The Guardian's Best Drone Photography

Aerial photography platform SkyPixel received 27,000 entries to its 2016 competition. Here are the winning shots plus some of The Guardian's favorites.

Published by The Guardian

Wednesday 25 January 2017

A line in the sand ... SkyPixel’s competition was open to both professional and amateur photographers and was split into three categories: Beauty, 360, and Drones in Use. This image – of a camel caravan in the desert – won first prize in the Professional Beauty category.

Photograph: Hanbing Wang/SkyPixel

Dam near perfect ... second prize in the same category was of the Huia Dam in Auckland, New Zealand. Hong Kong-based SkyPixel was launched in 2014.

Photograph: Brendon Dixon/SkyPixel

Dead straight ... this image of a road bridge in the US won first prize in the Amateur Beauty category.

Photograph: SkyPixel

Green waves ... this shot, taken in Italy, won second prize in the Amateur Beauty category.

Photograph: Mauro Pagliai/SkyPixel

ce art ... third prize in the Amateur Beauty category. This image is of a frozen river in the US.

Photograph: SkyPixel

Catching the winning image ... fishermen close the net in Fujian province in China. This was the grand prize winner in the competition.

Photograph: Ge Zheng/Ge Zheng/SkyPixel

On the terraces … the competition – the first run by SkyPixel – attracted 27,000 entries, including this one of a rice terrace in China, which was one of our favourites.

Photograph: SkyPixel

Where did you park the car? Another of our favourites, though not a category winner, is of a huge parking lot.

Photograph: SkyPixel

City cool … people play amid the fountains.

Photograph: SkyPixel

And they were all yellow … uncredited landscape shot.

Photograph: SkyPixel

Rainbow lines … a track runs between the multicoloured lines of tulips in the Netherlands.

Photograph: SkyPixel

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Some Nat Geo shots I can't stop staring at

Posted on Wednesday, May 22, 2013 from National Geographic - Best Photos Taken of All time

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Portrait Photography : Martin Schoeller

I first came across portrait artist Martin Schoeller when he published his "Faces of America," and I've since seen him pop up in various places. 

What I love about his work is that, as he says on his About page, the people he is photographing "are treated with the same levels of scrutiny as the un-famous. The unknown and the too-well-known meet on a level platform that enables comparison, where a viewer’s existing notions of celebrity, value, and honesty are challenged." 

And I just love that.

You can see more of his work on identical twins, close ups of famous people who are still on the same level as the rest of us, female bodybuilders, and portraits.

"Schoeller’s close-up portraits emphasize, in equal measure, the facial features, both studied and unstudied, of his subjects— world leaders and indigenous groups, movie stars and the homeless, athletes and artists— leveling them in an inherently democratic fashion" (via).

Corey Arnold : ALEUTIAN DREAMS

Corey Arnold can take pictures. 

"Fifteen years ago," he writes on his info page, "I wrote a job-wanted sign and hung it outside of a bathroom near Seattle’s Fisherman’s Terminal. It read: “Experienced deckhand looking for work on a commercial crab or halibut fishing boat in Alaska --- hard worker --- does not get seasick” I was 24 years old, energetic and ambitious, with a few years of salmon fishing experience but naive to the world of high seas fish-work. After a few shifty respondents, I was hired by a seasoned Norwegian fisherman and flew on a small prop plane past the icy volcanos and windswept passes of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, eventually slamming down onto the short runway in Dutch Harbor. The experience would forever change the direction of my life and shape my identity as both a fisherman and photographer. Isolated from the mainland by some of the world's roughest waters, Dutch Harbor is a thriving, working-class commercial fishing port surrounded by steep mountains and lonely windswept valleys. It’s a place where industry and nature collide in strange and beautiful ways, a place where people harvest seafood on a massive scale, and share their meals and their refuse with local wildlife --- from rapacious bald eagles to curious foxes. That first year I worked jigging for Codfish in the Bering Sea and continued to return for work as a crabber for the next seven seasons. What lured me back though wasn’t only the money, but the curious and often masochistic realization of the American dream happening in the Aleutian Islands. Those who come here often possess a desire to escape the safety of home to work in an environment filled with risk and visual grandeur that is far from ordinary. In recent trips, I joined fisherman at sea aboard crabbers and trawlers, and on land documenting the surreal landscape of fishing culture that once captured my imagination as a young greenhorn. Aleutian Dreams is a collection of images from my journey through this wild and unforgiving frontier of Western Alaska.

