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Friday Find

Friday Finds: Cinemagraphs + LED Lighting Love

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Happy Friday Creactives!

I’m sure you all remember GIFs—the animated clip art or photos that made their debut on every late 90s/early 2000s webpage? Oh, you forgot how cool those were?!? Let me share a favorite with you!

Awesome, right? Well, artists Kevin Burg and Jamie Beck have transformed the world of animated photos from tacky and mildly obnoxious to subtle and rather beautiful. Their “cinemagraphs”, named for the cinematic quality their process lends to the traditional photographic image, are more than a photo, but not quite a video. The artists say that “a cinemagraph is an image that contains within itself a living moment that allows a glimpse of time to be experienced and preserved endlessly”. Often, the movement in the scene is just perceptible, unlike the superhero-cat scene above. Burg and Beck have only been working with this process for the past few months, but have already created some really incredible images. Their subtle touch seems to lend itself to pretty much any subject matter, ranging from fashion to food, from cityscapes to beer brewing. Here are a few of my favorite cinemagraphs, and you can view the rest of their portfolio on their website.

Just gorgeous!

Our friends at Photojojo have caught onto this new trend of making animated GIFs that aren’t atrocious, and they’ve written a tutorial that explains how to use multiple exposures to make still photos that look like movies. A word of warning, this step by step tutorial is not for the faint of heart. Like most art forms, making a cinemagraph is a rather intensive process. I haven’t gotten up the courage to try to make one myself yet—hopefully inspiration will strike soon!

Enjoy your long weekend! And, if you end up throwing together a cinemagraph on your day off, send it our way!

Friday Finds: Dog Photography, GorillaPods in the Wild

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Happy Friday Creactives!

Let’s just talk a little bit about our dogs, shall we? Dogs are a constant in our lives — they are unconditionally loving, they’re silly, they chew up our newspapers and our keds. And we love them for all of this.  As I was scrolling through my photo library the other day, I noticed that the majority of my pictures are of my dog. It’s official, I’ve been snared in her web of cuteness. And I probably won’t be able escape. I’m sure you’re all dying to see her now …

Cute, right?

It turns out, a lot of folks are just as into their pets as I am. Pet photography is a serious business and requires a lot skill. Like toddlers, those pups don’t really hold still. Earlier this week, I stumbled across the portfolio of Carli Davidson, a successful photographer of pets (and other things as well). Her images are cute, fun and really showcase the personality of each pet. My favorite images were from her Shake series. She took some fabulously funny photos of wet dogs shaking themselves dry, capturing the few seconds that most of us duck and cover from. Here are a few images. They’ll make you smile. To see more, visit her portfolio.


Do you have an adorable pooch? Or cat? Or salamander? Link, tweet or Facebook your photos so we can gush over our pets together. Don’t leave me hanging!

Summer continues to be a great season for the GorillaMobile and GorillaTorch lines. The GorillaMobile Yogi was featured in a beach vacation survival kit on Beach Tomato and the GorillaTorch Flare was lauded one of the top four camping products in the newest issues of FYI Apple Magazine.

We agree that it’s pretty fabulous!

Our loyal band of creactives has also been very busy this summer using their GorillaPods in a variety of different ways all over the world. Here are a few Instagram images they’ve shared with us from their travels.

Just gorgeous! I love summer! Why don’t we get out there and enjoy it while it’s still around (and send me photo evidence of a good time had on Monday)!

Friday Finds: Yogi in Mac Life, Tilt-Shift Photography, Celebrity Portraiture

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Well Creactives, I guess I am not as tech-saavy as I had once thought. I had pre-written and scheduled a delightful Friday Finds post for last Friday while I was off wine tasting in Napa—tough life!— but it didn’t ever publish. I’m sure you all missed me dearly, and so this week you’ll get to enjoy my post from last week and a whole new slew of finds from this week!

First on the docket, GorillaMobile Yogi was featured in Mac Life magazine along with some other fun and functional tech accessories. Right on Yogi!

Tilt-shift photography— a technique were everything in the scene looks delightfully miniature— has become increasingly popular thanks to Photoshop and several iPhone Apps. Photojojo just dug up a neat point and shoot camera that has a built in tilt-shift ring that allows you to shoot both photo and video in the characteristic tilt-shift style. I must say the GorillaPod video was made for this camera and I hoping one show up at the JOBY office soon. Here are a few images from Photojojo shot with the Tilt-Shift Camera.



Doesn’t that look fun! I’m dying to see what the video looks like!

In September, the Aperture Foundation will publish “The New York Times Magazine Photographs”, book of photographs taken by a panorama of photographers for the New York Times Magazine over the past several years and edited by Kathy Ryan. I’ve always been impressed by the quality of the photography in the Magazine and the sneak peak of the book on the Times’ photography blog did not disappoint. Each photograph in the book with be captioned with behind the scenes information about the shoot— the photographer/gossip in me is particularly excited for these juicy details!

The blog slideshow featured celebrity portraiture and below are a few of my favorites: Clint Eastwood, Diane Keaton and Leonardo DiCaprio. The stylistic range of the photography is just captivating.

