Getting interesting camera angles is always on my mind, but often times I just dont have the resources for all of the gear I need. Additionally, I don’t professionally produce videos – I mainly shoot clips of my travels and string them together in iMovie, so investing in major equipment is not something I’m into right now.

This new tutorial posted on Vimeo goes over the basics of jib photography, and includes some excellent resources on building a jib on the cheap. It’s amazing to see the results you can get out of just a bit of controlled motion in your videos.

A jib — also called a crane — is a device that enables cinematographers to get smooth moving shots. With a jib you can tilt and pan horizontally and vertically, or even a full 360 degrees. There are many reasons why you’d want to use a jib, which we’ll explore in depth later.

Video School / Lessons – Jibs and Cranes on Vimeo

How about a scavenger hunt using the world’s largest picture – Shanghai 272 Gigapixels. It’s amazing how far you can zoom in, and what can be found.

Scavenger Hunt List

Gripping… this pic from photographer Massoud Hossaini, of a 12 year old girl screaming after a suicide bombing, won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize.

The explosion of which the young girl, Tarana Akbari, is a survivor killed more than 70 people. Among the dead were seven of Akbari’s family members, who had traveled to Kabul in honor of the holiday Ashura; nine other relatives were wounded. The Pulitzer announcement calls the photograph, featured here, “heartbreaking.” Hossaini, who works with Agence France-Presse, is a native of Kabul and was raised in Iran. He was a political activist prior to taking up a camera, and got his start photographing Afghan refugees living in his adopted country. He returned to his home country in 2002 and is still based there.

Massoud Hossaini — AFP / Getty Images

Afghan Photographer Massoud Hossaini Wins Pulitzer Prize – LightBox.

Photography consultant Jaime Livingood send me over to this excellent photo essay by photographer Alexandre Buisse. The essay details his time photographing the annnual Patagonian Expedition Race. A great story, with great photos.. a model for my own work.

Because the course is over 500km, often without roads, and because this year there was no helicopter, it was very difficult to stay ahead of the teams. This lead to the biggest challenge of all: managing to run several of the stages along with the racers. In my case, it meant covering about 100 km of bushwacking and bog swamps in 32 hours, all with my survival and camera equipment.

Alexandre Buisse

Patagonia Expedition | Wonderful Machine Photography Blog.

I’m not ready for Winter to end.. but at least there are pretty flowers on the trees this week…

Another panorama made with Autostitch on iOS.