Tattoos are reserved for the badasses of the world.

You? You’re a special kind of badass, a photographer with a keen eye for good design.

Tina Roth Eisenberg (SwissMiss) commissioned three artists for The Tattly Camera Tattoo Set, a set of 12 camera-loving temporary tattoos wrapped in a dapper gift box.

Geek out your bad self with old school Polaroid cameras, rangefinders, TLRs and black and white aperture shutters.

The Tattly Camera Tattoo Set Tweet It!
$25 at the Photojojo Shop

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Ever had the urge to wrap your body in photographs? Yes? Well, today, all of your dreams can come true!

Follow this guide to learn how to turn your photos into wearable photo fabric — that’s right fabric.

Use our Photo Fabric Dye Kit and the power of the sun to permanently print images onto most fabrics. This process is quick, easy, and works like magic.

You’ll be draped in photos in no time.

Make Wearable Photos

p.s. Yay! 4by6.com has a free special for Photojojo fans today. They make primo square cards from your Instagram shots & more!

Why it’s cool:

1. You’re wearing photographs.
2. You’re wearing photographs!
3. And, you made them yourself.

Within a few short hours, you’ll have photographs permanently printed on fabric. You don’t even need a darkroom. This stuff comes ready to go out of the bottle. Just mix, paint, and expose. Watch the dye change right before your eyes.

Ingredients:

• Sewing Pattern
  (If you’re new to sewing, you can print on pre-made clothing, too!)
• Fabric
• Photo Fabric Dye
• Negatives
• Scissors
• Scotch Tape
• Masking Tape
• Sponge Brush
• Water
• Measuring Cup or Mixing Bowl
• Portable Hard Surface to work on
• Additive Free Sop
• Washing Machine
• Sewing Machine

Step 1 – Pick your favorite pattern

Buy enough fabric for your pattern and size. We found that 100% cotton that has been prepared for dyeing (PFD on the label) works best. Feel free to experiment, but test small pieces first.

TIP Need a little help sewing? Check out this page for step by step instructions.

Step 2 – Print your negatives

Scan old family photographs or use that amazing digital image you shot yesterday. Inverted your photo in Photoshop to make a negative image, and printed them on 8.5 x 11″ transparencies.

TIP Higher contrast images tend to work better. Boost up your contrast before inverting it.

Step 3 – Plan it out

Think about the layout of your pattern and how you want your images to look in the end.

Do you want all of your images facing a certain direction on your dress? Do they need to be placed vertically on your fabric or horizontally? Will you cover the whole dress or just the skirt?

Cut fabric into manageable parts. This will make it easier to transport and manage during the dyeing steps.

TIP Remember that whole measure twice cut once theory? It’s a good one. Make sure you cut your fabric into pieces that will leave you enough room to cut out your pattern later.

The cut fabric will shrink and fray along the edges in the wash, so don’t cut out your perfect pieces just yet… Just big sections that are easier to work with.

Step 4 – Secure your fabric

Use a portable hard surface to tape your fabric onto. We found a sturdy board does the trick.

You want to be able to pick this up and move it outside. Imagine a windstorm as soon as you walk outside. Make sure your hard work (and delicate materials) stay in place. Tape, tape, tape!

Step 5 – Get ready:

Set up your workstation in a shaded place. Lay out all of the materials you’ll need within arms reach (dye, water, measuring cup, brush, tape).

The dye is light sensitive, so you’ll want to work quickly to minimize unwanted exposure.

Step 6 – Shake, rattle and roll, paint:

Shake your bottle of dye really well before opening. All the good stuff settles to the bottom. Paint it onto your fabric.

TIP Try diluting the dye with water in equal parts and mix well. You’ll get a little more out of your bottle, and painting it on will be much smoother.

Diluted dyes take a bit longer to expose. We definitely recommend doing a small test exposure before diving all the way in.

Step 7 – Tape Down your negatives

Lay your negatives on the coated surface and tape them in place. Remember that windstorm we mentioned?