You can follow his blog here, or see more of his work here. Some of his works include exploring modern man's complicated relationship with animals, Great White Shark diving near Guadalupe Island, Mexico, and Chum Salmon season on the Yukon River in Alaska. And more.

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Steve McCurry Photography : its own place and feeling

"What is important to my work is the individual picture. I photograph stories on assignment, and of course they have to be put together coherently. But what matters most is that each picture stands on its own, with its own place and feeling." - Steve McCurry

Steve McCurry has taken some of the worlds most iconic images, and he's been doing so for the past thirty years.

This picture of Sharbat Gula, an Afghan refugee, has been described as one of the most recognizable photographs of the world.

But there are many more of equal beauty and splendour. 

Here are a few from his Portraits gallery:

"Most of my photos are grounded in people, I look for the unguarded moment, the essential soul peeking out, experience etched on a person’s face."

His other galleries include "On Reading":

"The photograph is an undeniably powerful medium. Free from the constraints of language, and harnessing the unique qualities of a single moment frozen in time."

His work on Kuwait is astonishing. 

"A picture can express a universal humanism, or simply reveal a delicate and poignant truth by exposing a slice of life that might otherwise pass unnoticed."
 

After several years of freelance work, McCurry made his first trip of what would become many trips to India. Traveling with little more than a bag of clothes and another of film, he made his way across the subcontinent, exploring the country with his camera (via).

"There are certain, inescapable images, forever part of our collective consciousness, that influence who we are, whether we are cognizant of it or not."

All works by Steve McCurry.

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Photography  :  -N- Stuff  :  Stories

Ebrahim Noroozi: Iranian Coal Miners

Iranian coal miners shower after a long day of work at a mine near the city of Zirab 132 miles northeast of the capital Tehran on a mountain in Mazandaran province, Iran on May 6, 2014. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)

Ebrahim Noroozi was born in 1980 in Tehran, Iran. He began working as a professional photographer in 2004, with Fars News Agency.

His photographs have appeared nationally and internationally in such publications as the New York Times, Time and the Washington Post, and have been distributed by Agence France-Presse, the Associated Press, Reuters, United Press International and the European Press Photo Agency.

Noroozi has worked in India, Afghanistan and Iran, and served as head of the photo department for the Iran Daily, as well as for the Alvefagh newspaper, Iran Sport, the Iran Photo Agency, the Jamejam newspaper and Jamejam online.

He has won seven awards in Iranian photo contests, and a gold medal from the Asahinewspaper. Noroozi has sat on the juries of several Iranian photo contests (via).

 

Iranian coal miners

A coal miner lights a cigarette after a long of work at a mine near the city of Zirab 132 miles northeast of the capital Tehran on a mountain in Mazandaran province northern Iran on May 8, 2014. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)

An Iranian coal miner takes a break at a mine near the city of Zirab 132 miles northeast of the capital Tehran on a mountain in Mazandaran province, Iran on May 8, 2014. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)

Iranian coal miners eat lunch at a mine near the city of Zirab 132 miles northeast of the capital Tehran on a mountain in Mazandaran province, Iran on Aug. 19, 2014. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)

Iranian coal miners pose for a photograph before taking a shower after a long day of work at a mine near the city of Zirab 132 miles northeast of the capital Tehran on a mountain in Mazandaran province, Iran, May 7, 2014. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)

