8 Lessons Learned from My First Attempt at Portrait Photography One of the things I love about dPS is that we have a variety of photographers of different levels of experience and exploring different types of photography – all learning together. Today Aaron Meyers shares what he learned in his first attempt at portrait photography. Let me start out by saying I’m an amateur photographer. I always loved taking photos but I didn’t buy my first SLR (a D80) until 2007. Since then I’ve mostly done landscape/nature photography and I’ve slowly upgraded my gear (to a D300s) and I’m starting to branch out and try new things. Lately I’ve really enjoyed looking at portrait/model photos on Flickr so I thought I would give it a try. The Things I learned on my first portrait photoshoot: 1. Also, don’t forget that bright spots show up in between tree/shrub leaves and those can be really distracting. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
6 Ways Your Sense of Smell Is Secretly Controlling Your Mind #3. Change Your Moods Maybe it's not a vivid memory that assaults you out of nowhere, but a feeling, or a mood. You're sitting there, minding your own business, when suddenly you're overcome with dread, or anxiety, or anger. Once again, there's a good chance a faint smell is at play, triggering your subconscious. Fans of aromatherapy are always talking about "relaxing" scents, but the nose is actually way more useful when it comes to making you anxious, or alert. Photos.com"Goddammit, Steve, this looks like a two candy cane vault." Bad smells not only decrease how well people do at complex tasks, but also have a negative effect as severe as you'd get from exposing people to a distracting noise. Photos.com"I'm sorry, but does someone in here have a full bladder?" But How? It's down to something called olfactory conditioning: You pair up a smell with something that causes a reaction, and later on that smell will cause a repeat of that reaction, even if the original cause is gone. #2. #1.
5 Clues Hidden in Computer Files That Can Get You Busted It may seem like the Internet is a Wild Wild West of hackers, spammers and document leakers, but it's actually harder to get away with things in the computer age than you might think. Hidden in each and every computer file you create is another layer of data that even a mildly knowledgeable computer user can dig up. Documents and photos reveal more about you than you think, and data you think you deleted, don't stay gone. You are leaving digital fingerprints all over everything you do on a computer and, unfortunately for the bad guys, it doesn't exactly take a CSI team to find them ... #5. Word Document Reveals That the Iraq Invasion Was Based on Plagiarized College Essays Getty Every Microsoft Word document you create contains a hidden log of everything you did to it, ever. Getty"Now replace 'No Evidence of WMDs' with 'Bulging titloads of WMDs, you guys.'" Via Information Risk and Security"Mnuts licked file ..." #4. Via News92fm.comPwNd by fBi <3 u, prizn bitch lolz! #3.
5 Psychological Experiments That Prove Humanity is Doomed Cracked.com's new book is now on sale. What follows is one of 22 classic articles that appear in the book, along with 18 new articles that you can't read anywhere else. Psychologists know you have to be careful when you go poking around the human mind because you're never sure what you'll find there. A number of psychological experiments over the years have yielded terrifying conclusions about the subjects. Oh, we're not talking about the occasional psychopath who turns up. The Asch Conformity Experiment (1953) The Setup: Solomon Asch wanted to run a series of studies that would document the power of conformity, for the purpose of depressing everyone who would ever read the results. Subjects were told that they would be taking part in a vision test, along with a handful of people. The Result: Questions the subjects were asked were like the puzzle shown here: All they had to do was say which line on the right matched the one on the left. ... and make sure you conform to it perfectly. C.
Funny shit You really can’t measure stupidity. There is not a scale in the world that would reach the depths of stupidity that mankind can reach. The last .gif today is a perfect example. Just shake your head because that’s all one can do. It’s Saturday and a day a rest. Tags: bizarre, FAIL, Fun, funny, gif, idiot, moron, odd, OMG, Photography, warped, weird, wtf
25 Beautiful Macro Photography Shots - Smashing Magazine Advertisement Macro photography is the art of taking close-up pictures that reveal details which can’t be seen with the naked eye. For example, while we can see the fly on the wall, our eyes aren’t equipped to make out the fine details of the hairs on it’s face. This is where macro photography comes in. In this edition of our Monday Inspiration series we present 25 beautiful examples of macro photography. You may also be interested in the following related posts: 25 Beautiful Examples Of Macro Photography Eye of a Tokay Gecko“A close-up shot of a Tokay Gecko. La force et la passion“She felt her strength and passion back by 1 small drop of water.”. High-Tech Jumper“Jumping spider on a DVD reading my data! Bubble Magic“Close-up of a wet leaf … taken with a Canon Powershot A610 :)” The photo is taken by Sophie. Lasius Vlavius“This yellow meadow ant is trying to find a way to dry ground after the rain”. Flower DetailClose-up of a very colorful flower, shot by MeLissa Stolte. Igor Siwanowicz
5 Insane Ways Words Can Control Your Mind On some level we already know that language shapes the way we think. We're automatically more afraid to fight a guy named Jack Savage than somebody named Peewee Nipplepuss, even if we've never seen either of them before. It's totally illogical, but you probably run into an example of that every day, and don't notice it. While we tend to think words are just sounds we make to express ideas, science is finding that language is more like a fun house mirror, warping what we see in mind-blowing ways. For instance ... Speaking English Makes Us More Likely to Blame People Let's say your roommate Steve is jumping on your bed. How will you answer? Keep in mind, Steve pulls this shit all the time. The answer largely depends on what language you speak. Stanford scientists did experiments on this, by having speakers of various languages watch videos featuring, in various situations, people breaking eggs or popping balloons, sometimes on purpose, sometimes on accident. Will nothing stop his madness?
