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photography (Page 12)

How photos of food look when taken by a professional photographer vs a guy with an iPhone

Here at RocketNews24 we often cover food whether it’s weird, wonderful, or a waste of money. As such, we often have to take pictures of it. However, since none of us are photographers by trade, we often make do with whatever is lying around, be it iPhone, SLR, or Game Boy Pocket Camera.

We’re not alone either as many a Facebook or Instagram page can be found flooded with images of people’s dinners. However, even though that picture of last night’s pastitsio looks really good to us, how does it actually compare to someone who takes pictures for a living? Has the technology gotten to the point where anyone can make gorgeous food shots, or has it only fueled our own delusions of photographic grandeur? We decided to do a direct comparison using two people and one dish.

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Want to smooch (and brag about it) but missing a partner? How to take a kissing selfie alone

Everyone wants to feel the joy of a simple kiss; the intimacy, the passion, the physical closeness, it’s all so nice. But there are many hurdles to successful kissing – the biggest being the fact that you need a willing and kissable partner! So what about the single people of the world? How can they fill their friends’ Facebook feed with annoying photos of themselves caught in the moment and having a nice smooch?

Enter slightly eccentric Japanese blogger Keisuke Jinushi, who lives by the mantra “There’s no time like the present” and is a self-dubbed “perpetual loner”. After his hugely successful “girlfriend hand” selfies wherein he tricked the world into believing he had a real girl of his own to feed him food and wipe ketchup of his face, Keisuke now introduces us to a foolproof technique for anyone who wants to make people think they have a kissable partner! You might get a few funny stares, though…

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Offstage: Take a peek into the real lives of cosplayers! 【Photos】

Cosplay is arguably the most popular subculture in Japan. While the costume play community has seen an explosive growth across the globe in recent years, many “normal” people still tend to look at those engaging in the activity with judging eyes; some even think that they’re “weird” for wanting to dress up like their heroes. But the truth is, beneath the elaborate costumes, cosplayers are just as normal as any one of us.

We’ve seen cosplayers without their costumes, but photographer Ching Yee Tan takes a step further by showing us a glimpse of their private lives. If you’ve ever wondered what a hardcore cosplayer’s room looks like, this is your chance to take a peek into one!

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Yamanote trains become moving exhibition spaces

Weird and wonderful things happen on Tokyo’s Yamanote train line. From puzzle-solving challenges to weddings and men walking ears of corn, it seems the popular downtown route is a great way get on board with new trends.

From this month, Yamanote line trains will be continuing their tradition of innovation with a surprising collection of artistic photographs. Mounted at a perfect angle for the eye of the passenger, these photos will take you away from the discomfort of a crowded train and transport you to a much more beautiful place.

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Simple tricks to making instant ramen look like a gourmet meal

Have you ever wondered what happens when you take one of the cheapest ready-made foods on the market and combine it with some clever photography? Japanese site Livedoor News has, as it demonstrated with some instant Cup Noodle. We’ll introduce you to how they made an 88 yen (US$0.80) product look like a luxurious meal by incorporating it into a variety of settings, and of course keep your curiosity at bay with plenty of photos.

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Safety Pin People: The beautiful photography of Junn.C

People have the amazing ability to see human traits in nearly anything. From the anthropomorphism of cartoons and nature to cursing at your car when it won’t start, there’s almost no limit to the things we see as human-like.

But safety pins? Surely only someone with a less-than-firm grip on reality could take a safety pin for person-like or even having any human qualities?

The following photo album might just convince you otherwise!

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Crossdressing in mainstream media of Japan is still somewhat in its infancy. While on a nightly basis you can easily catch a crossdresser or transsexual person on TV, they often are presented as 2D characters offering little insight to who they really are or why they lead such a life.

“Transgender” and “gay” are still synonymous to many people, but this is a situation that is steadily changing with greater awareness provided by works such as Yuri Danshi which was released on 31 July, and covers nine cross-dressing men in a wide range of styles and fashions from girl-next-door to gyaru.

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Any photographer will tell you that you always have to be aware of your light sources. Especially with people, the wrong kind of lighting can someone look completely different, usually in a bad way.

This young photo bug took that advice to heart when he attended a cosplay event in China. Realizing that work outside of a studio pits a photographer in a battle with sometimes unpredictable lighting, this man fitted several brackets to his back, each supporting an external flash.

