Extra photos for bloggers: 1, 2

Our parents are still complaining about the Year of the Box. That was the year they got us this really big, fancy, expensive toy for The Holidays, and (rotten little squirts that we were) we had more fun playing with the box it came in.

It wasn’t really our fault, it’s just that you can make such great stuff out of cardboard boxes. Forts, spaceships, hats, even picture frames!

Oh yes, that’s right, cardboard picture frames.

Big urbane one-of-a-kind picture frames that will make you the envy of all the other kids on your block. (Well, the figurative kids anyway. Real ones aren’t that big on interior design.)

No matter what we get this year, we’re going straight for the box it comes in and making a whole wall full of these hip frames.

Photojojo’s DIY Cardboard Hipster Frames

Listen up, young whippersnappers: when we were your age, we had to trudge fifteen miles to work every day. Barefoot. With wild raccoons biting our ankles the whole time.

And if we wanted to have photos on our fabric, we had two options: glue and thumbtacks.

But all you young punks have to do is choose a photo and have Spoonflower print it on cloth for you. Your very own photo-print fabric: yards and yards of it.

And we suppose you rapscallions will make clever things with your fancy photo fabric:

• Wrap skirts with photos of grass on ‘em (Get it? Grass skirt?)
• Custom-made camera cases.
• Camera straps that actually look good around your neck.
• Aprons with photos of food all over them.
• Or even a whole quilt!

Young people these days with their shoes and photo cloth and raccoon-free commutes.

What’s the world coming to, dagnabit?

Spoonflower Custom-Printed Fabric

We’re gonna call it now — the flatbed scanner’s headed the way of the landline, the fax machine, and (dare we say it) the polaroid.

Sure, it’s probably got a few more years in it, but if you’re like us, you’re already using your scanner about as often as your thermal-paper fax.

Why fight it?

With a bit of foamcore and bit of Sunday afternoon, you’ll turn your flatbed into a frankenstein camera, ready to take ghostly images anywhere. Learn how in this video tutorial from our pals at Make.

Make your own Scanner Camera
See also: Stephen Miller’s Scanner Camera gallery

Extra photos for bloggers: 1, 2

We love Halloween.

The costumes, the candy, the parties: we love it all. What other holiday is completely devoted to making you feel like you never have to grow up?

And what better way to celebrate your arrested development than plunging your hand into a pumpkin, scooping out its guts, and carving scary faces on it?

We’ll tell you what better way: carving your own scary photos onto that pumpkin instead of the usual triangle eyes and pointy teeth. All you need is a scary picture and a little know-how. Read on for the full details on how to make your own photo pumpkins.

Photojojo’s Guide to Photo Pumpkin Carving
Thanks to reader Leah Rust for the idea!

p.s. New contest! Submit your macro and zoom photos for a chance to win free rental lenses! Enter here by Sunday, October 26!

It’s purple. It’s solar-powered. And we’ve got one right here at the Photojojo Workatorium.

What could it be? Why, it’s a super-duper GPS camera bike with special Flickr sauce!

It has a built-in camera mounted on the handlebars that takes pictures as you ride, then automatically geotags and uploads them to its very own Flickr stream.

The only downside to this brilliant bike is that only 20 of them were made, and most of them are already in the clutches of the digerati.

So, how can you get your mitts on one? Choose one of the following:

• A. Waylay an unsuspecting Photojojo drone and ply us with wine-coolers until we confess the secret coordinates of our precious purple bike.
• B. Enter the Purple Pedals giveaway contest and win one of your very own.
• C. Make your own DIY version!

If you answered B or C, we like you. If you answered A, we raise a suspicious eyebrow at you and move the bike to extra-extra-secret coordinates.

How The Solar-Powered GPS Camera Bike Was Made

Make Your Own Camera Bike (the Easy Way)
Adding an Eye-Fi Explore card will automatically geotag and upload your photos, just like the fancy bikes do.

p.s. Contest time everybody! Post your most beauteous nature photos and win an amazing tripod from Trek-Tech. Enter here by October 31st!

p.p.s. If you’re going to be in Austin, TX this weekend (Oct. 18-19) stop by Maker Faire and say hi to Uncommon Projects, the smart kids who made the Purple Pedals bikes.