Trust us, you’d rather spend a little extra time taping all the edges down now than chasing those negatives down your driveway.

Step 8 – Expose!

Just like magic! Take your coated, taped fabric outside and watch the sun do its thing.

On a clear sunny day, exposure is usually around 6-8 minutes. If it’s cloudy, later in the day, or a diluted solution, exposure may take a bit longer.

TIP Do smaller test pieces first to check your desired time.

Step 9 – Rinse and Repeat!

When you’re satisfied with your exposure, take the whole board back into a shady place. Remove your negatives, marvel at your accomplishments, then get that sucker into the wash.

Use HOT water and additive free soap- you don’t want any crazy chemicals mixing with the dye. We used a little Dawn dish soap.

Run your fabric print under water and scrub it with your hands before the washing machine cycle. This stops the developing process, and the wash will remove unexposed dye. Prints will lighten a bit after washing and drying.

Repeat the above steps for the rest of your fabric.

Step 10 – Stitch

Follow the directions on your pattern. Cut. Stitch. Magic!

Voila!

A wearable photograph. You’re welcome! :)

GO Nuts!

• Why stop there? The Photo Fabric Dye can be used on virtually any fabric surface (searching closet now). If sewing seems too much, try making pillow cases, like the photo above, tote bags, t-shirts, shower curtains, even lampshades.
• Tile photos together to make larger prints. Bigger is better right?
• Get inspired by this vid all about using Photo Fabric Dye (from the makers, Lumi!)
• Get artsy with fabric photos! Artist and photojojo fan Margo Duvall, of The MARMAR Studio, has been using the Photo Fabric Dye for installation based art works.

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Paint and clay are some artist’s medium of choice. Yours? Photos!

Artists Nerhol and Michael Mapes collaged photos into sculptural masterpieces that’ll inspire you to try something similar with your own photos!

Nerhol (duo Ryuta and Yoshihisa) makes 3D paper-cut portraits. They start by shooting lots of portraits of one person in three minutes.

After printing and piling the photos into a stack, they cut through the stack to reveal all of the layers of photos below for a three-dimensional image.

Michael Mapes’ take on photo sculptures involves cutting up a single image and putting it back together like a mosaic.

The twist is that each piece of the photo is different — some are cut into circles, squares, put into bottles or under magnifiers. The final image looks like a rad display that you might see at a museum.

Get inspired by checking out these two projects below.

Nerhol’s Paper Cut Portraits [via It's Nice That]

Michael Mapes’ Specimen Photo Mosaics [via This is Colossal]

p.s. Last chance to order gifts for Mother’s Day with Priority shipping! US shipping’s on us *today only* with code “iluvmom2012”.

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It’s beautiful and sparkly. It’s the night sky!

When the night is clear, the stars and astrophotographers come out to play. But you don’t need to be an astronomer to shoot the stars. We’ll show you how.

Immortalize the ever-changing cosmos in glorious photos with a few handy rules on tripod-use and exposure.

Whether you’re shooting the auroras or want to capture star trails, long exposures will get you there. Click on for our best tips!

How to Catch Stars With Your Camera(...)
Read the rest of How to Shoot Star Trails & Out of This World Night Sky Photos (679 words)

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If your iPhone were a human (which it nearly is), he’d be a free-diving, BMX-stunting, elite parkour champ.

Every thrill-seeker needs a safety net, and his? It’s the Glif+.

It’s just like the Glif, an iPhone tripod mount that doubles as a stand, but it comes with an extra vertical support and a loop for hanging on your keychain.

Your iPhone will stay secure to your tripod in more extreme angles, like up in a tree or on a bike. Champ status, indeed!

The Glif+ Tweet It!
$30 at the Photojojo Shop

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Every year, a strange and wonderful phenomenon takes place. *Every* object around you transforms into a camera.

No kidding. One time, we saw a refrigerator take a picture of an egg. Then the egg snapped a picture of a bell pepper. Before the bell pepper could take a picture, someone ate it!

