From a young age, we’re introduced to toys in one way or another. As we get older most of us ditch the toy soldiers or model cars for real ones in order to get to work, where our imagination can sometimes take a back seat. If you’re anything like me, though, you may still have a few old favorites tucked away in your loft – and a recent resurgence in creative home projects has seen people building dioramas to showcase their old (and new) figurines in a new way.
• Get closer to your subjects with the best macro lenses (opens in new tab)
Pergear has announced the arrival of the ultra-compact TTartisan 27mm F2.8 Autofocus Lens For Fujifilm cameras. The new lens features a pancake design with a 41mm equivalent focal length, which makes it an ideal choice for everyday use.
What marks this lens out is the inclusion of a fast autofocus system with manual override for those that want. The lens’s aperture is also adjustable, utilising the aperture ring that is an integral part of the lens barrel.
Ensuring that the lens is fully suitable for a huge range of photographic genres, from landscapes and portraits to the street, the lens incorporates an aperture range between f/1.2 to f/16.
Running through a few of the main features of the new lens. The artisan 27mm F2.8 Autofocus has been designed for APS-C-format FUJIFILM X-mount mirrorless cameras, and considering the camera’s crop factor; this provides a 41mm equivalent focal length.
Design-wise the lens has been developed to be as compact as possible, taking on the everyday pancake lens look and style. This low profile makes it an ideal choice as an everyday lens.
To ensure you get the shot, the lens features a bright f/2.8 maximum aperture that will enable you to capture creative images with plenty of control over the depth of field and work in lower light conditions where you need as much light passing through the lens as possible.
The internal makeup of the lens sees 6 elements in 5 groups, including 2 high refraction index lenses, which can effectively suppress colour difference and control spherical aberrations. In addition to the lens, optics is a 7-blade diaphragm that helps to contribute to a smooth bokeh quality.
Finally, the optical design renders a 56° angle of view to produce a distinct visual. This FOV makes the lens perfect for still-lifes, close-ups, streets, and travel photography.
The artisan 27mm F2.8 Autofocus Lens For Fuji Amazon Link is available now.
It was while taking a weekend trip to a college friend’s home that he first met Tierney… who juuuust so happened to be his friend’s… sister. Immediately, Tom was attracted to her. But he *also* knew this totally violated guy code – being into your friend’s sister, that is.
But after getting his friend’s stamp of approval to reach out to Tierney, he did. Their friendship formed, but as they both joke now “it was a SLOW burn.”
However, as time passed, their relationship grew… and grew… and grew. Into something more. Into something neither of them could deny. Through Tierney’s med school in Pittsburg and Tom’s ranger school in Anchorage, Alaska, they’ve made it work and found a way to balance school, responsibilities, and most importantly: time together. They’ve chosen each other through it all, no matter the obstacle, and I have no doubt that’s what makes them so strong as a couple now!
While visiting Tom in Savannah, they visited one of their favorite parks. It was there that Tom asked Tierney to be his wife… then surprised her by having their parents and her brother there afterwards to celebrate IN PERSON. <3
Tom & Tierney, I’m so excited and honored to be your wedding photographer and to have you two in front of my camera!! I can’t wait to document your day and am counting downnnn to May! For now, enjoy a few of my favorites from your engagement session!! Xo
For Photographers: Love creamy skintones & soft colors? Learn to edit light & airy here!
Eden joined 360Cities three years ago. Since then he has published almost 300 360º videos making him one of our more prolific 360º video contributors.
Thanks to his work, you can travel in time and visit Notre Dame in Paris and other wonders and cities like the Church of the Holy Sepulcher or the Priestly Blessing at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, canals of Amsterdam, the Colosseum in Rome, Piazza San Marco in Venice, Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, the Christ the Redeemer Monument in Rio De Janeiro, and from the inside of the Louver Pyramid.
Don’t miss the chance to travel the world by visiting Eden’s profile page. Check out his videos in VR too!
Here are the one more set of 30 photos that accidentally ended up looking like renaissance paintings. With digital cameras available on almost every phone out there, trying your hand at photography has never been so easy.
And even though it might be a little intimidating at first, especially if you compare your photos to those taken by pros, even beginners can produce some pretty stunning images. In fact, there are a lot of great pictures that were captured purely by accident – and the r/AccidentalRenaissance subreddit is the perfect proof.
Scroll down and inspire yourself. All photos are linked and lead to the sources from which they were taken. Please feel free to explore further works of these photographers on their collections or their personal sites.
