Instagram is a free photo sharing application designed for use on any iPhone or iPod Touch. It allows users to share their photos after applying a variety of effects or filters. You can say that Instagram is an homage to the Kodak Instamatic and Polaroid cameras.
Lets see how we can create this instagram effect in Photoshop!
The new DMC-GF5 is the latest in a long line of Panasonic's Micro Four Thirds System mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras. Panasonic introduced the first of these in 2008, using the same 17.3x13.0mm sensor size as regular Four Thirds System DSLRs. The advantage of Micro Four Thirds (MFT) models like the GF5 is that they're considerably smaller, eliminating the DSLR's bulky (and costly) mirror box and pentamirror/pentaprism eye-level viewfinder, and replacing them with live-view on the external LCD monitor. While the GF5 doesn't incorporate a built-in viewfinder, an accessory eye-level EVF is available.
Panasonic offers 14 lenses designed specifically for the MFT format, including 10 HD lenses optimized for video. These cover 35mm-camera equivalent focal lengths of 14mm to 600mm. But all MFT lenses can be used on all MFT cameras, regardless of manufacturer. In fact, due to the short flange-back distance (the distance between the lens mount and the image plane) made possible by the mirrorless design, just about any lens for which an adapter can be found can be used on MFT cameras, further widening the lens field.
The new DMC-GF5 retains many of the fine features of its GF3 predecessor (there was no GF4) and improves on others in a number of ways, including image quality, video, AF speed, LCD monitor resolution, special effects and more.
NEW 12.1 MP SENSOR: The GF5 features a new 12.1-megapixel Four Thirds Live MOS image sensor, with better image quality and video, and optimized to minimize noise. The upgraded Venus Engine processor provides 3DNR (3D Noise Reduction) and MNR (Multi-process Noise Reduction) to further reduce noise. ISO ranges from 160 to 12,800 (extended).
HIGH-RES LCD TOUCH-SCREEN: The GF5 features a big 3.0-inch, 920,000-dot, touch-screen LCD monitor. Focus, zoom (when a PZ power-zoom lens is on the camera) and even trip the shutter just by touching the screen.
FULL HD VIDEO: The GF5 shares many video capabilities of the flagship GX1: It can record 1920x1080 full HD video at 60i and 1280x720 HD video at 60p in AVCHD format (both output by the sensor at 30p), with full-time AF, and touch-screen AF for professional-style rack focusing. It also can record 1920x1080, 1280x720 and 640x480 video at 30p in MPEG-4 format. Stereo sound is available via a built-in microphone and Dolby Digital Stereo Creator. CREATIVE CONTROL MODE:Creative Control Mode makes it easy to add special effects to your images. You can preview each effect on the LCD monitor. There are 14 available effects, including Dynamic Monochrome, Impressive Art, One Point Color, Cross Process, Low Key, Toy Effect, Expressive, Retro, High Key, Sepia and Hi Dynamic. For still photos only, there are also Soft Focus, Star Filter and Miniature Effect.
STANDOUT FEATURE: The Light Speed contrast-based AF system lets you autofocus anywhere in the frame simply by touching the appropriate spot on the touch-screen LCD monitor—even when shooting videos.
1. RUBBERIZED GRIP:A rubberized grip provides comfort in use.
2. BUILT-IN FLASH: Despite the camera's tiny size, it incorporates a pop-up flash unit (ISO 160, GN 6.3 in meters; 20.5 in feet).
3. DEDICATED VIDEO BUTTON: Press this to start shooting videos.
Adriana Lima (born June 12, 1981) is a Brazilian model and actress who is best known as a Victoria’s Secret Angel since 2000, and as a spokesmodel for Maybelline cosmetics from 2003 to 2009. At the age of 15, Lima finished first in Ford’s “Supermodel of Brazil” competition, and took second place the following year in the Ford “Supermodel of the World” competition before signing with Elite Model Management in New York City. Since 2005, Lima has ranked in the top five of Forbes’ lists of the 20 highest-earning models in the world, and in 2006 ranked No.99 on the Forbes Celebrity 100. She is married to Serbian basketball player Marko Jarić.