Let Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day redefine your idea of what a camera can be. It’s happening this year on April 29th!

From your own fist to a saltine cracker, we’ve rounded up astounding pinhole cameras with tips for your own camera creations.

5 Incredible Pinhole Cameras

p.s. Our pals at Betabrand rawk! Submit a pic to their Model Citizen photo uploader for deals on their new women’s line.

Turn Your Fist into a Camera

Paulo Gioli takes the art of pinhole cameras to its most primitive level.

He uses his own fist with a piece of light sensitive paper tucked inside. Opening his fist just enough to let a small beam of light in, he exposed a photo onto the paper.

This process didn’t exist in photographic history until 1989 when Gioli thought outside of the pinhole box.

Gioli shares how he got into making pinhole cameras.

“It’s great to start from nothing. Even if the result isn’t how you planned, you haven’t bought a camera and it’s always a surprise.”

Make Snaps with a Snap

Sometimes making pinhole photos is a snap, literally. Gioli proved that with this extra portable mini pinhole camera made from a clothing snap.

Speaking of teeny pinhole cameras, check out this tutorial on making a hardly edible pine nut camera.

An Edible Pinhole Camera

For multiple exposure madness, choose an object that has lots of pinholes, like this saltine cracker!

Alternative Photography put together this explanation on how to make multiple exposure pinholes.

A Camera You Can Wear

Using an object as lightweight as a matchbox let Jaroslaw Klups wear his pinhole camera like a pair of glasses.

He made a contraption that fit around his ears and held the matchbox pinhole camera in front of his face.

That way, he could get a view of his ‘true self’ without feeling self-conscious posing in front of a camera.

The photo to the right is titled 1.5 hour exposure long talks on the telephone, putting the darkroom in order.

If shooting with a match box sounds like fun, check out this tutorial, and try it out.

The Musical Camera

Ever wonder what a guitar looks like from a guitar case’s point of view? Jo Babcock puts an end to your quandary with this amazing use of a pinhole camera.

Using nothing but recycled materials, Babcock has made hundreds of low-tech pinhole cameras from just about anything you can think of.

Old food containers are especially good for this. Here’s a tutorial on how to turn a chip can into a camera.

Take It Further

• Build your own with this Pinhole Camera Kit or this Darkroom in a Box.
• If you have a DSLR, this DSLR Pinhole Lens creates soft-focus pinhole images on your own digital camera (the photo above!).
• Show off all of the snazzy pinhole images that you took on Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day! Upload them to Pinholeday.org or on Flickr.
• Check out the inventory of kick-butt Pinhole Photographs for Sale at Pinholeresource.com

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You’ve tried prisms, sprinklers, eating *lots* of Skittles, but harnessing the sheer beauty of a rainbow has proven to be a challenge.

Here’s a surprisingly easy way! The Universal Flash Filter Kit will shower gorgeous color onto your photos.

These 20 color filters easily slip on and off your external flash via an included band. They’re crinkle-proof, sized to fit over any external flash and come in a small carrying case.

Lighting will finally be what you’ve always wished it was: e-z and fun!

The Universal Flash Filter Kit (20-Color Edition) Tweet It!
$30 at the Photojojo Shop

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Friends get worried when they don’t see you with a camera in tow.

That never happens though because you can always be found with *at least* two. The perfect justification: Instaxgrams.

Kyle Steed’s Instaxgrams are portraits shot half on Instax and half on Instagram.

He starts by taking a photo with his Instax and then holding that print up in front of the same subject and shooting it with his phone.

You can try your own portraits, but don’t stop yourself there. Landscapes and still-lifes make excellent subjects, too.

The analog and digital sides of you will never have a tiff again!

TIP: This project works with *any* kind of camera. Just get a photo printed, and go back to the same spot.

INSPIRATION: Get inspiration at Dear Photograph. (Thanks @moraima_photo!) Or try it digitally. See our tutorial on See-Through Photo Gadgets.