#1 Woman sits by the window of a Lviv-bound train. AP
Image Source: u/fleece_white_as_snow
#2 The Selfie
Image Source: u/[deleted]
#3 Chef in Siena, Italy 2020
Image Source: u/iskanderthethief
#4 US Men’s Olympic Water Polo Team
Image Source: u/The_Fish_Alliance
#5 Concert Selfie
Image Source: u/ironypatrol
#6 A young man, illuminated by mobile phones, recites a poem while protestors chant slogans calling for civilian rule, during a blackout in Khartoum, Sudan
Image Source: u/Somali_Pir8
#7 Supper at home
Image Source: u/watsin_aname
#8 Evening train
Image Source: u/Panishev
#9 A wild composition
Image Source: u/Subterfug3
#10 Dearly Beloved
Image Source: u/SirBroDude
#11 Hope
Image Source: u/throne_johne
#12 Two peacocks fighting like angels
Image Source: u/Pragalbhv
#13 Hasidic Tish during Sukkot, Jerusalem
Image Source: u/adeadhead
#14 Syrians in Al Yarmouk Camp waiting for aid
Image Source: u/Casualte
#15 Renaissance Chickens
Image Source: u/rattechnology
#16 The coffee shop window
Image Source: u/KingofHarts321
#17 Fields of Fire
Image Source: u/rooodney
#18 Fields of Fire
Image Source: u/Vsevolda
#19 A nun at the airport (OC)
Image Source: u/[deleted]
#20 Angela Merkel with fishermen, 1990
Image Source: u/nuniabidness
#21 My son and I caught in a storm
Image Source: u/[deleted]
#22 The dreamers (2008)
Image Source: u/Legumetoxique
#23 Game’s Night
Image Source: u/blakefaraway
#24 VA Tech Snowball Fight
Image Source: u/eggoeater
#25 Cairo, Egpyt. Selling lemonade
Image Source: u/Apprehensive_Guest
#26 Mesmerized
Image Source: u/88outtatime
#27 Madonna of Saint Alberdi enjoying the match
Image Source: u/gustavsen
#28 French farmers use fire to try to save their vineyards during cold nights
Image Source: u/QompleteReasons
#29 Ashbourne Shrovetide Football, Derbyshire, England
As a teenager growing up in Peckham, an ethnically diverse area of London, the photographer Nadine Ijewere observed the way that the women around her dressed. The neighbourhood “aunties”, as all older women were known, paired Nigerian patterns with Gucci handbags and Burberry motifs; they would style their afro hair in a way that was almost sculptural. Ijewere was interested in fashion photography, but she began to notice that the prints and hairstyles she saw everyday didn’t appear in magazines. She didn’t understand why these “pieces of art in themselves” were not more visible. At weekends, she would take photographs of her friends, many of whom were of mixed heritage like her, in the local park.
In 2018, at the age of 26, Ijewere became the first black woman to shoot a Vogue magazine cover, featuring the singer Dua Lipa draped in white feathers. Ijewere soon became known for her ethereal backdrops, her work with mixed-race models and her meticulous attention to black hair. In 2020, she did another photoshoot with Vogue, which accompanied a piece praising Nigerian “aunties”. The women in the shoot wore traditional head wraps and metallic floral and chequered prints in clashing colours. “I looked at those photographs and saw the women I grew up with,” Ijewere said. “I saw my heritage. And it was special.”
March onOpening image: Arielle Bobb-Willis is part of a new generation of black fashion photographers. From top to bottom: Nadine Ijewere shoots in ethereal locations. Ijewere’s photo series “Tallawah” celebrated black hair. Ijewere casts her own models, with a focus on mixed-race individuals
Almost 50 years before Ijewere’s “auntie” shoot, another black photographer, Armet Francis, took a photograph in Brixton, a neighbourhood not far from Peckham. In the picture, a stylish young black woman wearing a lilac suit leans back on a wooden chair in the middle of a road, an umbrella in hand. She looks aloof and carries herself with confidence, seemingly oblivious to the dreary weather and the workaday setting. Francis had been commissioned by a fashion magazine, but wanted to be subversive: instead of shooting in a studio, he went to Brixton Market, in an attempt to record the “proper reality of everyday black life”.
Since the mid-19th century, black photographers have sought to capture images that reflect the lives, preoccupations and personalities of black subjects. In the process, they have worked to rectify centuries of hackneyed representations. Francis was one of a small group of photographers to do this in Britain. In the 1960s, he moved away from the fashion industry towards a lifelong project: documenting the experiences of the African diaspora in the Americas and Britain. He had been struck by the fact that one rarely saw black people featured in magazines, beyond reports about famines in Africa. He wanted to photograph the black diaspora in all its vibrancy: “to me, they are home pictures,” he said.