Iranian coal miners make their way back home after a long day of work at a mine near the city of Zirab 132 miles northeast of the capital Tehran on a mountain in Mazandaran province, May 8, 2014. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)

An Iranian coal miner moves wagons to be loaded with coal at a mine near the city of Zirab 132 miles northeast of the capital Tehran on a mountain in Mazandaran province, Iran on May 8, 2014. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)

Iranian coal miners work in a mine near the city of Zirab 132 miles northeast of the capital Tehran on a mountain in Mazandaran province, Iran on Aug. 19, 2014. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)

An Iranian coal miner with his face smeared black from coal poses for a photograph at a mine near the city of Zirab 132 miles northeast of the capital Tehran, on a mountain in Mazandaran province, Iran on May 7, 2014. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)

 

Other Works:

Iranian Shiites cover themselves with mud during Ashoura, marking the death anniversary of Imam Hussein, the grandson of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, at the city of Bijar, west of the capital Tehran, Iran, Nov. 14, 2013. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)

The wreckage of a boat is stuck in the solidified salts and sands at Lake Oroumieh, northwestern Iran, Feb. 16, 2014. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)

Iranian women pray during the Eid al-Fitr prayer in Tehran, Iran, July 18, 2015. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)

For more on . . .

Photography  :  -N- Stuff  :  Humanity : Ebrahim Noroozi

Photos of NYC in the early 1970s

In the early 1970s, Camilo José Vergara trained his camera on scenes of everyday street life in New York City. His photographs captured kids playing on the street, subway cars before graffiti, sections of the Bronx that look bombed out, and the construction of the World Trade Center in progress.

See also his Tracking Time project, specific locations around the US photographed repeatedly over periods of up to 40 years. Vergara was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2002 for this work (via). 

For more on . . .

Photography  :  Humanity  :  -N- Stuff

Hong Kong in the 1950s

These stunning photographs of Hong Kong in the 1950s are captured beautifully by a teenager. Ho Fan who arrived from Shanghai in 1949. The streets, filled with vendors, coolies and rickshaw drivers, fascinated Ho. Taking pictures in a studio was the norm then, but the Ho was more interested in random, candid shots of strangers. His targets, however, did not always smile into the lens of his Rolleiflex. But it is great street photography that gives a peek into daily life in Hong Kong at that time. The photography is part of his book “A Hong Kong Memoir”

Time, Travel, and Road Signs

There is nothing quite like a good road trip. The music, the scenery, and the adventure of the road. It's simply the best. And America is made for it.

Steve Fitch, a photographer and anthropologist, has been photographing roadside motel signs since the late 1970s. He was inspired by road trips his family took when he was young, between Northern California and South Dakota.

The photographs, all taken in the same square composition, depict more than signs but rather unique highway sculptures of a lost era. While back in the 1970s there was no nostalgia for neon motel signs, Fitch says, I do think I had some kind of subconscious premonition that things were going to change; I think that my photographic interests have always been driven, to some extent, by an eye towards history.

Part of the realized nostalgia of these signs is the change in road culture: Fitch notes that there are now standard signs made by corporate-owned motels that create an unexciting monotony along the highway. But the old signs all stand out independently of one another, representing a sense of freedom and the spontaneity of road trips. From a wrapped gift at the Christmas Motel to an elaborate stagecoach at the Butterfield Stage Motel, the designs are matched to their locations.

Prints from the book are exhibited at Photo-Eye Bookstore Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, through February 18. And Fitch's book, American Motel Signs, is available to purchase online.

Repost from Yahoo Style

“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

Bilbo Baggins

jtinseoul : Loud yet Clear

JT White is a street and documentary photographer based in Seoul, South Korea. "Noise" in digital photographs is used to describe visual distortion - grain for example, and JT White's photography has a lot of noise. But it works.

Each photograph is full of emotion - tone even.

