UPDATE 5/22: Due to an overwhelming response, Operation Photo Rescue has closed their volunteer registration. Check back later! We’ll update when it opens again.

You’ve run through this fire drill a million times over: first, you grab the family cat, then your family photos.

Sadly, it doesn’t always work out that way. While many are grateful to survive a natural disaster, they’re still left devastated from the loss of everything they own.

The worst of it might just be the loss of irreplacable family photos.

Operation Photo Rescue is a league of photographers and graphic designers who set out to help survivors get their treasured memories back.

OPR’s first mission was Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Since then, they’ve restored 9,000+ photos in other disasters like Hurricane Sandy.

If you’re itching to help, OPR’s always looking for skilled photo restorers and fundraising.

You can help folks get back photos from their wedding day, that regal portrait of their great of grandpa, and snapshots of their daughter’s first birthday.

Won’t that feel awesome?

Operation Photo Rescue

p.s. WE ARE HIRING A WEB DEVELOPER. If you love photography and San Francisco and codes, APPLY HERE.

p.p.s. WE ARE ALSO HIRING AN EVANGELIST/BIZ DEV HERO. Creative deal-maker types, APPLY HERE.

Those Star Trek special effects guys are going to feel pret-ty foolish when they find out about Adam Kennedy.

Turns out you don’t need years of computer-generated image training to create breathtakingly detailed alien planets.

Adam finds his planets on the street! Fire hydrants, my friends.

He photographs, the rusted, peeling spheres that sit atop fire hydrants and edits them into wonderfully awe-inspiring habitats.

The best part about Adam’s planet project is that it started with a single imaginative thought.

It’s what inspires street art, photographers, and artists of every kind.

So the next time you think, hey that thing looks like that other thing, you know exactly what to do.

(Make art!)

Planets Made Out of Fire Hydrants

p.s. Wedding season is here! Get 40% off pro photo prints from Nations Photo Lab with code PHOTOJOJO.

p.p.s. We’re hiring A WEB DEVELOPER and AN EVANGELIST/BIZ DEV HERO. If you love photography and San Francisco, APPLY HERE.

You had a journal once.

Then, your little sister found it and told your crush all about your dreams of running away to Disneyland to fulfill your dream of meeting Ariel IRL.

That was embarrassing.

Days is totally not that. It’s a journal (disguised as an iOS app) that you’ll *want* to share with friends.

The goal behind the app is to have you document your life in photos as it happens.

Shoot photos throughout the day, and publish your post of photos the following day in a visually delightful grid of time-stamped pics.

How the heck is this different from Instagram? So many ways. Cool ways, too.

1. You can’t upload photos. Your photo must be taken at that very moment.
2. No filters. Just pure, raw, unadulterated snaps.
3. GIFs! You can make real life, honest-to-blog moving images.
4. The interface is so adorable, you’ll want to break something.

Documenting your life is so much more fun in photos, and your little sis won’t have any ammo against you. Win.

Photograph Your Days with Days

p.s. WE ARE HIRING A WEB DEVELOPER. If you love photography and San Francisco and codes, APPLY HERE.

p.p.s. WE ARE ALSO HIRING AN EVANGELIST/BIZ DEV HERO. Creative deal-maker types, APPLY HERE.

You’ve always wanted to catch one awesome photo of lightning striking down on Earth’s surface.

Turns out we’ve been doing it wrong this whole time.

Phillip Stearns figured it out: Step 1 — throw out your camera. Step 2 — expose your film with 15,000 volts of electricity.

Inspired by the science between cameras and our very own eyes, Phillip turned to experimenting with peel-apart instant film.

He starts by pouring household chemicals (like bleach) onto the film to manipulate color and then touches a neon tube ballast to the film to electrocute the surface.

The result is a dreamy rainbow of lightning-like images emblazoned onto a final print.

It’s no wonder that Phillip’s main work has dealt with digital glitches. You might call this the ultimate analog equivalent of a glitch.

You can watch how it all goes down in this awesome video.

Extra cool thing: Learn how to make emulsion lifts with instant film!

Phillip Stearns’ Electrified Instant Film

p.s. WE ARE HIRING A WEB DEVELOPER. If you love photography and San Francisco and codes, APPLY HERE.

p.p.s. WE ARE ALSO HIRING AN EVANGELIST/BIZ DEV HERO. Creative deal-maker types, APPLY HERE.

Scenario: A ladybug turns your shoulder into its new resting spot. What do you do?

Some might say Make a wish. Teresa Franco? She’d say Take a photo.

Snapping a photo of something so tiny can be a challenge. Do not let your camera phone deceive.

You can use your phone to get great macro shots of the tiniest objects, from crystal-ball-esque dew drops on a leaf to a caterpillar snacking on a blade of grass.

Teresa Franco is living proof. Have you seen her macros? They’re the best of the best on Instagram!

We asked her how she does it, and she shared all her favorite phone lenses, apps, and tips for getting fantastic photos of nature’s tiniest details.

So the next time a bug takes a liking to your shoulder, you’ll be set.

Phoneography Tips with Teresa Franco

p.s. WE ARE HIRING A WEB DEVELOPER. If you love photography and San Francisco and codes, APPLY HERE.

p.p.s. WE ARE ALSO HIRING AN EVANGELIST/BIZ DEV HERO. Creative deal-maker types, APPLY HERE.

