In 9th grade, photographer Joe Edelman was given the assignment of creating 5 separate photos of an egg without moving it. That task became a defining moment in his journey as a photographer, teaching him the importance of learning to “see” light over learning “how” to light.

(via DPS)

Want to capture some wind-blown hair in a portrait photograph but don’t have access to an electric fan or wind machine? Photographer Benjamin Von Wong has a quick tip just for you: use your collapsible light reflector to create the needed wind. Simply have someone off camera fan the reflector at your subject in the direction and intensity that you want, and voila! instant wind machine!

Flickr user Nick Cool was shooting in Machu Picchu, Perú on a sunny day when he made a helpful discovery: his coffee cup’s sleeve doubled nicely as a makeshift lens hood. While it’s probably not the best thing to use on a regular basis, it’s a clever MacGyver-ish idea that got the job done. For less-ghetto sun shielding that’s just as portable, you can look into printing/making your own lens hood or a nifty new product called the Flex Lens Shade.

(via DYIP)

Image credit: Weatherized Nikon in Peru by Nick Cool and used with permission

Here’s a tutorial by skateboarding photographer Michael Burnett in which he discusses various composition tips and techniques. His area of expertise is in shooting skateboarders, but the tips are very applicable for other types of photography as well.
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Posing App is a new app that offers a pocket reference for poses — helpful for both photographers and models. The 140 hand-drawn poses come in a variety of flavors — children, couples, weddings, and women, to name a few — and are accompanied by short descriptions that provide additional pointers. The is available from the iTunes App Store for $2, and will be released for Android soon.

Photo enthusiast Chris Malcolm needed a better way to aim his 500mm lens at fast moving subjects (e.g. birds in flight), so he upgraded his lens with a DIY sighting aid by attaching a non-magnified red dot sight:

They’re designed to clamp onto a gun sight wedge mount, so some kind of adapter is required. I played with the hot shoe mount, but it was too flexible — the sight needed re-zeroing at every mount, and was easily knocked out of calibration. The degree of precision required to aim the central focus sensor at the target via the dot also made parallax error a problem on the hot shoe. So I decided to mount it directly on the lens. Least parallax error, plus the geometry of the lens barrel and the sight mount naturally lines it up with the lens. To protect the lens barrel I glued the sight clamp to a cardboard tube slightly too small, slit open to provide a sprung grab on the lens body. The slit also handily accommodates the focus hold button on the lens barrel.

Malcolm reports that the site “works amazingly well”, making it “trivially easy to aim the lens at anything very quickly”.
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Here’s a simple tip by photographer Benjamin Von Wong for traveling abroad: you can make recharging your devices overseas a breeze by building a charging station using a single power adapter and your own power strip.

(via DYIP)

Want to get closer to animals when doing wildlife photography? If there’s access, your car can do the trick by serving as a photography blind. Scott Bourne of Photofocus writes,

For whatever reason, most wildlife (birds included) won’t spook or flush when they see a car. Open the car door, step out of the car, now that’s a totally different situation. But as long as you stay in the car, your chances of getting close enough to wildlife to get the shot are improved by 90%.

(via Photofocus)

Image credit: CAR STUCK IN SAND – BULL ISLAND by infomatique

Here’s a quote by photographer Richard Benson on Lee Friedlander’s approach to photography (from his afterword in In the Picture: Self-Portraits, 1958-2011):

Lee has often worked without a specific project in mind, simply making pictures of what he saw, in order, as Garry Winogrand said, to see what it looked like photographed. This way of working led him to look at his contact sheets (of which there have been an astonishing number) to find out what was there that he might not have expected. His shadow, and more clearly defined versions of himself, turned up with regularity. At some point early on Lee realized that he was making self-portraits along with many other photographs that were defining a new landscape for all of us who saw his work. There is a great lesson in this for photographers of today who dedicate themselves to one project or another, failing to understand that the best work might come from an obsession with the medium rather than the personally oriented choice of what might be done with it. Lee always has a camera with him and is constantly making pictures. How much better the work of today might be if all the young and dedicated photographers took up this habit.

If you’re in a creative rut and can’t think of a “project” idea, don’t worry — just be obsessed with photography itself and constantly be ready to photograph what interests you.

(via valerian via tokyo camera style)

Image credit: Self Portrait Series – Untitled 4, Barcelona (2012) by Mooglio

KEH has published a helpful primer on memory cards that describes the different types, common error codes you might come across when using them, and how to take care of them:

Memory cards are quite sturdy and commonly expected to work through one million read/write/erase cycles. The weakest part of the card is the connectors however, and should withstand around 10,000 insertions/removals into a camera or card reader.

No matter which type of card (CF I&II, SD, XD, SM, MS, etc.) your camera takes, it’s a good idea to format it on a regular basis. While it may not happen often, these little cards of information can fail and reach the end of their life unexpectedly. To keep your card in good health, format it in the camera from time to time. (I format my card after every major download). This clears up the card and erases all of the data. Of course make sure that you have downloaded and saved onto a computer all of the files on the card before formatting.

Since the number of insert/remove cycles a card can handle is far less than the number of read/write cycles, it’s very important to handle your cards gently in order to prolong their lifespan.

Memory Cards: Compatibility, Error Codes, and Health (via Photojojo)

P.S. Last month Canon also published a helpful guide on its cameras error codes and what they mean.

Image credit: 4GB Memory card by Jorge Quinteros