And his ability to capture a moment is truly mesmerizing. 

Here's a few images from his tattoo project entitled, "The Culture."

JT White has also been featured at Lensculture and can be followed on instagram: @jt_inseoul. 

Jump!

Philippe Halsman was a renowned portrait photographer who was particularly active in the 40s, 50s, and 60s and most famous for his iconic photos of Salvador Dali and Albert Einstein. For a period in the 1950s, Halsman ended his portrait shoots by asking his famous subjects to jump. The results were disarming.

When you ask a person to jump, his attention is mostly directed toward the act of jumping and the mask falls so that the real person appears.

Halsman got all sorts of people to jump for his camera: Richard Nixon (above), Robert Oppenheimer, Marilyn Monroe (above), Aldous Huxley, Audrey Hepburn (above), Brigitte Bardot, and the Duke & Duchess of Windsor (above). He collected all his jump photos into the recently re-released Philippe Halsman’s Jump Book.

Repost from kottke.org

First off, kottke.org is just a great resource for fun information so thanks to kottke for yet another inspiration/stolen post!

Second, what's so great about these pictures is the "other side" of those being photographed - the "real person." Everyone has a child inside, often hidden and suppressed by expectations, judgements, and "maturity." Jumping seems to be the key to unlocking the cage. If only for a little while.

Thanks Philippe Halsman for the great photos!

A Wolf in Hong Kong

Kottke.org first brought me to Michael Wolf and his work, and since then, I've loved it. He isn't magical or polished. He's raw, and the stories and emotions he evokes are powerful. Here is some of his work:

Architecture Density:

100x100:

Hong Kong homes that measure 100 square feet or less in size.

Tokyo Compression:

You can view all Michael Wolf's work here

2016, The Year in Photos

Brexit, climate change, Trump, Syria, white nationalism, Turkey, racism and police violence, the Flint water crisis, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, drowned migrants. I was tempted to just post a photo of a burning dumpster or the this is fine dog and leave it at that. But professional photographers and the agencies & publications that employ them are essential in bearing witness to the atrocities and injustices and triumphs and breakthroughs of the world and helping us understand what’s happening out there. It’s worth seeking out what they saw this year.

Several sites, publications, and agencies have published lists of the best and most newsworthy photos of the year. Among them are In Focus’ Top 25 News Photos of 2016as well as their three-part 2016: The Year in Photos (part 1, part 2, part 3), National Geographic’s The 52 Best Photographs of 2016, Time’s Top 100 Photos of the Year 2016, AFP’s Pictures of the Year (part 1, part 2, part 3), 2016: The Year in Photos from CNN, Pictures of the Year 2016 from Reuters, the AP’s Top Photos of 2016, some of the top images from the World Press Photo exhibition, which “highlights the best photojournalism of the year”, The Top Photos of 2016 from Maclean’s, and The Best Weird and Wonderful Photos of 2016 from totallycoolpix.com.

I’ve selected five of my favorite photos from these lists and included them above. From top to bottom, the photographers are Jonathan Bachman, Brent Stirton, Kai Pfaffenbach, Anuar Patjane Floriuk, and Mahmoud Raslan. The top photo, by Bachman, pictures the arrest of Ieshia Evans while protesting the death of Alton Sterling by the Baton Rouge police and is just flat-out amazing. In a piece for The Guardian, Evans wrote:

When the armored officers rushed at me, I had no fear. I wasn’t afraid. I was just wondering: “How do these people sleep at night?” Then they put me in a van and drove me away. Only hours later did someone explain that I was arrested for obstructing a highway.

There’s so much fear in that photo — institutional fear, racial fear, societal fear — but none of it is coming from Evans. Total hero.

Update: Buzzfeed shares The 46 Most Powerful Photos of 2016 and the BBC has the 15 finalists in the 2016 Art of Building architectural photography competition.

A REPOST FROM KOTTKE.ORG