Extra photos for bloggers: 1, 2, 3

Doesn’t it feel like 2012 was just a couple weeks ago?

Maybe your New Year’s resolution was to start a 365 Project where you snap a photo every day.

Well, what if we told you that you can make a time-lapse of your life by taking a one second clip every day? That’s what Photojojo pal, James Bernal did for all 366 days of 2012.

Think about how awesome yours would look — it’d be a 6-and-a-half minute mosaic of your year!

James put together an awesome guide detailing how to shoot, what to shoot, and how to keep going when you’re ready to set the camera down.

A Guide to Shooting One Second a Day

p.s. Win a traveling photo booth! We’re giving away an Instax camera & more with Brit+Co. Enter to win right here.

p.p.s. Even moar giveaways! Our pals at SnapKnot (the wedding photographer directory) are giving away a Nikon D800 or Canon 5D Mark III. Here’s how to enter.

Photo by Brooke Schwab

Photography is a solo sport. It’s just you and your camera out there!

You’ve asked yourself a million times how you can make a difference with your photo skills, and 100 cameras figured it out.

This non-profit gives cameras to kids in developing communities around the world. Which is so great!

The kids are then able to sell their own photos giving them educational resources, healthcare, and lifeline supplies. Even greater!

These new photogs also learn about empowerment — they first-hand experience their own talent and skill positively affecting their communities.

Remember the first time you felt you could make a difference? Suddenly you felt like you could do so much! One empowering experience is all it takes.

BTW! 100 Cameras is actually raising funds to launch 100 Cameras 2.0, which will let anyone start their own photo community. Helping kids with photography? Sounds like a no-brainer!

Help Kids via 100 Cameras

p.s. Attention gadget lovers – we’re hiring for a Buyer aka Treasure Hunter. Apply here.

Photo by Brooke Schwab

When you were a kid, having a camera in front of you was just a little less scary. You probably didn’t even notice it was there most of the time.

It’s that enviable carefree ‘tude kids have that makes taking portraits of them so much fun.

That’s just what You are My Wild is all about. 14 photographers document how they see their kids by submitting one remarkable portrait each week.

Meaghan Curry explains how it started:

Right after the new year, and in sort of a creative lull, we were brainstorming about starting a project to force ourselves to put down our phone cameras down and pick up our other cameras more regularly…

Ironically, Instagram is the common thread between us. It is where we found other people documenting their children in really loving, beautiful and respectful ways.

We hoped that some of these other IG photographers would be interested in using their higher quality cameras to “see” the same way that we were using our phone cameras.

And it seems to have worked! Check out their portraits, and may they inspire you to photograph your loved ones in a new light.

You Are My Wild — Beautiful Kid Photography

p.s. INK361 has a special offer for you guys! Get 25% off their Instagram prints and more by using code PJJ25.

Elephants, body pillows, King sized candy. We’re huge fans of big things.

We’ve taken to photoing with our iPad because we can’t get enough of that super-sized viewfinder.

So when we peeped iPad Telephoto Lenses that super-size the telephoto power of your iPad, we had to have ‘em.

Round up the right iPadcessories and take full advantage of that big beautiful viewfinder/photo viewer/your iPad.

The (New!) iPad Telephoto Lens
$25 at the Photojojo Shop

The iPad Telephoto Lens The iPad Telephoto Lens uses optical zoom to see 10-12x farther than your iPad can see on its own. So there’s no need for pixel killing digital zoom. This little lens makes a big difference. It’ll grab more detail, add a touch of vignetting, and help you photograph a raccoon while keeping a safe distance. The iPad Telephoto Lens $25 at the Photojojo Store  Tweet it!      Share   iPad SD Card Readers The iPad SD card reader allows you to upload and view photos from your DSLR or point-and-shoot on your iPad in a flash. Review your shots on a big screen before you get back to your computer, no cables or syncing required. iPad SD Card Readers from $15 at the Photojojo Store  Tweet it!      Share               iPad Fisheye, Telephoto, Wide/Macro Pro Lenses Add interest to your photos with these pro quality lenses, made of optical glass and solid aluminum. Shoot with a wide angle or 2x telephoto. Take stunning macro shots, or facetime through a fisheye. The iPad Lens Series $20 at the Photojojo Store  Tweet it!      Share The Pocket Spotlight More than make up for your iPad’s lack of flash with the Pocket Spotlight. Mount it to your iPad’s headphone jack to take portraits indoors. Or, hold it in your hand to light up a scene just the way you want it before you snap that pic or roll that video. The Pocket Spotlight $30 at the Photojojo Store  Tweet it!      Share

Extra photos for bloggers: 1, 2, 3

iPhones, and internets, and ion implanters! Oh my!

In this tech-savvy world we can return to 100%-analog-photog-goodness and transform them to digital with some simple scanner-wizardry.

This handy guide will show you how to scan your film, merging all of the sweetest parts of analog with the ease and shareability of digital.

The best part? You don’t have to know a thing about rocket science to follow along.

Learn How to Scan Film!

p.s. Our buddies at Printstagram make some of the bestest Instagram prints we’ve seen! You can make it happen right from your phone.