Photo manipulations by Joan Charmant

Joan Charmant is a software engineer who started playing with photo manipulations in 2004, when one day he stumbled upon some UFO pictures and wanted to see how hard it would have been to fake them.
He started spending some days and nights on the website Worth1000.com (there are many great tutorials and competition on photo manipulation in that website, give it a look) and learnt a lot from the other members.

Anyway, his photoshop skills are great and his creative process pretty interesting.. just pity that his day job is software engineer so you can’t find many pics from him on the net (or twitter accounts, blogs, flickr and so on)

I really like his photo manipulations, and you?

Materials used in this picture:

material used in this picture:

material used in this picture:

fantastic materials used in this picture

Source:
An interview with Joan Charmant by Abduzeedo
Joan Charmant home page

International Photography Festival F/Stop 2009

The 3rd edition of the International Photography Festival F/Stop takes place from July 1st – 7th 2009 in Leipzig, Germany.

The festival focuses on contemporary national and international photography.

The main program focuses on the changes in live of two generations after the revolution in 1989.

Additionally a symposium on “Curating contemporary photography” will be organized.

Artists can the download at http://www.f-stop-leipzig.de/v3/en/aktuell.php the application form for this year’s international competition called “Where do we go from here?”. The deadline for sending your work is *6th April 2009*.

The finalists will be reviewed by an international jury.

The winner will be invited to join the world’s biggest portfolio review in Houston,Texas (USA) and can present his/her work to famous directors, curators and artists from all over the world.

From Moritz Arnold
F/Stop Festival Team 2009

Daido Moriyama on compact camera

Do you still think you need a Nikon D300, a Hasselblad or an extremely expensive lens to become a great photographer? Well, think again.

In this video Daido Moriyama explain you how a small compact camera is a lot better than a reflex to take street shots.

Of course, each person has his/her own style, maybe you (and me too) like to have the quality and versatility of a DSLR.. try to think If Ansel Adams have had just a compact camera to take photographs…

But the main points here are:

It’s not impossible to take great photos with a compact camera.
You can be a great photographer with any camera.
It’s all about creativity.

So, next time you have a slow lens, no flash, and you want to take street shots at night.. Don’t say it’s impossible, just bump your iso and use you camera creatively!