Have a wonderful weekend Creactives! See you next week!

Friday Finds: JOBY at Comicon and on vacation

By | Friday Find, Friends of Joby, Gorillapod, Uncategorized | No Comments

Happy Friday Creactives!

After our weekend in Tahoe with minimal internet access (but with maximum water balloon fights, bear sightings and boating adventures), I’ve got a lot of fun things to share.

First, the GorillaPod Focus made an appearance at Comic-Con International in San Diego last weekend. Tony Amat, one of the premier photographers for Comicon and a JOBY loyalist, shared this image from the festival with us. Is it just me or does the Focus look just as good as that lovely lady in lace?

Photographer Leon Oosthuizen also send us a beauty shot of the Focus in action, but in a very different setting— on a busy street in South Africa supporting a vintage Rolleiflex Camera. Gotta love the versatility of that adapter screw!

Gorolleipodiflex

Since summer is in full swing, our GorillaPods have been busy vacationing all over the world. Here are a few beautiful shots from the GorillaPod Love flickr photostream from the past week or so. Ahhh, summer!

Morning

Greece, Lefkada

The Týn Church in the Old Town

 

So many beautiful places just begging to be visited and photographed! Keep the photos coming guys!

As for news in the photo world, photographer Sacha Goldberger just published his series of photographs cataloging the before and after appearances of joggers in France. You might remember Sacha from his Superhero Grandma series. First, he took photos of joggers while they were out exercising in Paris’ Bois de Boulogne park.  He then asked them to come into his studio a week later for a studio portrait wearing their street clothes. Sacha said that he “wanted to show the difference between our natural and brute side versus how we represent ourselves to society. The difference was very surprising.” Below are a few of my favorite portraits.

More than just highlighting differences, I think the project beautifully catalogs the more subtle similarities in the way we present ourselves to the outside world despite different contexts – our posture, the colors we choose to wear. Read more about the Sacha and the series on My ModernMet.

That is all for now! Enjoy your weekend!

Friday Finds: Tahoe Edition

By | Frame X Frame, Friday Find | No Comments

The entire JOBY team is in Tahoe this weekend for our annual corporate off site.  This year we are lucky enough to have most of our international team members joining us as well. Because I’ll be busy teambuilding and galavanting in the wilderness, Friday Finds will be brief this week.

First, here is an great review of the GorillaPod Original and GorillaPod SLR. The gentleman in the review has tons of charisma—he pairs some pretty fabulous one-liners with jazzy music. We see a lot of reviews of our products here at JOBY, but this one from PhotographyTalk had me laughing the whole time. Enjoy!

This artsy photo of a GorillaTorch was shared with us by our friends at Jake Scott Photography. I’ve never seen a GorillaTorch look so moody.

And to close, here are a few photos of georgous Tahoe taken by yours truly. It is unbelievably beautiful up here and such a nice break from city life. Sunshine and fresh air are never overrated.

Have a wonderful weekend Creactives! See you next week!

Friday Finds: Shuttle Launch, Summer Gift Guide, Vacation Shots

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Happy Friday Creactives!

Let’s start off with a video of the recent shuttle launch filmed by Eric Jue, brother of our project manager Michael, using a GorillaMobile for iPhone 4. If you’re impatient, skip to the 23 second mark for 3, 2, 1, blast off!

And a few words from the videographer about how he captured this historic moment: “GorillaMobile was THE perfect solution for this situation. I wanted to capture video and audio of this historic space shuttle launch using my iPhone 4 and needed to get it above the crowd for a clearer view. I scouted the area and ended up attaching the GorillaMobile to a tall vertical pole holding up one of the speakers broadcasting the mission control audio feed. I was able to wrap the legs around the speaker bracket and position the iPhone camera to include the 1st couple rows of spectators in the foreground while maximizing the visible sky for the perfect shot of the launch!”

The GorillaTorch Original continues to be our media darling. This week it was featured in the Core 77 Ultimate Summer Gift Guide. They featured some really fun and unique products in their guide and we are happy to be among such great company. I mean, how awesome is this re-imagined tool box?

And these BBQs by  Black+Blum have been showing up all over the place. I always thought the Weber Smokey Joe was cute, but their Hot Pot takes the cake.

I might be biased, but the JOBY GorillaTorch fits right in with this crowd – unique design and awesome utility!

I’ll send you off with a few beautiful images taken with the help of a GorillaPod. Anybody else have vacation on the brain? Where does your dream getaway take you? I’m torn between Paris and Peru.

Bombay Beach Decay

Elan_Valley_4

Matthiaskirche und Fischerbastei

Friday Finds: Night Photography, Street Photography and iPhone Gadgets

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Happy Friday Creactives!

To start off, our good friends Down Under sent us this fun image shot using both a GorillaPod and a GorillaTorch.  A GorillaPod supported the camera and a GorillaTorch Flare was used write the text. I say that is doubly awesome!

Here is a little bit from the photographer Paul Gibbs: “It was taken on Nikon D700 full frame camera sitting on a Gorillapod, camera set to low ISO to extend time needed to write logo. It was a 30 second exposure at f8 on a tamron 28-75 f2.8 lens.The writer made sure he did not stand too long in one place to remain invisible (nearly),  wrote each letter backwards then covered Flare with hand and then did the next letter. It took just two attempts once we worked out exposure! It was totally dark exempt for moon light, hence the detail in landscape.”