Kyle Steed’s Instaxgrams
[Watch Kyle's site for an Instagram photo book coming this year!]

p.s. Work with us! If you love photography, you’ll fit riiiiight in. Photojojo’s hiring a treasure hunter, a wordsmith and customer BFFs in San Francisco and afar.

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The last time you tried shooting an iPhone video of your buddies, things got a little too TMZ-ish for your liking.

How else were you going to pick up their voice without hovering your phone an inch from their face?

Cue The iPhone Boom Mic. It’s a tiny mic that gives you professional style sound with two directional settings, near and far.

The iPhone Boom Mic Tweet It!
$40 at the Photojojo Shop

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The airport x-ray machine is a dastardly villain with his sneaky invisible light.

If you’ve ever come home from vacation and found your film exposures looked really foggy or strange, your film might have been a victim of x-rays.

Thankfully, there are ways to keep your film safe on its trip through airport security. This is one time you might want the security agents to get more hands-on!

How to Travel with Film

p.s. Photojojo’s on Pinterest! Photo-loving pinners: Follow us to find out how you can win $50 in Photojojo Store goodies!

How the Wavy X-Ray Works

If you’ve ever been to the dentist, you probably know that x-rays can expose film just as much as light can.

When the dentist returns with little snap shots of the ins and outs of your teeth, the film he used to make those exposures are similar to the film in your camera.

Although we can’t see x-rays with our eyes, they’re on the same electromagnetic spectrum as visible light. They’re hard to see with the naked eye because they move at a higher frequency than all lovely colours we photographers worship.

How X-Rays Affect Film

As the scanning head inside the machine takes a look in your bag, it’s also exposing your film. This leaves you with exposures that are fogged or have lines running through them, ruining the shot.

Also note that checked luggage isn’t a safe haven for film. Though you might not personally see it, all checked luggage passes through an x-ray scanner, too – and that one is much more powerful than the one your carry-on goes through. The stronger the scanner, the more damage it does to your film.

Protecting Your Film

Like at the dentist, lead can be your friend. Instead of a big lead vest though, a little lead bag will act as armour for your film, protecting it from the notorious x-ray.

For about $20 in most shops, the lead bag will be a lifesaver. It can hold about 15-25 35mm rolls, and you can work a few extra in there if you’re okay with leaving the plastic canisters at home.

There is one small caveat, though. Most lead bags will only protect film below 800 ISO/ASA. There are bags that protect higher speed films, but they run more expensive.

For more examples of what happens to film on its journey through an airport scanner, check out Kodak’s sample photos.

Turn on the Charm

If you have to travel with 800 ISO film (or higher), break out your friendliest smile and politely ask for your film to be hand checked. While most TSA and security agents will oblige, some won’t. If the security agent you’re working with insists your film be put through the scanner, politely ask to speak to a supervisor.

According to TSA regulations, you are entitled to having your film hand checked. Let them know your film is 800 ISO+ and you should get your wish.

Different airports and agencies might have different policies, so it never hurts to check the regulations on their respective websites. You can always print out the section on film handling and take it with you, too.

Scan it to Digital & Overexpose

If you have film that has been through the x-ray scanner, it doesn’t mean you have to throw it out.

Aim to use the film on bright, sunny days. While it may not look perfect, the bright sun will mask some of the x-ray fog and lines.

You can also opt for having your film scanned to digital when you get it developed. Then you can fuss with the levels and colour balances in post-processing to get rid of the fog.

Black & white conversions will get rid of any stubborn strange colour tinges that persist through colour balance adjustments, too!

Tips For Getting Through Unexposed:

• Find the right sized x-ray bag. Consider how much film you’re bringing and find a bag that will hold it all.
• Some x-ray bags protect films higher than 800 ISO/ASA, but are more expensive.
• If you have to have your film hand-checked, put it in an easily accessible spot of your carry-on. It’ll make going through security faster.
• Get to airport security well before your flight. If you have to ask for your film to be hand-checked, it can take as much as 20 minutes longer to get through to your gate.

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