By Claire O'Neill

Oh, technology.

Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi has been at the International Space Station since December and has recently started Tweeting photos of Earth from space. Here are a few, which you can find on Twitpic. Based on the metadata, he's using a Nikon D2Xs and a ridiculous 800mm lens to capture aerials of, for example, Haiti three weeks after the earthquake and noctilucent clouds over Antarctica. He's not the first to Tweet from space, but is definitely the most interesting to follow! The captions, which he Tweets along with the photos, are also enjoyable. "Here's looking at you, kid," he writes while zooming in on Casablanca.

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By Claire O'Neill

At a glance, Kate Stone's photographs might look like normal landscapes and living rooms. But wait, that house is kind of warped ... and that buffalo is standing on a hardwood floor? Stone begins by photographing a scene. She then prints the images, reassembles them in a 3-D sculpture, and photographs them again. The result: these unusual montages.

In Stone's words:

Our acceptance of photography as reality makes the images hard to understand, especially for those who know the original place. At first glance the rooms and buildings in these photographs appear real. Upon closer examination, however, something is clearly wrong. Doorways are misplaced and once rigid walls are twisted and torn. Distorted perspective creates incongruous angles and improbable shadows. These spaces are literally falling apart at the seams.

Her work will be featured in an upcoming show at Eleni Koroneou Gallery in Greece. You can see more of her work on her Web site.

Thanks to Alexander Mayer, intern at NPR West, for introducing me to Stone's work!

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By Lukas Vasilikos

The street is a field with endless possibilities, where surprises always hide behind the next corner. When I walk with my camera in my hands, the street life transforms into a theatrical act, a play that is taking place for me only. Regardless of the name of the city, the time of the year or the day, streets are like living creatures, beating hearts, with their very own character. I just have to listen carefully to all these stories taking place in front of my eyes and my lens, justify the shapes, the colors and the forms. And the best part of it is that this play never ends.

Lukas Vasilikos is a photographer from Athens, Greece and a member of Platon Rivellis's "Photography Circle." You can see more photography by Vasilikos on his Flickr page.

"100 Words" is a series in which photographers describe their work--in their words. What makes them tick? What makes a great photo? Film or digital? Positive or negative? Find out here. Curated by Graham Letorney

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By Heather Murphy

Why would a talented 14-year-old and an influential 79-year-old insist on calling themselves paparazzi? The word, derived from the sound a mosquito makes, has taken on far worse connotations in recent years. If you had the skill to photograph something else, why would you choose to link yourself to that?

This is a question explored at length in two documentaries that premiered at Sundance -- Smash His Camera, directed by Leon Gast; and Teenage Paparrazo, directed by Adrian Grenier of Entourage fame. One focuses on legendary celebrity photographer Ron Galella the other on Austin Visschedyk, a mini-"pap" with a lens nearly as big as his torso. The underlying narratives of both films are the same; My pap is different from all the other sleazy-cheesy paps.

In the case of Galella, he is presented as different primarily because he was first. Back before sneaking up on stars and chasing them across the world was a common Hollywood sport, Galella was perfecting his tactics. In the film, he proudly recalls some of the key elements of his winning strategy: hiding in bushes, forging credentials, and wining and dining the help. He was a man before his time, camping out in a rat-infested warehouse just to get a shot of Elizabeth Taylor in her yacht below.

Beyond just the chase, he's clearly addicted to the possibility of what might happen. Photographer Harry Benson, who once told NPR that he believes the best celebrity photographs are taken in the supermarket, frequently comes to Galella's defense in the doc, summing it up with the statement, "His photos are just so alive."

The result of Galella's dedication and creativity: There are few celebrities from the past 50 years who don't have a file in his archives. In many cases, as you can see in the gallery below, they are trying to block his shot or tell him off. But he has many allies, as well. He was famously Warhol's favorite photographer.

His approach: hold the camera down low, keep your eye on the star and shoot before they can tell you not to. This didn't go over so well with his primary muse, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

"I don't think she knew it was me, that's why she smiled a little," he admits about the photograph above, which he calls his "Mona Lisa."

Never great with rules, he reacted to a court order to keep his distance from her by posing behind her with a tape measure.

Brad Elterman, who now runs the L.A. paparazzi agency Buzz Foto, took that photo when he was only 17. My request to use it on this blog turned into a much longer conversation about Galella, who Elterman sees as his mentor and likened within a few minutes to both Matisse and Walker Evans. Galella's many detractors would likely vomit at the analogy. (Let's just say, some heads exploded when his work ended up at the MOMA.) It's hard to dispute, however, that the man is seriously passionate about his craft.

