night you can’t see what you’re doing, and you better have a good hold on that camera because if you drop it you don’t get it back. Trust me. [#]

In terms of gear, Lambus uses high-end Canon and Nikon DSLRs protected by various underwater housings.

Here are some of the beautiful photographs found in the series:

You can find more of Lambus work over on his personal website and in his portfolio.

Blackwater by Joshua Lambus (via My Modern Met via Laughing Squid)

Image credits: Photographs by Joshua Lambus and used with permission

I came into still photography by way of video. Throughout my younger years I was always playing with video cameras, and when I graduated college I set out to buy one of my own.

Like so many others, I turned to the Internet for guidance. I got lost in a whirlwind of blogs, forums and tutorials. As a recovering technophobe, it was overwhelming and scary. This was to be my first major post college purchase, and I wanted to research the subject diligently.

Finally pulling the trigger on that camera, I often still found myself visiting those same websites and forums. This had become a daily habit over the past few months, and the compulsion never seemed to go away.

I read up on every detail, rumor and review about new cameras and old. I became obsessed with the technology of photography. I understand the reason some people see this as unhealthy, but let’s try and comprehend the positives that go along with this obvious case of “gear lust”.

For one, it helped me learn and understand the technical side of photography. Remember, our art is half science too. Soon after getting that first video camera I became entranced by still photos.

The only problem was I couldn’t tell you the difference between a point and shoot, SLR or rangefinder, 35mm or 120mm, medium format, full frame or APS-C. It was all Klingon to me.

I made it a point to absorb everything I was reading. If a blog was talking about a “wide angle lens” I needed to know exactly what that meant. I know, for an experienced photographer, this may sound rudimentary, but think back to those days before you could explain the process of Debayering. Back before you knew what “stopping down” a lens meant.

These forums and blogs helped immensely. Not only in answering my questions, but raising the questions in the first place.

Reading about new cameras and techniques also helped me understand how some people were getting the results they were. I know we’ve all heard the phrase “It’s not the camera, it’s the photographer.” While true, no photographer can take a smart phone and make it look like 120 slide film.

Reading up on different cameras helped me understand you have to use the right tool for the right job. If you envision a project or a shoot, you’ll know what’s at your disposal to bring that idea to fruition.

Having a healthy curiosity of what tools are out there keeps you up to date with present and future trends, but it also might lead you towards trends of the past. I never would have thought I’d be shooting and developing 120 film in my bathroom, but the more I read about older cameras and lenses, the more I wanted to experiment. And I’m better for it.

You’d be surprised how shooting with old equipment and dabbling with older methods helps you understand and appreciate what we have today (not to mention, 120 film is a beautiful and unique tool).

Pixel peeping, like many other vices, can be an extremely destructive habit if not done in moderation. That said, a healthy dose of obsession can actually benefit one’s eye.

There was a time in my life where I spent hours looking at 400% cropped in images of soup cans and color charts, analyzing the detail, the noise and grain structures and lens distortions. If a layman walked by and saw my face pressed against a blurry screen of pixels they’d think I was a maniac, and to be honest, most of us pixel peepers are a bit crazy.

But by dissecting lens and camera tests I’ve grown a more discerning eye. There’s a practical reason to keep up with new and emerging technology too. Much like older photographers might read about new film emulsions from Kodak and Fujifilm, in the digital age we must keep up on new sensor technology.

It’s been said before and it’s worth noting again: When we buy a new camera we are essentially committing to one type of film, for lack of a better analogy. In the old days you could buy a camera and switch films in seconds. Now, we have to make sure we are making informed purchases because we are more or less stuck with what we have until our next camera.

I believe there is a distinct difference between gear lust and Gear Acquisition Syndrome. Obsessing over these cameras and visiting the websites, forums and tutorials that indulge that obsession has been beneficial to my craft. I love learning about new devices, cameras, and technologies and how they are affecting the industry.

Looking at new designs and reviews and tests grows my love and appreciation for not only the artistic side of the art, but also for the technicians and ideas that make it all possible. Gear Acquisition Syndrome is something that comes from this and you must fight it with all your might.

You don’t have to own every new camera. It’s not necessary and it’s not recommended. It’ll take an enormous amount of willpower to keep from buying everything you see (especially if you can swing it financially), but it’s better for you in the long run.

I agree with the old Orson Welles quote, “The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.” The common misconception about the hours one spends reading up on gear forums, blogs and magazines is that it keeps you from getting out there and actually taking pictures. While this certainly is the case in some circumstances, it’s most surely a whole different issue.

If you need to be told to stop looking at camera websites, to get off forums, to go out there and practice your art, your problem isn’t gear lust. You’re just not that interested in being a photographer. And that’s okay.

About the author: Joseph Campanella is a freelance photographer/videographer based in Chicago, Illinois. You can find his photographs on Flickr.

This guide is what I do during wedding days, and I typically photograph the cake right when I enter the reception location. Overall, I take 4 shots of the cake: 1 vertical, 1 horizontal, 1 detail of topper, and 1 detail of the base or whatever is the most interesting on the cake.

This process takes me literally 30 seconds. That’s it; done. Move on to centerpieces. This guide is for photographing real cakes on real wedding days for wedding photography professionals.