It's about time for a new face to usurp the throne of supermodel queen - you know who I mean - and my money is on Adriana Lima. This means the reign will remain with Brazil, of course, but what country stands a chance against a gene pool that is simply swimming with beauteous strokes: the ballerina legs, the plump lips, the bold cheekbones, the mesmerizing azure eyes. These are the alluring attributes that keep popping up in Brazilian females with the frequency of Bush votes in a Republican recount.
Usually when I meet a cover model, pre-makeup, I am relieved to find a face that is human, i.e. flawed in some way - a blemish on a cheek, perhaps, or one eyebrow slightly askew - but flawed nonetheless. When I met Adriana, a spunky 19-year-old in blue jeans and a vintage tee, I looked into the magnetic eyes of a first-place finisher in the final heat of the international, gene-pool swim meet. Flawless
With a French, Portuguese, Native-American, and Caribbean heritage, Adriana has a bedazzling, temptress-meets-angel face and the body to match. Her teeny-tiny calves extend several miles up to tiny thighs, which eventually meet up with a small but shapely Brazilian tush, which swivels with her hips below her fat-free waistline and real breasts, as she checks out the yellow bodysuit into which she has wriggled all those attributes and the deep dark tan which is now even more evident. Well, I don't need to tell you - you can see it in the photos - it's enough to make a 30-something pasty-white Anglo-Saxon girl run screaming for a jar of cellulite cream and some self-tanner.
But I gritted my teeth and stayed put - she had picked up the copy of Tear Sheet that I had plopped on the counter, and I wanted to hear what she had to say about it. "Oh, that's me" , she cried, pointing out her picture on the party page with the genuine excitement of someone who was seeing her picture in a magazine for the first time. She has not only seen her picture in a few magazines - like editorial in Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, for example - she also may have caught a glimpse of herself on buses, cabs, and phone booths for French Connection; in magazine ads and on bus shelters for BCBG; in a TV commercial and on a catalog cover for Victoria's Secret; in campaigns for Guess? and Giorgio Armani; in interviews on E! Entertainment and Extra; and on the runways for Ralph Lauren, Chanel, Christian Lacroix, and Anna Sui.
Surely Miss Flawless must be an absolute nightmare - right?... No, her reaction to her picture in the party page is typical of her unpretentious, zestful personality. She has a certain innocence that matches her age and her angelic face—but is rather unusual for someone in the supermodel fast lane.
How old were you when you made the move from a small town in the north of Brazil to New York City?
al: I was 15.
You didn't come by yourself, did you?
al: I came with my mother's best friend, and I lived with her for a while until I moved into my agency owner's house (which was Ford at the time).
Did you speak English?
al: No, not at all. I didn't speak one word and I didn't understand anything. Actually I knew how to say "yes" and "no" but I was so embarrassed about mispronouncing words. I just knew how to smile.
Looks like smiling seemed to work pretty well for you! There's certainly been a wave of successful Brazilian models in the last few years. Are you friends with them or is it sort of competitive?
al: I wouldn't say it's competitive. I think everyone has their time. Gisele is having her time, and Shirley had her time, and maybe I will have my time. I just think they're really insecure about themselves sometimes. I know all the girls, but we all work a lot and don't have time to hang out together. They're all really nice; I've never had a problem with any model.
You've worked with most of the world's top photographers - Steven Meisel, Patrick Demarchelier, Peter Lindbergh, Ellen von Unwerth - any favorite?
al: Steven Meisel because he is definitely number one. I also love to work with Albert Watson because his work is a mix of photography and art. I love it.