In 20th-century Britain, black photographers were seldom published widely, and discrimination against them was common. James Barnor, one of Francis’s contemporaries, only attained mainstream recognition as an octogenarian. Now his work stands as a vital historical document of black societies as they changed. In the 1950s, Barnor witnessed Ghana’s independence movement; during the swinging Sixties, he photographed members of the African diaspora in London.
Both Barnor and Francis explored black identities as they fractured, shifted and evolved across continents. Many of today’s black photographers draw on their work, consciously and subconsciously – especially those working in the fashion industry. According to Antwaun Sargent, the curator of an exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery about a new generation of black fashion photographers, these young artists are attempting, like Barnor and Francis, to “make beauty from their real, if once unseen, reflections”. Sargent believes that “these image-makers are in the best position now, over any generation that came before them, to make a lasting impact.”
Bold and beautiful Ruth Ossai has photographed life in Nigeria since she was a teenager (top). Ossai’s signature is her use of printed backdrops (middle). Her work is in part inspired by traditional black portraiture (bottom)
Before British-Ghanaian photographer Campbell Addy first encountered Barnor’s work in 2018, he had only seen photographs that looked at Africa through a white lens, focusing on poverty, slavery and war. Barnor’s photos were different. They showed contemporaries of Addy’s grandmother in Ghana and of Ghanaians moving to London. Addy hadn’t seen anything like them before: “It was classy, it was fashionable. It was beautiful. It was modern.” Barnor made Addy feel seen “in a way that only those who have been detached from their culture can understand”.
As a child, Addy moved from Ghana to south London. For a while after his arrival, his new friends would make fun of his accent. Eventually, the accent disappeared, but the feeling of difference remained. He was also frustrated when he visited Ghana: he didn’t know Twi, the main language spoken in Accra, well enough and couldn’t quite grasp the cultural nuances.
Addy’s dual identity has helped him draw on different cultural traditions in his work. “Ignatius”, an early photographic series, pays homage to Ignatius Sancho, the first known black Briton to vote. But elements of the styling and set design nod ironically to the British royal family.
In 2019, aged 26, Addy shot Naomi Campbell, one of the world’s most-photographed black women, for the Guardian. Later, reflecting on the shoot, Campbell noted that it was the first time she had been photographed for a mainstream publication by a black photographer in her 33-year career. To her, “there was something in that moment that felt sacred.”
Feeling seen Campbell Addy has been commissioned by many of the world’s leading publications (top). Addy’s work tells stories about self-assured black lives (middle). He draws upon both the British and Ghanaian aspects of his own identity (bottom)
Addy and Ijewere are just two members of a new generation of black photographers opening up opportunities for black artists working in fashion. Ijewere is establishing her own studio in south London, where she hopes to give younger photographers the space and equipment they need to start out. Addy knows that there is much work to be done. “Black photographers are doing well right now,” he said. “But I sometimes fear we will get smudged out of history. And I don’t want to be a trend.” The best way to make sure this doesn’t happen? “We need to keep on being visible,” he said. “People will look at our work and know that we exist.” ■
The exhibition “The New Black Vanguard” runs from October 28th to January 22nd 2023 at the Saatchi Gallery in London. It features the work of 15 young black fashion photographers, including Nadine Ijewere and Campbell Addy
PARKERSBURG, W.Va. (WTAP) – Lorain Fought – or “Rain” as she prefers to be called – is a four-time breast cancer survivor, two of those times with breast cancer and she is currently battling lung cancer.
Despite the many different bouts with this disease, Rain doesn’t let any of this stop her from continuing to enjoy her life.
As she continues to take up many of her passions, including one that has garnered her both local and national attention.
“I just don’t want to sit around the house,” says Fought. “I want to do something. I got to keep busy. I want to enjoy everything that’s on this Earth, one way or the other.”
After multiple fights with cancer, Fought is not letting this disease wear her down.
She continues many of her passions. One of them being photography.
Something she got back into when she got on Facebook and her friends told her how good she is at it.
Fought says, “And I’m like, ‘You know, maybe a calendar. Maybe make a calendar.’”
And since then, Rain has been churning out a calendar almost every year.
Rain says she provides roughly 150 calendars each year and they go out fast, as people love her wildlife photos.
“I love wildlife. I love nature. I love everything, I think,” says Fought. “So, I’ll go out in the woods and like – for this calendar here – some of the pictures, I sat for probably 10 hours.”
