We’ve definitely been on a Halloween kick lately (candy? costumes? we’re lovin’ it!), so that considered, we couldn’t resist letting you know about this alternative method to capturing ghosts on film:
Bob Dragomirescu wrote in and told us about ‘em: The photos were “shot on a tripod with 6s exposure and flash. We posed for only 1-2s and than ran out of the scene. The flash managed to freeze the most lighted parts of us (faces and hands). The rest is transparent… pretty neat?”
Seems we might really need Scooby Doo after all… after we featured William Hundley’s “Entoptic Phenomena” photo series in the newsletter, there’s been more ghosts hanging around than Haley Joel Osment would know what to do with.
A few of our readers decided to try Hundley’s “Entoptic Phenomena” trick out for themselves, and we have to say: we’re mightily impressed! Heather took the idea and wore out some kids she was watching over the weekend with it; Lori also tried it out to phenomenal success.
And just in case you’re wanting to try it too, we’ve pulled together some tips just for that:
Shoot using a very fast shutter speed (say, 1/640 or 1/800) – for most of these shots that worked out, the shutter was only open for about a thousandth or two of a second (.002 second-ish).
If you only have a point-and-shoot, try setting it onto “Sports Mode” – it’s usually set up specifically to take photos of quick action like this.
Shoot around noon, so that shadows hit the ground behind the sheet. Sunny days are great for this.
Use flexible people – know any dancers or gymnasts? Use them. Drape three-fourths of the sheet over their front, have ‘em grab it from inside, hunch over, and then jump as high as they can. (If they can jump while tucking their knees in, all the better.) Get ready to shoot fast!
Try again… and again… and again… Practice makes perfect.
That’s all there is to it, so get out there and start ghost-sleuthing already!
Well, after our recent newsletter, there’s now a whole slew of photographs running around without their heads. We’re sorry for the photographic barbarism, but how can you really resist when all those nifty websites are so much fun?
Here’s one more that we missed — awesome, extra-special Photojojo love to reader Mark for letting us know:
Plug a photo into the site, outline the head – then hop in the car, crank up some tunes, and enjoy a road trip through Tennessee with the King… seriously, what more could you ask for with a decapitated head?
Hi, my name is Kari and I am a Mom with a Camera (MWAC). While some may consider the phrase pejorative I consider it to be descriptive. I’m an amateur photographer with a dSLR doing my best to learn the art and science of photography and digital darkroom processing. I am also the mother of a 3 year old boy who is my most frequent photographic subject.
I’ve been reading Photojojo for quite a while and I am looking forward to bringing one MWAC’s perspective to Photojojo Uncut. Nice to meet you!
Every once in a while, a great technological breakthrough comes along that has us jumping up and down, bouncing off the walls, and running through the streets wearing cardboard signs proclaiming, “The future has arrived!”
Well, we just did all that, and now we’re back to tell you about this revolutionary advance. Adobe recently announced [via CNET News.com and Audioblog.fr] what basically amounts to camera technology with a multi-view lens that would allow people to take 3D pictures. (How cool does that sound?) With a bug’s eye-like lens, a camera could receive multiple sub-views taken from slightly different angles all at the same time. Then, with that information, a computer could reconstruct a model of the photographed scene in glorious 3D.
So we were left thinking, “Okay, sounds cool. But what does it do?”
Turns out, with a 3d photographic model practically anything is possible! (Alright, it won’t make you toast. But almost anything.)
Selectively blur, or delete, everything a certain distance past the main subject in your photograph. (Chaotic backgrounds, be gone!)
Shift the focus plane in your photo, after you take it. (Maybe the hotdog vendor behind your boss and his family at the World Series game is really more interesting!)
Use a 3D healing brush to get rid of everything behind a person’s head. (No more telephone poles coming out of Grandpa Harold’s head!)
All this “computational photography” sounds easy enough. And while this is still only developing technology – with no release date in sight – we’re crazy excited about the possibilities. Dave Story, Adobe’s vice president of digital imaging product development, said, “The more things we can do that are impossible to do in a camera, the more powerful people’s ability to express themselves becomes.”
We’re still waiting for the flying cars, but allow us to be the first: “The future is here! The future is here!”
Here at Photojojo, we don’t just snap photographs all day and think of awesome things to do with them. Sometimes, we get distracted by irresistibly wonderful and genius commercials on YouTube.
Take this one, for instance – an ad from Sony for its Bravia TV. Featuring 200 plasticine bunnies hopping around Manhattan (shot in claymation style), what’s not to love?
Apparently it took a team of 40 animators – from the ad agency Fallon London – three weeks to choreograph their bunny models and shoot over 100,000 still images for the 90 second spot. We’d just like to say that that’s some diligent photography (and a whole lot of clay) right there, folks.
Seems we might really need Scooby Doo after all… after we featured 
Well, 
Every once in a while, a great technological breakthrough comes along that has us jumping up and down, bouncing off the walls, and running through the streets wearing cardboard signs proclaiming, “The future has arrived!”
Here at Photojojo, we don’t just snap photographs all day and think of awesome things to do with them. Sometimes, we get distracted by irresistibly wonderful and genius commercials on YouTube.
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