We’ve been hearing a lot about the R-Strap lately, but we thought, “Really? It’s just a camera strap. What’s the big deal?”

Turns out it’s a really smart design. The strap hangs diagonally across your chest like a messenger bag, so:

1. It’s more comfortable than a neck strap, and…
2. Your camera stays out of the way at your hip.

The smart bit is the little slider attachment that allows you to glide the camera up the strap to your eye so you can take a picture. The camera moves, but the strap doesn’t. See it in action here.

It’s really clever, and we’re kind of kicking ourselves for not thinking of it first.

Added bonus! For all of our thrifty brethren out there, we’re including a couple of ways to make one yourself. Either way, your neck will thank you.

The Original R-Strap ($44)

Make Your Own R-Strap (Version 1)

Make Your Own R-Strap (Version 2)

p.s. For every pink-themed photo added to the Pink 2008 Flickr group this month, Yahoo! will donate 1 euro to breast cancer charities. Add your picture and make a difference!

Photo credit: iBallz

On July 2, 1982, “Lawnchair Larry” Walters strapped himself into a lawnchair tied to 45 helium-filled weather balloons, and floated away into the sky.

14 hours later, after disrupting flight paths at LAX and blacking out a Long Beach neighborhood by floating into some power lines, he shot the balloons with a pellet gun and returned unharmed to terra firma.

Don’t do what Larry did.

If you really want to see the view from on high, do what David Trawin did instead: hang a camera from a bunch of balloons and send it aloft to take pictures for you.

Read on for full instructions on how to make an aerial balloon camera rig, in Part Three of our continuing quest to get our cameras higher and higher into the air.*

David Trawin’s Aerial Balloon Camera

*What will be next? Dirigibles? Trained eagles? Sending candygrams to the Air Force until they let us borrow a fighter jet?

p.s. Don’t miss Part One: Kite Photography and Part Two: Camera-on-a-Stick!

OK, hands up if you want to print your own T-shirts but can’t be bothered with all the equipment that silkscreening requires.

Jeebus, that’s a lot of hands. Well, we’ve found a way to mimic screenprinting that takes half the time and only requires some freezer paper and fabric paint.

It’s so easy you may find yourself printing photos on everything:

• Score some button-downs at the thrift store and print pictures of office supplies on them.
• Print silhouettes of your childhood pets on a canvas bag and carry your own menagerie with you.
• Take profile shots of your BFFs and print each silhouette portrait on a different shirt. Make your friends arm-wrestle for the privilege of being your shirt-of-the-day.

Let the printing obsession commence!

Custom Photo Silhouette T-Shirts
via Craft

p.s. If you want to try your hand at genuine silkscreening, here’s a simplified version.

p.p.s. Amit will be at Photokina next week hunting down fun photo gear. If you’re there and want to meet up, drop him a line!

Sure, you can press a button and take a mini motion picture.

But what about the well-loved, handheld, movie-in-your-pocket flip book? Our favorite form of animation, the flip book is the original, prehistoric movie. We’ve doodled thousands of stick figures in the corners of our notebooks. It’s time for photos.

We’ve made digital flip books. We’ve made stop-motion videos. We’ve even uploaded photos and purchased a flip book from FlipClips for 10 bucks or so.

Then we stumbled across The Curious Blog’s beautiful, handmade flip book.

We had to try it ourselves.

We’re flippin’ out over the final product: a squat little choppy movie, our DIY photo flip book will make your thumbs sore from showing it off to all your photo-loving friends.

Photojojo’s DIY Photo Flip Book

At 7′6″, Yao Ming is one of the tallest Olympians, one of the most revered basketball players across the world, and we’re willing to bet, were there an Olympic competition for aerial photography, he’d score heads above the rest.

Puns aside, getting a camera up into the air is no small (or short) feat. We’re not all tall like Yao Ming, and we don’t always have access to a kite or a plane… Plus, tripods and professional monopods are expensive and weigh about a gajillion pounds.

So, we made our own Photojojo Sky-Cam, just for you and just in time for your own photography Olympics.

Transform your group shots, crowd shots, your super-secret, Bond-ian spy shots into “how’d-you-do-that,” Andreas Gursky-like works of high art.

The Photojojo DIY Sky-Cam