I just stumbled across this fun little iPhone parody from a few years back—but honestly, isn’t this pitch basically the appeal of ostensibly super hot apps that promise disposable photography and the gritty “realness” of early, ugly Instagram?
Category Archives: Photography
“The Shining” goes 3D
Topi Kauppinen creates a beautifully uncanny effect, turning 2D stills from The Shining into 3D:
Around The World
Just a little fun exploring the land of big sticks (mineral & selfie). Shot on Insta360 One X2, edited in its app + Splice.
Lego: Nanonaxx Conquer Death Valley
Do I seem like the kind of guy who’d have tiny Lego representations of himself, his wife, our kids (the Micronaxx), and even our dog? What a silly question. 😌
I had a ball zipping around Death Valley, unleashing our little crew on sand dunes, lonesome highways, and everything in between. In particular I was struck by just how often I got more usable shallow depth-of-field images from my iPhone (which, like my Pixel, lets me edit the blur post-capture) than from my trusty, if aging, DSLR & L-series lens.
Anyway, in case this sort of thing is up your alley, please enjoy the results.



Snowflakes materialize in reverse
“Enjoy your delicious moments,” say the somewhat Zen pizza boxes from our favorite local joint. In that spirit, let’s stay frosty:
PetaPixel notes,
Jens writes that the melting snowflake video was shot on his Sony a6300 with either the Sony 90mm macro lens or the Laowa 60mm 2:1 macro lens. He does list the Sony a7R IV as his “main camera,” but it’s still impressive that this high-resolution video was shot thanks to one of Sony’s entry-level offerings.
3D dronie!
Inspired by the awesome work of photogrammetry expert Azad Balabanian, I used my drone at the Trona Pinnacles to capture some video loops as I sat atop one of the structures. My VFX-expert friend & fellow Google PM Bilawal Singh Sidhu used it to whip up this fun, interactive 3D portrait:
The file is big enough that I’ve had some trouble loading it on my iPhone. If that affects you as well, check out this quick screen recording:

The facial fidelity isn’t on par with the crazy little 3D prints of my head I got made 15 (!) years ago—but for for footage coming from an automated flying robot, I’ll take it. 🤘😛
Echoing in my mind…
“If you want to be a better photographer, stand in front of more interesting things.” Seems like solid advice, especially when one gets the chance to sit atop the pinnacles of an ancient seabed & orbit them with a drone.
I enjoyed capturing a few 360º panoramas while I was up there. Click/tap and drag these to explore:
“No drone, no problem”: Amazing shots with a long selfie stick
Greetings from Death Valley! I’ve been so busy running around with Adobe’s Russell Brown & some amazing models that I’ve had no time to post. I’m having a lot of fun using my new extended selfie stick & creating faux-drone shots like these, which I think you may really dig:
Ballistic: Balloons vs. Face
Here’s an eye-popping (hopefully not literally!) way to celebrate reaching 1 million YouTube subscribers. Let the good times, and viscous paint, flow:


[Via]
“The World Deserves Witnesses”
Lovely work from Leica, testifying to the power of presence, capture, and connection.
Per PetaPixel,
“A witness, someone who sees what others simply watch,” the company writes in a description of the campaign. “When Leica invented the first 35mm camera in 1914, it allowed people to capture their world and the world around them and document its events, no matter how small or big they were. Today, as for more than one century, Leica keeps celebrating the witnesses, the ones who see the everyday beauty, grace and poetry, and the never ending irony and drama of our human condition, and bring their cameras to the eye in order to frame it and fix it forever.