Rain’s photos are not just for calendar use though.
As her work has been featured on many publications and media. Both locally and nationally.
“And I’ve been published in ‘Birds and Bloom,’ ‘Wild and Wonderful West Virginia,’ the bird digest out in Marietta. Also, the Chicago Tribune, the Columbus News,” says Fought.
Rain says that the calendars are also more than a hobby, as she uses these for herself to track her treatments.
“If you look through mine, which you did, you’d see CAT scans, doctor appointments, blood work. You’d see all of those appointments in there,” says Fought. “And I know people do it on their phones, but I’m old school. I use a calendar.”
Fought says that the photos found in these calendars will also be used in “thank you,” “get well,” and other greeting cards at Memorial Health Systems.
Fujifilm has just announced the release of the INSTAX SQUARE Link Smartphone Printer. This new compact printer has been designed to be 100% portable, and the small size and light weight mean that it will easily slip into a large coat or bag pocket, so that it’s there and ready to printing whenever and wherever you are.
The new printer is part of the growing and popular line of Link Smartphone printers and creates INSTAX SQUARE format instant prints that are 1.5 times the size of the INSTAX mini.
As well as the new size in print, the printer packs in various unique features designed to inspire creativity. A new AR (Augmented Reality) print and INSTAX Connect enable smartphone users to create truly individual prints in completely new ways.
As with previous models of the INSTAX printers, plenty of creative options can be reached through the APP. These enable you to add frame templates and digital stickers as well as giving you access to different print mode options.
The App is fully compatible with Android and Apple phones and can be downloaded and installed for free.
The new AR feature is the leading ticket with this new printer, and enables AR special effects, text, images, background colours, doodles and animations to be added. It works by placing a QR code on the photo, unlocking the AR potential.
As ever, INSTAX can also utilise popular smartphone apps using the SQUARE Link App. This enables users to share INSTAX images digitally and again allows the ability to add text and effects before sending them to connected devices.
Along with the special print features comes two print mode options. INSTAX-Rich Mode for deep enriched colours and INSTAX-Natural mode for a more classic look.
The image on Smartphones can also be enhanced with art filters or more traditional development techniques.
“Designed with instant photography and smartphone printing fans in mind, we are excited about introducing the new INSTAX SQUARE Link. The new SQUARE Link combines everything existing customers love about the existing Link formats, now in a SQUARE format – with exciting new features including AR Print and INSTAX Connect, presenting even more options for users to connect, customise, and share images.”
For more details check out the INSTAX SQUARE Link Printer page at fujifilm.com
It was my last wedding of the season and I can’t imagineeee a better wedding to end it with than Alec & Chelsea and their sunshiny hearts!! Spend just five minutes with them and you’ll know what I mean. They’re the kind of couple you just love from the moment you meet them. They’re genuine, kind-hearted, full of joy, and appreciators of the little details in life. <3 Watching Chelsea float around on her wedding day as the happiest human ON EARTH filled my whole heart!
Alec & Chelsea! Thank you for trusting me with these memories and for making my 2019 wedding season end on the perfect note!! One that I’ll never forget. I’m truly so grateful for your trust in me to capture this day. <3
Getting in touch with the best fake tan ireland, to look extraordinary on the wedding day can also be one of the highlights of the ceremony.
Enjoy a few of my favorites from this beautiful Farm at Eagles Ridge wedding full of so much love and be sure to read more of Alec & Chelsea’s love story here! Xo
Vendor Credits: Photographer | Caroline Logan Photography Second Shooter | Vanessa Shenk Planner | Planned Perfection Venue | Farm at Eagles Ridge Floral & Event Design | Petals with Style DJ | 3 West Entertainment Hair & Makeup Artist | The Bonafide Ginger Rentals | Treasured Events Invitations | Minted Wedding Gown | Country Way Bridal Lighting | Shumaker PDT Catering | Tasteful Occasions Cake | Tasteful Occasions
For Photographers: Love creamy skintones & soft colors? Learn to edit light & airy here!
Gary joined 360Cities more than 10 years ago, back in 2011. During this time he has published more than 1,300 stunning panoramas, for which he earned a well-deserved Maestro badge.
Gary is a freelance photographer specializing in maritime scenes. His panoramas focus mainly on historic buildings, such as cathedrals, castles, and lighthouses from his home country, the UK, and from other beautiful locations around the world. Enjoy just a few of his 360ºs below and don’t forget to visit Gary’s profile page!