The 4 Craziest Scientific Theories Posed by U.S. Politicians American politics is a nightmare version of American Idol: It's full of desperately unqualified people who won popularity contests, and they can ruin your life, even if you don't watch them. Especially then, in fact. Especially squared when they're on science-related committees. Bipartisan politics is the evil opposite of science, changing facts to fit preformed opinions. MattelAnd C-SPAN would single-handedly save television. I'm not going to mention party affiliation below, because mentioning that is to science what mentioning your collection of unwashed children's clothing is to joining the police: way past irrelevant and into evidence that you're the kind of problem they're meant to be fixing. #4. Committee on Science, Space and Technology Todd Akin looks like a race of goblins grew a hybrid in a glass tank to infiltrate humanity, but he knows less about the female reproductive system. "First of all, from what I understand from doctors, that's really rare. Behold! #3.
18 of the most memorable speeches from sci-fi and fantasy films It's summer blockbuster season, filled with massive explosions and eye-popping special effects. But never forget that nothing can get the heart pounding or blood pumping better than words—especially when they're in the form of memorable speeches given in some of sci-fi and fantasy's greatest movies. We've found 18 memorable and often inspiring movie monologues that really hit a nerve with audiences. (We'll leave those TV shows speeches for a future list.) Check them out below! V for Vendetta—V's Televised Speech The revolution will not be televised—or will it? Troy—Achilles' Speech Achilles (Brad Pitt) was a cocky son of a gun who really wanted to take the Trojans down a peg or two. The 13th Warrior—Norse Prayer Final battle scenes in war movies always pull at the heartstrings, especially when you already know the outcome. The Matrix Reloaded—Morpheus' Speech "Zion! Starship Troopers—Lieutenant Jean Rasczak's Welcome Speech Michael Ironside has military-speak down to a science.
21 Sample Poses to Get You Started with Photographing Men 17K+A Guest Post by Kaspars Grinvalds from Posing App. Following the previous article on posing when photographing female subjects (update: see below for a complete set of posing guides for kids, couples and more), let’s look at some starting points with men photography. Men are usually less comfortable in process of being photographed, so it’s important to get him to be at ease with the process in order to get good results. It is always a good idea to prepare before the photo shoot. Just one more peace of advice – involve your subject in the process! He will feel more confident knowing the plan, what he has to “do” and what kind of outcome is expected. So, let’s look at some sample poses for men. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. That should be at least something to use as a starting point. Check out our other Posing Guides: Grab Our Guide to Portrait Posing Kaspars Grinvalds is a photographer working and living in Riga, Latvia.
5 Creepy Forms of Mind Control You're Exposed to Daily One of our favorite subjects is the way marketers can use psychology to manipulate you into doing what they want (we don't think "brainwashing" is too strong a word). We know what you're thinking: You're far too cynical to fall for the ads you fast forward through on your DVR or the little tricks employed by marketers and politicians to push your subconscious buttons. But are you sure? Because science has found ... #5. Getty Remember when Neo got to choose between the red pill and the blue pill? "I really hope being swallowed by a mirror is covered by my insurance." What? Did you notice how the red pill would let Neo "wake up" to the real world, but the blue pill would let him stay "asleep" in the dream world? Blue, blue and blue -- if not the package, then the pill itself. What the hell? So, in a different experiment, subjects were told they were going to get a sedative or a stimulant, when in fact they were getting neither -- all of the pills were placebos. Wait, it gets even stupider.
The 5 Most Surreal Financial Apocalypses from History Nothing in the world is more taken for granted than money -- our only concern is whether we have enough of it, not whether it will work at all. Nobody puts in ten hours of overtime and spends the whole time praying that by payday the grocery store will still accept the currency ... despite the fact that this exact situation has played out again and again. Money is a fragile thing, vulnerable to a whole lot of societal factors that you have no control over whatsoever. Which is why sometimes things just go completely insane ... #5. So you head down to the grocery store to get a box of Pop-Tarts for lunch, because you live alone and haven't flipped the page on your Dragonriders of Pern calendar in three months. Getty"Sorry, ma'am, no cards. What? The Hungarian economy experienced possibly the most catastrophic hyperinflation in history between 1945 and 1946, with inflation topping out at roughly 200 percent per day and prices doubling about every 15 hours. How the hell did this happen? #4.
terry pratchett How To Give Your Photos a Dark Processed Lomo Effect This post was originally published in 2010 The tips and techniques explained may be outdated. Follow this step by step post processing guide to give your photos a dark lomo style effect with high contrast, blue tones and vignette burns. The effect is based on the popular lomographic technique and is similar to the processing effect used in many fashion shots and advertisement designs. Overall this effect does a great job of adding impact to a plain photography with cool colour casts and unusual saturation. View full size photo effect Begin by opening your photograph of choice into Adobe Photoshop. Go to Image > Adjustments > Levels and tweak the tones of the image. At the bottom of the Layers palette, click the Adjustment Layer icon and select Curves. Change the drop down menu to Green and tweak the graph for the green channel to further alter the tones of the image. Finally alter the Blue channel, creating an inverted ‘S’ shape to enhance the blues to give a cool colour cast.