I'm a big fan of Moment's lens system for Android and iOS smartphones. The company is staffed by folks who are just as passionate about mobile photography as I am. More importantly, they seem to understand that having to buy entirely new lenses every time you land a new handset is twelve different kinds of Bullshit. With Moment's second generation lens system, all you need to do when you invest in a new smartphone is plunk down some new cash for a new photo case and you're in business. Their business model makes me feel comfortable with fielding the relatively steep cost of their high quality smartphone accessory lenses and other kit.

Today, Moment announced that they're releasing a new 58mm telephoto lens. If you're using it with a single lens smartphone like the Google Pixel 3, it'll provide you with 2X optical zoom. Have a dual camera lensed phone like my iPhone 7 Plus? You can expect 4X optical telephoto zoom. That means better photos of far away subjects, portraits and landscapes without having to deal with the pixilation that comes from using digital zoom. Having this option makes me feel much less obligated, in many cases, to bring along an actual camera with me.

I've got one on the way to me and can't wait to try it out. I'm curious to see how it performs versus the last incarnation of their tele lens. I'll post a review with a few choice shots of the lens in action just as soon as I can. Read the rest

In certain circles, it's become popular for brides to ruin their wedding dress after the wedding, leading to more and more elaborate and risky photos. Pierre Violle specializes in the genre, and he's captures some amazing underwater couples over the years: Read the rest

LinesLab is "an experimental design studio established by Sergej Stoppel that explores algorithmic art and robotics." Among his cool works are these single-line portraits. Read the rest

Nacho Guevara came to America without documentation, and since he got his green card, he has been using his photography skills to humanize fellow migrants in their homes. Read the rest

Allan Pachino Wallace uses edibles to create detailed portraits, like athlete Stef Curry made from curry. He also made Salt Bae of salt: Read the rest

Yulia Brodskaya (previously) creates beautiful textured portraits by tightly folding and quilling colorful paper and affixing it upright on a flat surface. Here's a timelapse of her piece Girl with peacock earrings. Read the rest

I think it's amazing. It's more Scientology than Scientology. She looks like she's about to drop the first forty minutes of Mallwave, a genre of electronic music made of irony that's been aged in acrylic casks since 1987, ready to blast all the other waves into space to dance among the stars.

Update: of course it turns out Mallwave is not only already a thing but is already over.

Read the rest

The WaPo's David Fahrenthold exposed incredible self-dealing by millionaire presidential candidate Donald Trump, who settled lawsuits to the tune of $258,000 using his own charity's money. More amusingly, he spent charity cash on a giant portrait of himself.

Thanks to a helpful anonymous traveler, the portrait can now be revealed: it's apparently this one, at Trump's own private resort (commissioned for $10k or $20k, depending on which of the listed portraits it is.) I've crudely corrected the perspective, and the original is below.

That it's a paintover of an overexposed publicity photo makes it even better:

The anonymous photo as originally shot:

UPDATE: Here's another angle, showing the exquisite detail of Liquitex Basics acrylic paint slapped over a gigantic gooogled mugshot.

BONUS: Another, even better photo, from Enrique Acevedo, who reports the exact location and dimensions: "a four-foot-tall portrait of Donald J. Trump at the entrance of Champions Bar & Grill at the Trump National Doral Resort in Miami, Florida."

Hey @Fahrenthold just checked and the portrait is still hanging at the Champions Lounge. How much did you say it cost the Trump Foundation? pic.twitter.com/hGAun6KgCO

— Enrique Acevedo (@Enrique_Acevedo) September 21, 2016

DENOUEMENT: The painter is Havi Schanz; at least for now, his Wikipedia page is a hoot. Read the rest

South African photographer Paul Shiakallis produced a series of photos, "Leathered Skins, Unchained Hearts," of the "queens" of Botswana's heavy metal "Marok" scene, mostly in their homes. Read the rest