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Tokyo Disneyland momentarily restricts park patrons from posting their pictures online

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the creation of Tokyo Disney Resort. The affiliated hotels and theme parks are putting on an almost year-long celebration, complete with a special happiness themed parade and nightly fireworks spectacular, not to mention the reopening of the hit attraction, Star Tours. In light of all the extra excitement, management felt it necessary to add some extra rules and requests on the official Tokyo Disney site. While some of these new items were quite reasonable and occasionally intuitive, one line in particular set off warning bells for those wishing to visit the park.

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Last year, Japanese electronics company, Pioneer, finished development on its small size full color hologram printer and has now decided to use this technology to create 3-D holographic prints of babies’ faces while they’re still in the womb. According to a YouTube video detailing this brand new service, “When expecting mothers receive ultrasounds during physical examinations, 3-D images of the unborn child are taken. We can translate that data into a physical form and create a commemorative photo for parents to keep, in anticipation of the upcoming birth.” Read More

Breathtaking Meteor Shower Video Taken against Starry Winter’s Night in Nagano

If you were to ask me to go out at midnight in the middle of December and look for meteors, I would say “No way, I’m watching a Very Brady Christmas. Get out of here.”

However, in the evening around December 14, while many of us were warmly tucked away in our cat capes, an annual celestial event took place above.

One brave photographer spent a chilly night in a Nagano park to capture these meteors for us all to see.

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[3D Photo Studio] Mr. Sato’s Very Own Lifelike 3-D model has Arrived!

Now that was fast!

It was just 10 days ago that we were detailing our adventurous reporter’s trip to the newly opened Omote 3D Shashin Kan photography studio to be scanned and turned into an ultra-detailed model, and we were told that it’d be a month before the finished product arrived. But would you believe it’s already here! In our sweaty little hands!

And the result is spectacular.

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Beautiful HDR Time-lapse of Tokyo Will Make You Want to Travel to Japan. Now.

One of the many wonderful things about modern technology is that it not only allows us to visit new places from the comfort of our homes, but also to experience familiar places in completely new ways.

For example, I have visited Tokyo numerous times over the three years I have called Japan my home and I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what the city is all about: skyscrapers, bright lights, crowds of busy people, corn man. But run all that through high-dynamic-range (HDR) imaging, record it in time-lapse, and watch it on YouTube in 1080p and the city sights I know so well take on a completely different, almost otherworldly, appearance.

Check out the video below!

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Life in Mini: Our Reporter Mr. Sato Turns Himself into a Tiny Plastic Figure

Just a few weeks ago, this writer excitedly introduced you to Omote 3D Shashin Kan, the new 3D photography and modelling studio in Tokyo that immortalizes customers as tiny, intricately detailed figurines for just a couple of hundred dollars apiece.

Despite wanting to head down to the fancy new studio myself and decorate my apartment with a collection of mini mes, after much discussion in the office and comments being made like “too handsome” and “they might not have enough plastic to model your nose,” the RocketNews24 crew decided it best to send reporting legend Mr. Sato to do the honours instead.

This is no ordinary photoshoot.

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  • Oct 12, 2012

 

Those of you familiar with our Japanese site are probably aware that our reporters often travel overseas to bring interesting stories from around the world to our Japanese readers. Recently, one reporter shared with us an eye-opening realization he had while traveling, one that could have serious bearing on the reputation of Japanese tourists abroad.

Being Japanese and also very fond of traveling myself, this was a story I couldn’t take lightly! Read More

In addition to two months of temperatures over ３５℃, Japan has recently been hit with a spate of lightning storms. In fact, when writing a previous story my building was hit by lightning knocking out my computer and forcing a rewrite. The son of a…

Anyway, with all this lightning around and pretty much the entire population carrying cameras built into their phones, a person’s natural inclination is to try and take a picture of a bolt.

One person though was not only lucky enough to actually be able to catch a bolt in a photo, but found something far stranger.

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The Story Behind the Beautiful Photo of the New MacBook ‘Mountain Lion’ OS

One of the MacBook Pro desktop backgrounds featured on Apple’s website shows an astoundingly exquisite azure pond with bare trees coming out of the water, covered in snow. It will be one of the backgrounds included with OS X Mountain Lion, to be released this July. We’ve found out a bit about the photographer responsible for this particular work… Read More

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