 

The versatility of the GorillaMobile Yogi for iPad 2 has charmed a reviewer on Lunch.com. Thomas Duff gave the Yogi a 5+ rating and said, “this stand is WAY cool. As far as I’m concerned, this is now part of my iPad. It won’t be coming off anytime soon”. Now that is exactly what we were aiming for.

For those of our readers who live in London or who have the luck to travel there this July, check out the London Street Photography Festival. The festival features a panorama of street photography: old and new, analog and digital, professional work and student work. If you (like I) can’t make it to London, there is plenty to see just poking around on their website. I particularly enjoyed these images.

Somewhat in the vein of taking photos on the fly, Photojojo has announced a new mount for iPhone 4 that allows you to use any of your Canon or Nikon DSLR lenses with your iPhone.

While my iPhone has quickly become my favorite (and most readily available) camera, I’m not sold on the practicality of the device. What do you think, Creactives? Would you splurge on a mount for your iPhone and lug around all your lenses or just stick with your DSLR?

Enjoy your weekend!

Friday Finds: Fireworks Camera Tips, Action Photography Awesomeness

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Happy Friday Creactives!

Another busy week here at JOBY.  Can you believe that it’s July already?!?

With Independence Day weekend upon us, I thought it only proper to give a quick tutorial about the how to best capture the fireworks displays that will be shooting up all over the country. You don’t want to miss the shot because you’re fumbling with your iPhone, right?

Fire at Night

So here we go …

1. Bust out your iPhone and GorillaMobile and position it appropriately.
2. Choose our app Frame X Frame.
3. Turn off the flash.
4. Choose the Time Lapse setting. I’d set it to take 1000 shots at 2 second intervals to capture the most possible. Set yourself up for success.
5. Sit back, enjoy the show and let Frame X Frame do all the work for you.
6. Marvel at all of your perfect shots. You must have killer timing!

the forth of july

In other news, the GorillaTorch Original got a nice shout out in this month’s issue of Real Simple. It was lauded “Best Hands Free Flashlight” … exactly what we were aiming for. The GorillaTorch Original is just a media darling these days, but we’re not complaining!

For the extreme sports inclined of you out there, check out this new free iPad app from Red Bull over the long weekend. The Red Bull Illume HD iPad App allows you to peruse 250 of the best adventure and extreme sports photos taken within the last year. Each photo includes an accompanying bio and a caption about how the image was shot. Get inspired and pick up some action photography tips, I don’t mind if I do. Here are just a few incredible images to lure you in.

 

 

 

Happy Friday and enjoy the holiday weekend! I see BBQs and beaches in my future.

Friday Finds: Airport Shenanigans, Parkour and a Give-Away

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Happy Friday Creactives!

It’s been a good week here in JOBYland … great weather, many a lunch eaten outside soaking up the California sun, and an awesome video filmed by  Pro Team member Jed Conklin.

Let me ask you this: Who, after a long layover, hasn’t wanted to let loose in an airport? These guys show us how it’s done.

And because we think parkour is pretty darn cool, check out this new video from Extreme Sports Belgium.

Oh, how I wish I was as athletically inclined as those two gents. I guess it’s time for me to start training for future JOBY parkour videos.

Running with the outdoorsy theme (I clearly am distracted by the summer weather), GorillaPods helped make these two great photographs possible.

The first was shot with the GorillaPod legs wrapped around the ropes of a twirly playground ride and with a slow shutterspeed. I might be a nostalgic sucker, but I do like playground shots in sepia.
Another spin around the sun...

And in the second, the GorillaPod was wrapped around the head tube of a bicycle and shot with a homemade pinhole camera. As a bike rider, I’ve got to say this photographer has some talent (or at least great balance)!

I love to ride my bicycle

Yep, I think it might be time for me to go play outside. How will you be enjoying the first days of summer? Maybe relaxing by the pool with your iPad. Visit Crave for a chance to win a GorillaMobile Yogi for iPad 2 so you can enjoy your iPad outdoors in style!

 

Friday Finds:Gear, Pro-Team Members and Father’s Day

By | Friday Find, Gorillapod, Photography | One Comment

Happy Friday!

We are going to start this week’s Friday Finds off with something which is just a tad dated but still extremely relevant as it is an interesting look inside the camera bag of Glenn McElhose – known for, among other things, his work on Diggnation and for working with Tim Ferriss & Kevin Rose. This in depth video allows you to go step by step through his gear – which of course, includes a GorillaPod.

Check it out:

 

Camera Gear Rundown from Glenn McElhose on Vimeo.

To start off the weekend with a mix of wonderment, isolation and discovery see this amazing image from JOBY Pro-Team member, SafeSolvent.

Bombay Beach Decay

Unfortunately, my vacation videos never look quite this good.

 

Carlos & Toya meet New Orleans from Carlos Raya on Vimeo.

 

And, not to be forgotten …Happy Father’s Day!

 

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