This has got to be one of the saddest uses of imagery ever. The Daily Mail is reporting that iPhone owners in the UK are using satellite photos and GPS to cheat at getting out of corn mazes. By seeing their current location in a birds-eye view of the maze, visitors can quickly solve even the most challenging corn mazes.

Adventure seekers usually spend anything up to 90 minutes getting lost in the Hedge Maze at Longleat Safari Park, Wiltshire, before finding the exit.

But staff at the attraction have noticed people are working their way round the labyrinth of two miles of pathways and 16,000 yew trees in just a matter of minutes.

The idea is clever, but super lame. Can you think of anything else that satellite imagery can help you cheat at?

iPhone cheats crack Britain’s biggest hedge maze in minutes (via Wired)

Image credit: Cheating in the maze by Andrew*

“Teenage Paparazzo” is a documentary film that will debut on HBO on September 27. It’s about the life of Austin Visschedyk, a 14-year-old paparazzi photographer who chases celebrities for 17 hours a day, earning $500 to $1000 for each photograph sold. Hopefully Visschedyk isn’t like the paparazzi in the Kate Mos LAX video we posted a while ago (though he probably is).
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In China there’s a belief that burning paper representations of a deceased person’s belongings allows it to be transfered to the afterlife for the departed person to use. Au Yeung Ping Chi, an effigy maker in Hong Kong and the owner of Bo Wah Effigies, is often asked to create effigies of trendy consumer items such as iPhones and Nintendo Wiis for relatives of those who die young. The above is a camera he created for the purpose of afterlife photography. He’ll probably be asked to create Leica M9 Titanium editions soon.

Check out some more of Au Yeung’s paper creations here.

(via Photojojo)

It’s funny how humor poking fun at hipsters seems to always include some reference to cameras and photography (see our hipster dinosaur post). College Humor has posted a pretty funny series of illustrations imagining what comics would be like if superheroes were hipsters. This photography-loving Spiderman is our fav.

If Superheroes Were Hipsters (via Laughing Squid)

Well whaddya know, it looks like besides being a masterful ping pong player, Bruce Lee was also an avid Nikon user!

Kudos to whoever can identify exactly what Lee is using in this photo.

Bruce Lee uses Nikon! (via Nikon Rumors)

Nic Grobler and Stan Engelbrecht have a great photography project in which they examine the bicycling culture in South Africa.

[...] we are not photographing people who ride purely for exercise or recreation, but instead we are focussing on those who use bicycles as an integral tool in their day-to-day existence. We’ve noticed that in South Africa, especially in the major centers, very few people use bicycles as mode of transport. This is very strange since we have no proper public transport infrastructure, and that which does exist is expensive and unsafe.

The duo raised $15,000 through social funding website Kickstarter in 55 days, and traveled around South Africa meeting and photographing the cyclists they met. They’re currently working on raising an additional $7,500 to have 3,000 copies of their Bicycle Portraits book published.
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Apparently there’s a series of hipster dinosaur coloring book photos going viral on the Interwebs. One of them (shown above) shows a T-Rex wearing hipster glasses and lamenting over the extinction of Polaroid’s classic instant film. BuzzFeed has a full collection of the drawings done by Molly Lewis.

Image credit: Photograph by Molly Lewis

Check out this Fujifilm vending machine found in Japan by Lee Miller of The Other East. The thing sells 35mm and APS film, as well as disposable camera for snagging memories on the go.

Have you seen any of these things outside of Japan?

Image credit: Photograph by Lee Miller and used with permission

We’re not exactly sure how practical this bag is, but it’s definitely among the more unique camera bags we’ve come across. The Leopard Print Camera Bag by fashion webzine Luxirare is a camera bag/purse hybrid that houses a Nikon D90, a cell phone, and some credit cards, and allows you to shoot without removing the camera from the bag.
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Here’s a bit of camera/culture trivia for this beautiful Friday: Did you know that Japanese culture and many East Asian cultures dislike the number 4? Check out the above screenshot from the Wikipedia page on the Canon PowerShot G line of cameras. Notice how Canon never released a PowerShot G4.
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