What about a favorite designer?
al: My favorite designer is Christian Lacroix, not just because his clothes are amazing and I love them, but because he's so nice. When I did his fashion show, he was the first one to arrive there and he helped everyone. He came to every single model to say "hello" and ask if we needed anything. You don't have to have an attitude if you're famous. I think you have to be thankful and you'll get more [fans] if you are nice.
That's certainly a philosophy more people in our business should adopt. Now tell me, with your shoots all over the world, trips to the Cannes Film Festival with the VS Angels, visits to Brazil, how many flights do you take each week?
al: I think I live inside the plane! I never have time to unpack; I'm always leaving in two days again. I travel a lot, and at the beginning it was really fun. The first time I went inside a plane, I was 15 years old and I had so much fun. I like to travel all over the world and learn [about] new cultures. Not that many people have the opportunity to do that.
Any favorite places?
al: Marrakesh, Morocco. You can't find a culture like that anywhere.
Do you have any modeling goals you haven't achieved yet?
al: I would like just one time to be on the cover of Italian Vogue.
What about after modeling? What are your long-term plans?
al: I think I want to be an actress. But first I need to try to get a better accent!
(Her accent is lovely, but unmistakably Brazilian.) What is your advice to any teenagers who are thinking about modeling?
al: Be sure what you want and be sure about yourself. Fashion is not just beauty, it's about good attitude. You have to believe in yourself and be strong because you never know when [you will work and not work]. The truth of it is, if one day I have a daughter and my daughter wants to be a model, I would never let her! But then, if she wants to, what can I do? But definitely not until she's 18 years old. You know, every work has the bad side, and people will be mean to you, and when you're young, you don't know how to defend yourself.
Do you feel like you've missed out on anything as a teenager?
al: I missed out on everything. Sometimes on the street I see teenagers hanging out and going to the movies, going to concerts together, and I get so jealous. But everything has the good side too. I'm a teenager, but I'm independen to - have my own apartment, I have my own life. And I think I have learned more than any of those teenagers have in school. I learned to be responsible, leaving my family and coming here alone.
Where exactly are you from? Is it a small town?
al: I'm from San Salvador. It is small compared to Sao Paolo. We are really slow there. People work half a day and then go to the beach. People have time. Here in the big city people spend their time thinking about work and about money; they don't give some value to friendships and it can be depressing.
Tell me about how you're helping the orphanages in Brazil.
al: The place where I grew up was really poor and when I was young I used to spend my time playing with the orphans. Now I'm helping that orphanage finish some construction work and get more space for the children. I don't know why, but if you look around in Brazil you see pregnant women everywhere. Here you don't see that as much. There the only thing they do is babies, babies, babies! Especially the poor families. Every time I go there I buy clothes to give to [poor children].
It's so great to give back like that, especially when you're in this business and everything is geared around such shallow values.
al: Yes, everyone is very...what is the word when you only think about yourself?
Egocentric?
al: Yes, I think everyone is a little egocentric, but when I help someone I lose 0.01% of my ego.
Back to the shallow stuff...your favorite beauty product?
al: For makeup, I love Shu Uemura. For my skin, I don't like to use much lotion or any soaps. I just let mother nature do her job. And I've never been to the gym.
You don't work out at all?
al: No, never, I do nothing. You can bring me into the gym to those machines, and I'd have no idea where to begin. I used to do sports in school, but right now, for four years, I've done nothing! My mother's body is similar - very skinny - so I'm lucky.
And I suppose you eat anything you want too?
al: Umm, yes. I try to control what I eat, but the truth is I can't. I tried to give up meat last week, but I only lasted three days. I just couldn't do it. I love meat, chocolate, cakes...
This might be a tough one for you. What is your least favorite aspect of your face or body?
al: I don't know. I think for the moment I like my body. I don't think it's the best one, but I don't have anything I don't like about it - yet. When I get older, I don't think I'll like to have wrinkles, or a big jelly belly. I cannot have it. I'll have to work out!
But your mom looks great, right? I think good genes (great genes, unbelievable genes) are on your side.
al: Yes. Thank God. Thanks Mom!
