Photographer and filmmaker Enrique Pacheco‘s most recent short film, “Vatn” (the Icelandic word for water), offers stunning views of Iceland’s oceans, rivers and waterfalls, made with the Canon 5d Mark II, Canon 600D, and Canon and Carl Zeiss glass.
Shot and edited over a 6-month period, the film employs an interesting narrative structure that personifies water and makes it the film’s protagonist. “Human beings are the antagonists,” Pacheco said of the film, in an interview published on his Web site. “We are changing the life cycle of water. This film is for water conservation. Instead of talking about water, I decided to personify water, give it voice, so we can hear it.”
A close-up photograph of a dragonfly weathering a rain storm in Indonesia’s Riau Islands earned photographer Shikhei Goh the $10,000 grand prize in the 2011 National Geographic Photography Contest.
In a statement, National Geographic magazine photographer Tim Laman, who was one of three judges for the competition, celebrated the photograph’s “beautiful light, rare action in a close-up image, as well as its technical perfection.” Goh’s photograph also won first prize in the “Nature” category.
A photograph by Izabelle Nordfjell of a Sami reindeer hunter preparing to take a shot while his son covers his ears won first prize in the “People” category, while George Tapan’s image of
a rainbow stretching out over the ocean off of the Philippines’ Onuk Island received first prize in the “Places” category.
These photographs were selected from more than 20,000 images submitted by professional and amateur photographers from more than 130 countries.
Galleries of the winning images and honorable mentions are online here.
The other judges were National Geographic magazine photographers Amy Toensing, and Peter Essick.
This video capturing the phenomenon known as murmuration — the astonishing cloud-like formations made by starlings– has been posted widely, but we can’t resist. Filmmaker and artist Sophie Windsor Clive was canoeing on the River Shannon in Ireland with a friend when they encountered the starling flock by chance. The sight captured here on video reminds me of still images of starlings, like photographer Richard Barnes’ “Murmur” series, which he captured in Rome, and images posted recently on the Time Light Box blog.
Murmuration is a sign of approaching winter. In commemoration of turning our clocks back, we thought we’d share this beautiful omen of the change in seasons.
This billboard featuring a diptych from Gary Braasch's project showing climate change is on display at Reagan National Airport for the next year.
Travelers passing through Washington D.C.’s Reagan National Airport over the next year will be confronted with photographic evidence of climate change, thanks to the work of photographer Gary Braasch. A backlit billboard showing the retreat of Alaska’s Mendenhall Glacier, one of the country’s largest glaciers, was installed at the airport on August 30th.
The diptych shows an archival 1894 photograph of the glacier next to Braasch’s 2008 image, which was made from approximately the same spot as the first. The photographs, part of a “before and after” project by Braasch, for which he has re-photographed archival images to show how the landscape has changed, show the severity of the glacier’s retreat over the past century.
Sponsored by The Del Mar Global Trust and World View of Global Warming, the billboard is part of This Is Climate Change, a campaign to “educate and increase awareness of climate change among the general public.”
Photographer Giles Revell frequently merges science and art in his work. He has used electron microscopes, a CT scanner and other scientific equipment to create images that examine the architecture of insects of flowers, insects and bubbles. When Red Bee Media was creating an ad campaign for a new arts program on the BBC, creative director Tony Pipes tapped the London-based Revell to create a 60-second spot that would evoke curiosity and wonder. The tagline is “See something different every time.”
Creative credits for the campaign can be found on Vimeo.
Photographer Catherine Chalmers is best known for her books and exhibitions Food Chain and American Cockroach, but her video series “Safari” was a Grand Jury Prize winner at the South by Southwest Festival in 2008. In 2010 she won a Guggenheim Fellowship for her project on leafcutter ants. These astonishing, industrious creatures are the subject of an amusing new video, “We Rule,” shot in Panama, which Chalmers recently posted on Vimeo (just in time for picnic season). Charles Lindsay is responsible for the fantastic sound design.
You can see many more of her videos, including the award-winning “Safari,” additional videos-in-progress from her Leafcutters series, and parts of the American Cockroach project at her Web site, Catherinechalmers.com, and on her Vimeo page.
This multimedia piece by wildlife photojournalist Tim Laman about the highly adapted mating rituals of Birds of Paradise and Bowerbirds, both of which live in the New Guinea region, was a hit when it premiered at the recent LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville, VA. Laman, who is also a field biologist, is currently nearing completion on a major, cross-platform project about Birds of Paradise. To see more of his work visit timlaman.com.
Here’s something we somehow missed during the tumult that was CES 2011. A 31MP concept camera that looks like a combination iPhone and EVIL digital camera.
Called a WVIL (Weevil?) camera, the concept product is allegedly built around a mobile operating system similar to what you’d find in most apps-laden smart phones.
And what does the acronym WVIL stand for? Wireless Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens camera, according to the below video. The designers have purportedly built a 31MP, full-frame CMOS sensor into the removable lens. When you take off the lens, it acts as a wireless viewfinder, sending live video footage back to the camera body.
Yes, this is all kinds of vaporware bull-cocky but we think it’s wrong that some people have labeled this YouTube clip and the camera concept as fakes. Though the video looks staged, it appears to come from a real prototype design company, the Seattle-based Artefact Group.
The WVIL concept (here’s the website) is also quite clever and camera manufacturers who have seen the point-and-shoot market get eaten alive by smart phones that let you easily share photos via wireless networks, might want take note.
(Our favorite part of the below clip is the unexpected cameos by PC Magazine‘s PJ Jacobowitz and Picture Business‘ Mike McEnaney.)
Enrique Pacheco’s short film “Winter In Hell” (not a reference to the regular severe weather warnings afflicting areas of the United States this season), was created from footage shot in Iceland over the course of a year. It tells the story of a peaceful arctic winter interrupted by the explosion of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano.
The photographer and filmmaker used the Canon 7D and 5D Mark II, and Canon and Carl Zeiss lenses to shoot the footage. We recommend utilizing the full screen mode.
ThePalm Beach Posthas reported that Florida authorities cannot determine how 53-year-old underwater photographer Wes Skiles died last summer, so they have ruled his death an accidental drowning.
Skiles died July 21 near Palm Beach, shortly after completing an assignment for National Geographic Television to photograph an underwater research expedition. He remained on location with researchers, signaling at one point that he intended to surface for more film. His diving companions found him unconscious on the sea floor a short time later, but they were unable to revive him.
An medical inquiry that included toxicology tests was inconclusive. “There was nothing to indicate natural causes or outside forces,” Harold Ruslander, chief investigator for the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner told The Palm Beach Post. “All we’re going to be able to say is that it was an accidental drowning.”
Skiles explored, mapped, and filmed caves around the world for three decades. He created the PBS series ‘Water’s Journey,’ shot underwater scenes for feature films, and was a long-time contributor to both National Geographic magazine and National Geographic Television.
“He set a standard for underwater photography, cinematography and exploration that is unsurpassed,” National Geographic magazine editor-in-chief Chris Johns said in a statement in July just after Skiles died.
