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Photographers talk about their photos: The fish by Safa

an.ne — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:01:40 +0000

Wow, what a catch! This photo definitely caught our attention last week, so we asked Safa to tell us a little more about his photo and the two guys that are apparently very much looking forward to a delicious fish meal. So here’s the story behind it.

This is it. The fish, straight from the Persian Gulf. A photo by Safa Daneshvar.

The photo shows my little brother Ramtin Daneshvar together with my nephew Zahra at our home in Teheran, Iran. The Daneshvar family is dispersed all over the world and so we hardly ever get the chance to meet all in one place. That’s why the time we spend together is always very precious. My brother Ramtin works in the oil industries on Lavan island in the Persian Gulf and he has only 6 days off every month. The day this photo was taken, we (me, Ramtin, Zahra and my elder brother Arya) could finally spend some time together, at least for a couple of hours and we were obviously very happy about that.

That day Rantim, a passionate swimmer, scuba diver and fisher came home with a big “Shir” fish as a souvenir from the Persian Gulf [editor's note: According to fishbase.org, a "Shir Mahi" is a kind of Spanish mackerel]. We were all very excited because a fish like this can never be found in Teheran. It was huge. Before preparing the fish we had some fun time taking photos. When I’m at home, my family is always my favorite motif!

As for Equipment and settings: The photo was taken with a Canon EOS 50D and a EF 16-35mm L II USM lens. I used a Hoya Polarizer filter, 82mm HD. I did a little editing in Photoshop on Autolevel and contrast plus a little bluring effect and sponge tool at the background.

I especially want to thank my mom for a delicious lunch the next day.

Thanks, Safa!

About Safa Daneshvar

Safa, who is also known as the man who is always running and jumping, works as a Civil Engineer and is living in Teheran, Iran. He loves swimming, diving, biking trips, travelling and… surprise… photography. Check out his website or head to his profile.

Happy new year and a look back at 2011

an.ne — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:32:26 +0000

Happy 2012, everybody! Hope you had a lovely new years eve. We thought a nice (and slightly delayed) beginning to the New Year would be a little photographical review of 2011. We’ve collected the 12 Photocase photos that you found the most interesting.*

And here are your top photos of the last 12 months:

Have a great 2012!

Your
Photocase

*Side note: Interest is measured by a crack team of analysts who constantly monitor a highly scientific system of algorithms and…ok not really. Actually it’s relatively straightforward although there is a reasonably complex procedure to determine “interest” that involves (among other things) comments, votes, downloads, links and last but not least, how recently it was posted. Ok there might be some secret ingredients too. Or maybe not. If we told you we’d have to kill you. But since there’s nothing to tell, you’re safe. Just don’t ask any more questions.

Win The New Artisans Book

an.ne — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:14:53 +0000

And the winner is

traumkeks - comment 6

Congratulations! We’ll drop you an email.

Screw mass production, praise the handmade. Although we ourselves have only two left hands and all thumbs, we adore handcraft and like browsing through all those blogs with gorgeous photos of sweet handmade products. Last September now, a book came out on Thames & Hudson that is dedicated to those handmade designs and it’s called ”The New Artisans Book” by Oliver Dupon. In his beautifully designed and photographed book the French designer and blogger has captured over seventy artisans who use craft techniques to create stylish and desirable objects. Hundreds of colour photographs feature a huge variety of crafts, including art, ceramics, furniture, lighting, papercraft, textiles and more. The book also contains Olivier’s personal recommendations for inspiring shops and websites to visit, which makes it the perfect source for discovering unique and beautiful objects made by new, talented artisans from all around the world. And the best thing is: We give away one copy here on our blog! Yay.

How can I win?

If you want to win the New Artisans Book, just post a comment below and tell us about your favorite handmade object that you own or would like to own. We will pick and announce a winner on Saint Nicholas Day (Tuesday, December 6th).

Make sure to check out the New Artisans Book Facebook page and Oliver’s Blog where he features all kinds of cool stuff from photography to fashion and product design (We especially liked the post about Julie Blackmons awesome photos recently.). You can also buy the book on Amazon.

Happy Birthday to… us

an.ne — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 14:47:04 +0000

Ten years ago today Photocase was born and Frank and Kai opened a box of candy cigars and popped open bottles of beer in the hospital. Since then Photocase grew teeth, got into a mid-puberty streetfight and woke up several days later with a headache but a little more confident. Today there are more than 226,000 photos on Photocase with more coming day after day, thanks to our glorious photographers.