What do you do with what little free time you have?
al: I like to go to the movies or read.
What's your favorite movie?
al: Shine.
Your favorite book?
al: Memories of a Geisha.
Most embarrassing modeling moment?
al: I was in a fashion show and I had on a strapless top. When I got to the end the top was down. What's worse, the next morning my mother called me and said, "Adriana I saw you on TV. You were the one with the top that fell down"
Are you parents protective? Were they supportive of your decision to come to New York?
al: They're very protective, but what my mother told me was, if I was sure this was what I wanted to do, she would support me, and if I am happy, she will be happy. She helped me a lot because I used to be very shy. When I first started, I had to go to a casting, and I had to go in a bikini. When I saw all the girls, I thought,"What am I doing here" The girls were so beautiful. I said to my mother,"There's no way that I am going in - I didn't like my body before; I thought I was too skinny. And she said, "No, you are going and you're going to get this job. - I was so nervous, but I went in and I got the job! I couldn't believe it. And that's how I started.
Your best moment?
al: My best moment...I think my best moment was taking the plane when I came to New York. My family was really poor, and we would never have had the money to take a plane. So that was the most exciting moment. I didn't know anything about fashion. I didn't know anything! If you asked me about Vogue, I would have said, "What is Vogue". I couldn't believe it when I got here. I don't know how I got here. I don't know how I'm sitting here right now speaking English. I don't know how I got this job, this cover today...
Adriana's enthusiasm and amazement can fill a whole room, a whole studio, a whole magazine. And the answer to her question - in addition to that sweet, open, attitude-free personality - is jumping off of these very pages. by Jill Johnson
Peter Lindbergh, born Peter Brodbeck, is a German photographer and filmmaker, born on November 23, 1944 in Leszno, Poland (the city was German between 1939 and 1945 and called Reichsgau Wartheland). He currently maintains residences in Paris, Manhattan, and Arles.
In a certain kind of factory, everyone is famous for 15 minutes. But in the case of Peter Lindbergh, the images created in his factory are eternal. In fact, it is the industrial landscape the steelworks in his hometown of Duisburg, Germany that has shaped his romantic, humanistic eye for more than 30 years.
Cut to 1992. Linda Evangelista, one of the superest of supermodels, is flying back to the United States via the Concorde to be photographed by Lindbergh for Bazaar, soon after he was lured to the magazine by Liz Tilberis. "They put me in a limousine and I dozed off. I pull up, look around, and burst into tears. I went first-class all the way to this ugly, abandoned, filthy factory in Philadelphia! For Harper's Bazaar!" She sighs dramatically. "The pictures were gorgeous. But after, I told him, 'No more factories; you take me to châteaus.'"
His pictures, often rendered in black and white with their industrial guts (cameras, lights, cords) showing, exhibit a deconstructed kind of beauty. "I show elements of the set in my pictures because it's not real," Lindbergh explains. "When I see movies, I often love the 'making of' more than the movie itself. It's not so final. When you have a woman just standing there, it doesn't mean much."
Lindbergh's success is due to one thing: His pictures mean a lot. He originally studied art in Berlin, beginning his photography career almost by accident. "Someone I knew needed an assistant. But I could have easily been a baker or worked in a flower shop." In 1973, he started shooting monochromatic advertising campaigns. ("Black and white, you see under the skin, no?") Today Lindbergh's imagery is instantly recognizable: from British Vogue to Harper's Bazaar; in campaigns for Dior, Giorgio Armani, Prada, Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, and Lancôme; numerous exhibitions; and five books. And sometimes, when arriving in New York from his home in Paris, he drives past his epic portraits of Kate Moss or Daria Werbowy on billboards for jeweler David Yurman.
After all, Lindbergh loves women. Most famously, his eye is responsible for defining the era of the supermodel. The inception: the January 1990 cover of British Vogue (commissioned by Tilberis, then the editor in chief, and styled by Brana Wolf, both of whom later came to Bazaar), where he assembled Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, and Tatjana Patitz in downtown New York. "It was a new generation, and that new generation came with a new interpretation of women," he explains. "It was the first picture of them together as a group."