Amid the modern pap frenzy portrayed in the other documentary, Teenage Paparazzo, craft is notably absent -- except when it comes to cutting people off in SUVs. In fact, some of the "photographers" appear unaware how to use a camera. A "good shot" has nothing to do with composition, but rather how big the star, the potential scandal and, therefore, the price tag.

And that's where waiflike 14-year-old Austin has his chance to heroically shine. Though we see few of his photos, the home-schooled hipster is portrayed as a great talent. Gossip-rag editors talk about how he plays beautifully with light.

As the boy chases celebrities on his skateboard and in cabs, and pushes through men three times his size, it's fun to hold onto the idea that the boy is some sort of renegade artist.

Even Grenier gets sucked into this notion, stepping in at one point and showing the boy the Pulitzer-Prize winning Kent State photo. He waits expectantly, assuming that the boy is ready for something bigger.

The boy looks bored and makes a disinterested comment. A tip-off comes about a celebrity sighting. And off he goes again, comfortable being just a teen pap, addicted to the adrenaline-filled chase.

You can see more photos from Galella's recent books Man in the Mirror: Michael Jackson, Viva L'Italia, and No Pictures here. You can see Austin's photos here.

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By Claire O'Neill

There has been sufficient coverage of the new iPad -- what it offers and/or doesn't offer, how perhaps it's Apple's latest attempt to reach its female demographic.

But let's get real, photophiles. We all just want to know one thing: What's that photo on the iPad screen? Far from stock art, it's actually a photograph by artist Richard Misrach.

According to ARTINFO, the photograph ...

... is part of a series on the American desert that Misrach has been working on for 35 years. "It's a long night exposure, where the moon is lighting up the mountains in the distance," he says. "I shot it on an 8x10 camera, so the quality is really beautiful, and you can see star trails going through the sky."

The article states that Misrach was watching a movie when he heard the news that his photo had gone global.

Misrach, a sought-after San Francisco artist whose work has been shown in galleries around the world, says that Apple first contacted him some time ago and asked to see about 10 images from his different series, but the company rejected them. Then two weeks ago, on the night of the opening of his current show at Chelsea's Pace/MacGill Gallery, he received an e-mail from the company saying it had reconsidered and wanted to license Pyramid Lake (at Night), a 2004 photo he took at a Native American reservation in Nevada. Terms were set for a five-year exclusive deal, with the company saying they would use the image for screen-savers and other features.

Richard Misrach has been at the forefront of the large-format and color photography renaissance. A major theme of his work is man's interaction with the environment. If you're in New York City, you can check out an exhibition of his work at Pace/MacGill Gallery.

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By Phil Jung

Windscreen revisits the ideals of early automobiles (freedom, hope, exploration and independence -- quintessentially American ideals) by exploring the relationship between automobiles and their owners today. When combing through neighborhoods for cars, I look first for the way light enters a car and renders color. If I find nothing inside its cabin that tells something about its owner, I move on. Above all, the car needs to be drivable or just recently taken off the road. If a car sits for too long uninhabited, it loses something. The composite of this space reflects who we are and where we come from, and possibly where we are going.

Phil Jung is a photographer currently based in Boston. He received an MFA in photography in 2009 from the Massachusetts College of Art and was recently rewarded a TMC + Kodak Film Grant. You can see more of Jung's work on his Web site.

"100 Words" is a series in which photographers describe their work--in their words. What makes them tick? What makes a great photo? Film or digital? Positive or negative? Find out here. Curated by Graham Letorney

Have an idea? Pitch it!
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By Claire O'Neill

There are so many critters and crawlers that we big, blundering humans fail to notice. That's why photographer David Liittschwager decided to zoom in on the little things. He placed a green metal frame measuring 1 cubic foot in various locations, and photographed as many organisms living in -- or passing through -- the cube as possible. The photos, which appear in the February issue of National Geographic magazine, show the amazing biodiversity you can find in even the most contained environments.

These photographs were made at Temae Reef off the Pacific island of Moorea in French Polynesia. Collaborating with scientists from the Moorea Biocode Project, a venture to inventory all non-microbial species on Moorea, Liittschwager photographed more than 600 creatures over the course of about three weeks. He also brought his green frame to Table Mountain, South Africa; Monteverde, Costa Rica; and Duck River, Tenn. You can see more of his photographs on ngm.com. Also, check out this video, which shows Liittschwager's process in New York City's Central Park.

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Today Robert Krulwich reported a piece on why, the older we get, the faster time seems to go. And former NPR intern Maggie Starbard and her friends produced this lovely video about life's little moments that, the older we get, seem sometimes easier to forget.

-- Claire O'Neill

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