Brazilian artist Edu Monteiro's Autorretrato Sensorial ("Sensory Self-Portait") is a series of photos in which he poses with all manner of objects wrapped around his head, from bananas to an octopus. Read the rest

Photographer Szymon Swietochowski created these stunning staff portraits for Polish ad agency Ars Thanea. Read the rest

UK born, South African educated painted visited America and produced a series of beautiful portraits of Juggalos. Read the rest

Cici James -- founder of Brooklyn's amazing science fiction bookstore Singularity and Co -- posed for a body-painted portrait amongst her wares. Read the rest

Artist Philip J Bond created a set of illustrations depicting the women who've been to space. They're beautiful and full of personality and style, and really do justice to their subjects. I just showed these to my five year old daughter, and she was as entranced as I was.

Working for months at a time just penciling a comic book I started these portraits to get a bit of inking and colouring out of my system. I shouldn't say 'portraits', I'm not going for much of a likeness. Usually I'll glance at a couple of photographs and then go off and draw a vague impression. Margaret Seddon is blonde, Judith Resnik is a bit barmy looking, that sort of thing.

astronauts Read the rest

Sculptor Jeremy Mayer writes, "This is my latest project- a portrait commission.

The client, Mark Pelzner, came to me with 3 typewriters bequeathed to him by his late father, Marvyn Pelzner. Mark wanted me to take those typewriters and make a likeness of his dad that would be mounted on a box which holds Marvyn's ashes.

There are some parts in the sculpture that came from other typewriters in my stash, but most of the parts are from Marvyn's typewriters. The eyes, for example, are made from his Smith Corona desktop, the shoulders from his Underwood portable, and parts of the head were from his desktop Underwood No. 5.

"Marvyn was an Optometrist in the San Francisco Bay Area who was a big San Francisco Giants fan and a doting grandfather.

Many thanks to the Pelzner family for coming to me to work on such a powerful and personal project. I feel very fortunate to have been entrusted to do this.

As usual, I made this using only typewriter parts- no solder, no glue, no welding, no armature."

Portrait of Marvyn A. Pelzner

(Thanks, Jeremy!) Read the rest

Scott Edelman sez, "Artist Sarah Guthrie (whose work I discovered at the Crystal City, VA art installation Artomatic) believes that since Citizens United grants corporations the same legal status as human beings, they's surely want their own portraits. And so she has painted AT&T, Mattel, General Mills and other corporations in the style of the old masters in a series she calls Corporate Masters. She writes: 'The corporations selected are large multi-nationals that have been highlighted in the news recently: for legally paying less in federal income tax than you and me; for market domination; for bringing the economy to the brink of disaster.'"

3 more reasons to visit Artomatic

(Thanks, Scott!) Read the rest

Julian Cash's The People of Burning Man is a beautifully produced photo-portrait book shot over many consecutive years at Burning Man, the giant, weird, delightful art and culture festival that takes place every summer in Nevada's Black Rock desert. Cash -- who's quite an accomplished and experimental portraitist -- does a wonderful job of bringing out the decadence and playfulness of Burning Man. There's plenty of the nudity that often comes to mind when people think of Burning Man (this is, after all, the home of the Critical Tits topless bicycle ride), but Cash manages the fantastic trick of allowing his nudes to be sensual and sometimes sexy without ever being pornographic or salacious. These aren't "tasteful" nudes -- but they are exuberant and above all, fun.

People of Burning Man is to be celebrated also for its admirable lack of text. There's very little narration here, because very little is needed. The pictures tell their own stories -- sometimes in a frozen snapshot, and sometimes over time, as we visit with the same Burners over consecutive years (including one woman who appears first in a very pregnant state, and then with a babe at her breast). What little text there is -- a bit of background on the art of shooting portraits in a harsh desert, a little bit of biography supplied by the subjects -- complements the images without upstaging them.

Cash was good enough to supply a gallery of (NSFW, naturally) photos that are included below. There's plenty more -- and lots more material, besides -- at his The People of Burning Man site. Read the rest