That cover, of course, also inspired George Michael's "Freedom 90" video, directed by David Fincher. "Yah!" says Lindbergh. "I heard George Michael say that it was the most beautiful picture of women he'd ever seen. Funny, I have never met George Michael." Crawford says, "It was definitely a moment. That photograph plus the video plus Gianni Versace the stars were all in alignment." Turlington, famously the most earnest of the bunch, observes, "Those pictures that Peter captured are definitely some of the most incriminating of the supermodel era."
Does Lindbergh miss the era of the supermodels, those sublime creatures who, thanks to his pictures, seemed to live so many of our dreams? In a way. While he likes today's stars ("Daria and Jessica Stam, they're great, no?"), he laments, "There is so much time you waste looking for new faces. You don't want a new woman every five days. I started with my girls when they were 19 or 20, and they became friends too. They became 25, 28, 30, really incredible, mature, intelligent, and extraordinarily beautiful. After all, each had to run a one-woman million-dollar business. You don't become a supermodel by being stupid."
But then along came grunge and--with the exception of Moss--the era of the faceless model. "When people said it was all over, I had to go back to 17-year-old teenagers," he recalls. "It was terrible! You live with a great wife for 20 years, she leaves you, so you run off with the next girl with nice boobs and a miniskirt?
"For a while, Linda was married to my best friend," Lindbergh says of Evangelista, his factory girl, whom he met in the late '80s. "At first, there was something about her I didn't feel. But shortly after that, we worked together almost every day. At one point, I had the feeling we had done everything we could do together, so I said, 'Why don't you cut your hair short?' She was shocked. But one day, she showed up on set and said, 'I want to cut it.' Julien d'Ys took that beautiful Italian hair and snipped it right off. She cried for two hours. The white-shirt picture of her was taken the next day, and a new woman was born. She was a good model, but she became the model."
Evangelista adds, "Peter said, 'You're going to love this picture in 25 years.' It's almost 25 years, and I do." Her other favorite? Lindbergh's "flying" for Bazaar in 1992, in which she was suspended above the Manhattan streets. "But that hurt! I was hanging from a crane. I was so excited about it — until they lifted me up."
Cut to 2009. Naomi Campbell is in Moscow, stuck in traffic and cooing down the phone line, "Oh, Peter! I first worked with him when I was 16; we are like brother and sister." The session, shot in Deauville, was inspired by Josephine Baker, and Lindbergh wanted "a black girl who could dance." "I had to be naked in the rain on the boardwalk," Campbell remembers. (After all, Lindbergh notes pragmatically, "The jewelry that day was beautiful.") So was Naomi on time for her brother? "Ha! I was always lying to everyone," Lindbergh says. "She was always late, but I loved her so much, I lied. I'd say, 'She is right on the minute. What are you talking about?'"
Turlington was more punctual. "Peter's photographs are very cinematic, his portraits so raw," she says. "My first impression of Peter was that he was more gentle and sweet than the images he captured." Lindbergh adds, "Christy was so laid-back. She had a quietness and was very positive, never negative. She was stunningly beautiful, almost too perfect." Apart from the time she was photographed giving him the finger on the set of a Prada campaign. Turlington laughs and says, "I love that picture."
Lindbergh was not so in love with Helena Christensen's book the first time he met her. "It was filled with heavy hair and makeup — not so fabulous. But in the back, there was a picture of her taken by her neighbor in her apartment. That was it." Off to the desert they went, where Lindbergh shot Christensen for a now-famous alien story that catapulted her onto the super list. "That's the shoot I remember most," says Christensen, "the weirdest of them all. Also, we did a cover with a white horse, and the horse got quite excited, so to speak. There was some retouching to be done on the horse afterward!"