In honor of our 10th anniversary, our in-house production company spared neither trouble nor expense to make this formidable short film (we already submitted it to Sundance, Berlinale and the Telluride film festivals in the Best Drama category):

If you want, you can make your own little anniversary videos (try Loopcam) and send us the result! The winner will be rewarded with a prize and the movie will be shown on our blog.

Photographers talk about their photos: The path to light from maspi

an.ne — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:18:02 +0000

Apart from the shivering coldness at the moment, we must admit that fall was pretty kind to us this year. At least in September, we could still hang out outside in the sun in our shorts. Plus, as you can see in the large number of awesome fall photos we got on Photocase, turns out that fall is very photogenic. Recently our photographer maspi uploaded his photo “the path to the light” to our collection. In our blogpost he tells us a little more about his mystical photo.

A photo by maspi

It was a morning in late September. The day before I returned from a long and exhausting journey and on my flight back I already have been looking forward to my running session through my favorite forest.

I was planning to start early but thanks to Mr. Jetlag I didn’t arrive before 9. Pieces of fog that the sun hadn’t frizzled away yet, were still hanging in the trees. It was beautiful. After running for half an hour I arrived at the spot on the photo and suddenly it happened. I just couldn’t keep on running. I had to capture this situation. But how? Of course I didn’t bring a camera. But maybe in the car? I ran back to the car and… yes, there was a camera, although the batteries were almost finished. I ran back to the path, put the camera on a tree branch and took as many photos as I could before the battery died. Back home, I transferred the files onto my computer and afterwards totally forgot about them for a couple of years.

I stumbled upon those photos again when I checked the hard drive of my old computer for important data before finally getting rid of it. I probably have to mention that, at the time the photo was taken, I was experimenting a lot with CHDK (a program that enables you to shoot series of exposures and generate a RAW format. That’s why I had a series of exposures of 3 photos in RAW format. The rest is told quickly. I assembled the 3 photos in Photoshop and the result is what you see here: A photos from the past.

Thanks, maspi!

Booo! Funny Photos of scared people

an.ne — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 12:38:41 +0000

Dudebun told me that he visited Niagara Falls ten years ago with his girlfriend and she really wanted to visit one of the many haunted houses in town. The most famous one, the Nightmares Fear Factory in Niagara Falls, Canada takes photos of the poor visitors at the exact moment of shock, and the results speak for themselves. Dudebun decided not to go in because he watched Thriller when he was 4 years old and has been a scaredy cat ever since. After seeing these photos he’s extra happy about his decision.

More photos are in the Nightmares Fear Factory Flickr Stream. We must admit that we lol’d pretty hard.

By the way, the Nightmares Fear Factory is supposed to be so scary that people who had enough can call the code word “Nightmares!” and will be then walked out of the haunted house, but they add your name to a “chicken list.”

Thanks India

Dudebun — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 12:11:17 +0000

GoodwinDan has been at Photocase since 2009 and has 386 photos online. Last weekend, when browsing through some photos we came across Daniels photo “Thanks, India“. Daniel said in the comments that he often associates photography and music and he mentioned that he’d been listening to this song by the band Bateleur, “Thanks, India” when he shot the photo.

A photo by GoodwinDan

Thanks, Daniel! Head to his profile or read more on the German blog.

A Photocase Day in Berlin. The video

Dudebun — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:45:42 +0000

Our good friend Nico made an awesome video about our Photocase Day in Berlin 2 weeks ago. Check it out!

10Y Photocase ! La Chamanvier Berlin from NicoD on Vimeo.

Yes it’s true, we had a grand engagement.

Dudebun — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 10:33:11 +0000

These here photographs have been all over the internets of late, so you’ve probably already done seen ‘em, but if ya ain’t, then behold the purtiest/weirdenest engagement photos I ever done seen.

Lytro – the camera for lazy people

Dudebun — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 10:08:55 +0000

I may have already posted this, and if I did you’ll have to excuse me BUT, this is great enough to post twice. From what I gather it’s a new kind of camera tech. According to their marketing mumbo-jumbo, the Lytro Light Field Camera captures “light rays from the light field” (a normal camera “cannot record the light field”) so “the picture taker and the viewer [can] focus pictures after they’re snapped, shift their perspective of the scene, and even switch seamlessly between 2D and 3D views.” Blah blah blah the point is, you can shoot first and then focus (and ask questions) later. So basically between RAW and Lytro, basically you just have to point the camera in the general direction of the thing you want to photograph and then later when you get home and you’re sitting on your couch you can fudge around with the important stuff like focus and exposure.

Check out their photo gallery here.