There will be some assumptions such as (1) you know how to expose properly, and (2) that the cake is indoors or lower light (think reception lighting). If you’re interested in photographing cakes in studio, this is not it, but the idea could definitely be translated into studio.

Things You’ll Need

• Camera
• 200mm lens
• Flash with 90 degree (or higher) swivel and point-up ability
• Delicious wedding cake (preferably red velvet… am I right?)

The Lens

The lens you select to photograph a wedding cake is absolutely crucial. You’ll want to grab your longest focal length lens. I use Nikon’s 70-200mm f/2.8, but if you have the cheaper 200′s with 5.6, that works fine, too!

What matters most here is that the 200mm will do 2 things:

1. Compress the view, allowing the cake to be the prominent subject and, if the venue isn’t organized, remove a lot of the clutter surrounding the cake.

2. Keep most of the cake in perfect focus, yet having a nice out of focus background. This is the wonderful thing about telephotos. With lower focal lengths, you cannot have both an out of focus background and retain focus throughout the cake.

Shoot at f/4 for “fill the frame” cake shots and f/2.8 for “big picture” shots containing more of the ambiance and venue decor.

The Flash

The idea for flash is that we’ll be using our flash to ‘bounce’ light from the left off of a wall or whatever is available. This will create a pleasing soft light that will hit the cake from the left and will give an appearance of softbox or window light. The trick here is to aim the flash directly left, and not up or down at all.

When shooting vertical framing, the flash will be pointed directly “up” from the camera’s point of view. When shooting horizontal framing, the flash will be 90′ left. It’s important to remember not to have the flash pointed up at all, unlike photographing people where you would want the flash to be aimed towards the ceiling.

Be mindful of guests; they do not like being flashed in the face. I’m leaving it up to you to expose for the ambient light and to make sure your background is how you’d like it. I typically expose 1-3 stops down depending on the mood I want to create and depending on pre-existing light. Set your flash to TTL if it is not already. Max out your flash shutter sync speed (Nikon is 1/250, Canon is 1/200).

Your resulting image will be a very soft left-to-right lit cake. I light left to right because that’s a more natural look. The more of the frame that the cake takes up, the better your result will be with lighting. When you are first doing this technique begin with a very tightly framed cake and work out from there.

Here are some cake photographs I’ve shot using this technique:

About the author: Michael Doerman is a wedding photographer based in Nashville, Tennessee. Visit his website here and his blog here. This article originally appeared here.

Claudia Nallely Agres works as a bridal model for a living, but she hasn’t yet had the joy of being a bride in a wedding of her own. Wedding photographer Ryan Brenizer wanted to change that, so he recently held a special photo shoot for Agres that resulted in some beautiful and unusual bridal portraits.

Claudia Nallely Agres and her husband Matt got married in a simple civil ceremony back in 2011. That was right before they were separated for eight months while Matt went through Air Force basic training.

Shortly after the training, Matt was sent last year on a three year assignment to an Air Force base in Germany. Claudia is still unsure of when they might be able to have a proper wedding and a real bridal portrait shoot.

When Brenizer learned about this, he decided to invite Claudia and Matthew to a studio in London for a special bridal shoot for photos Claudia could keep herself. Matthew wasn’t able to leave his base, so Claudia traveled solo from Germany herself with a vintage wedding dress in tow.

Since Claudia has already done countless shoots while posing as a bride, Brenizer decided he would try a unique concept that would be new to Agres. Inspired by Jan von Holleben’s Dreams of Flying project, Brenizer decided to create fantasy scenes on the ground and photograph Claudia from above while she posed on the ground.

The shoot lasted for an hour and a half, and resulted in three photographs showing Claudia biking and leaping in a fantasy world created with tissue paper, flowers, and wood blocks:

Here are some behind-the-scenes photographs Brenzier provided us that show the studio as they were preparing for the shots:

Here’s a behind-the-scenes photo snapped by Dean Govier:

Brenzier says he hopes to one day photograph Claudia again, but with Matthew present and playing a part in the whimsical scenes.

(via HuffPo and TODAY)

Thanks for sending in the tip, Steve!

Image credits: Photographs by Ryan Brenizer and used with permission

When Flickr launched its site-wide redesign this past week, one of the things that saw a quiet revamp was the default user avatar. The company hired Greek designer Charis Tsevis to upgrade the original default icon — an expressionless gray and black square face — to something more colorful.

Over on Behance, Tsevis shares some of his thoughts on how he came up with the new eye-popping illustrations.

First off, here’s what the old default avatar looked like. It was nicknamed “Howdy”:

Remember it? Apparently Flickr wanted the avatars to be more “vibrant.” The three requirements for the new avatars were that (1) they needed to reflect photography, (2) they needed to be colorful and use Flickr’s colors, and (3) they needed to be personal to users.

Tsevis turned to a style of illustration called “Neo-Futurism,” and sometimes “Neo-Cubism.” Hours were spent trying to choose the best shapes, forms, and colors for various types of cameras.

This lineup of final avatars shows what Tsevis ended up coming up with:

To start using one of the new buddy icons, head on over to New Flickr’s Buddy Icon page and remove whatever avatar you currently have set:

Here’s what the avatars look like on the new photostream pages:

You can read a behind-the-scenes account of Tsevis’ design process over on Behance. The article includes a number of images showing what the new avatars looked like at early stages of their development.

(via Behance via Visual News)