"At the time we started together, Peter's style was shockingly different," says Cindy Crawford. "At a time when it was all big hair and pushing the boobs up, he stripped you of those props and showed you in a different way. It's like being photographed right when you wake up in the morning." Ironically, familiarity is to blame for why Lindbergh initially didn't embrace his countrywoman Claudia Schiffer. "I felt I knew that kind of person too well; she wasn't exotic. It's a pity, because I wasted time with her in the beginning. We grew into each other. She is a true woman now." Says Schiffer, "It's like a friend is taking your picture. A long-lost friend."
In this litany of ladies, there are, of course, the girls. Lindbergh says, "Kate Moss and Amber Valletta, they came in later. Karl Lagerfeld said in my book 10 Women, 'Perhaps only Amber and Kate possess the key to the mysterious door of the near visual future.' Ha! Kate is such a light person. She's a very funny, naughty girl, and she's always ready to do something totally unexpected."
Moss remembers a particularly unexpected shoot in Rome for Bazaar in 1994: "I had to walk the streets in the highest stilettos you have ever seen, for three days! We caused quite a stir. But it was worth it." Valletta posed in one of the photographer's most famous shoots, the angel story for Bazaar in 1993. "I think we may have been the first people to close down a part of Times Square for a shoot. It was unheard of at the time," she remembers.
The woman Lindbergh would most characterize as a muse, however, is Milla Jovovich: "When Milla comes in, you feel like something is going to happen." Jovovich, who appears on the cover of Lindbergh's book Untitled 116, her face bare save for a dark slash of lipstick, recalls once taking off her makeup after a shoot. "Peter said, 'Stop!' and took the picture. It's strong yet vulnerable and iconic, but without trying to prove anything." Jovovich speaks of Lindbergh like family. "My favorite word of his is beautiful, beautiful!"
Women, of course, can be an insecure lot. On shooting actresses, Lindbergh observes, "They are so fragile because of the number of people involved. Often their publicists speak for them. Kate Winslet [whom Lindbergh shoots for Lancôme], though, speaks for herself. I'm madly in love with Kate, Julianne Moore, and Reese Witherspoon as well." What about shooting First Lady Michelle Obama? "The problem is that you get 10 minutes. If I could do a real portrait of her, I would walk to Washington."
Real. As ironic and misplaced as the word appears in a world of artifice and aspiration, it's the word that continues to define Peter Lindbergh. Evangelista says, "Of all the people I've worked with, he's the one who has photographed the real me, whoever that is." Campbell concurs: "It's something intimate that Peter gets out of you, something you may not want to show to everyone. But he gets it." Turlington says, "I never felt like I was not my true self in front of his camera, which was rare in the '90s."
Valletta observes, "Peter and I have driven all over the world. He doesn't do the driving, though. He's too busy talking and playing music to drive." What else? "Oh, he wears a Speedo. Well, he may not anymore, but I have seen him in a Speedo. He's got great legs!" On set, "sometimes we have wine at lunch," Crawford sighs, "hang out, have a little sandwich."
Though to a large degree he has defined glamour, Lindbergh was never lost in it. Happily married to photographer Petra Sedlaczek, "I have four kids, a life," he says. "I go out very rarely in Paris. If it's a fashion party at a nightclub, I wouldn't dream to go. People come to you for your work, not because you go to all their parties.
"I don't feel like a fashion person," he continues. "I don't even have a little earring somewhere."
What Lindbergh does have is an epic collection of blue cotton shirts, a uniform on set and in life. "He has one shirt, in multiples," says Evangelista. "I think he has one and he washes it every day," laughs Jovovich. "No, he usually buys a dozen at a time because he's worried they'll stop making them!" says Campbell. "He loves his Gap shirts. It used to be Wrangler."
"Gap? Wrangler?" Lindbergh repeats, shocked. "I get them specially made by JLR in Paris! Oh, well, I guess they don't look like it...." Then he breaks into a big German laugh.
