March 2015

Prominent photography groups are sounding the alarm about a new bill that was just passed by the Arkansas Senate. SB-79, the "Personal Rights Protection Act," would require photographers to get written consent from a stranger to feature their likeness in a photograph for most purposes.

The law could have a huge implication on street photography, whose practitioners thrive on the ability to capture life and people on camera without having to constantly stop and ask for releases from the subjects.

We often get too set in our ways and our conversation remains in the same context, which can blind us to seeing the pitfalls we create for ourselves. In general, using other photographers’ aesthetics, judgements, and sensibilities should make us think twice, thrice, … Yet, in the rush of creating the next “noticeable” image on the Web, we use presets, filters, brushes, and a whole lot of them without thinking twice.

Instagram sparked controversy this week after deleting this photograph of a woman lying on a bed with menstruation blood seen on her clothing and on her sheets. She's now demanding to know why other more graphic or risqué photos are allowed on the service while images of a fully clothed woman on her period are not.

Photographer Marisha Camp and her brother Jessie were recently passing through West Virginia on a nationwide tour for a documentary series when they were reportedly confronted by "a hostile mob." The residents were suspicious of the photo taking and allegedly harassed and detained the duo until a trooper arrived and escorted the photographers from the scene.

If you're planning on buying or selling some camera gear with the help of Craigslist, here's a simple tip: the lobby of your local police station is a safe place to arrange the meeting with the stranger.

50 years ago, civil rights photographer Matt Herron documented the Selma to Montgomery marches that highlighted racial injustices in …

This 'Just the Lenses' article will take advantage of a Trioptics Imagemaster optical bench to compare lenses from different camera mounts with no camera involved. Why is that different? Because all other forms of testing (DxO, Imatest, or even photography) tests the camera-lens combination.

"Mirrored" is a photo project that was a collaboration between photographers Markus Andersen and Elif Suyabatmaz. It's a series of diptychs showing daily life on opposite ends of the globe: Andersen is based out of Sydney, Australia, and Suyabatmaz is based out of Istanbul, Turkey. In each pair of images, the selected photos "mirror each other in both obvious and subtle ways."

This is pretty impressive: photographer Pascal Kulcsar needed to digitize some old slide film left behind by his grandfather. Rather than purchase a film scanner, Kulcsar decided to combine his technical ingenuity and love for LEGOs to create a DIY slide film scanner using LEGO pieces.

Apple recently launched a global advertising campaign touting the camera quality of the iPhone 6. As part of the campaign, the company put up billboards all over the world with its favorite photos captured by iPhone 6 users with the phone.

Two pranksters from the advertising industry recently decided to poke fun at the billboards by putting up their own fake "Shot on iPhone 6" ads next to them.

Somalia is a country that doesn't often get good press. Most headlines about it seem to focus on things like pirates, violence, and political unrest. With media organizations largely ignoring the happier aspects of the country, one woman is taking it upon herself to do so, becoming something of an Instagram celebrity along the way.

Photographers who are out and about often have thousands of dollars in camera gear kept inside a camera bag, and keeping an eye on your bag at all times can be taxing and sometimes impossible. KitSentry is a new product that's designed to keep an eye on your gear so you don't have to, giving you peace of mind to help you focus on making photos.

If you're a fan of both retro cameras and instant photos, you may be delighted to learn of a new camera called the InstantFlex TL70. It's designed to look like a Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex camera, but it's a fully functional instant camera that takes Fujifilm Instax film.

DigitalRev TV, the Top Gear of photography, is the latest to do a hands-on comparison of the classic Canon …

One of the many amazing photographs that emerged after the recent total solar eclipse was this epic shot of stunt biker Danny MacAskill soaring down a hill with the moon eclipsing the sun in the background. Many on the Internet immediately called the shot a "fake," but it's far from it.

It took photographer Rutger Pauw quite a bit of planning and a healthy dose of luck to capture the memorable photograph.

Moscow-based artist Dmitry Morozov has created a strange DIY camera unlike any we've seen before. It's an 8-bit instant photo shooter created with an old Game Boy, a camera, a thermal printer, an Arduino board, and a gun.

A photographer named Andy Davidhazy hiked the 2,600 miles from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail. It was both a physical endeavor and a photographic one: every mile he traveled, Davidhazy stopped and took a single selfie. The video above is the time-lapse that he created after his epic journey.

I received a Rosco Gel kit a week ago, and after a few tests I can say I really love using all the awesome colors for my photography.


The kit includes 20 individual 30x48cm square sheets for color corrections (e.g. CTO, CTB, ND) and a range of different colors, all of them contained in a protected and resealable packaging.

Earlier this month, we shared a video showing the incredible reach of the Canon SX60, a superzoom compact camera with a 65x lens. If you thought that video was crazy, check out this one featuring the new Nikon P900, which packs an even longer 83x optical zoom lens -- the equivalent of a 24-2000mm lens in 35mm terms.

Back in 2013, Vadym Chalenko successfully raised nearly $40,000 to launch a product called the Beastgrip, the first universal lens adapter and camera rig for smartphones. Now, two years later, he's refreshing the Beastgrip with a new version that's even more versatile and powerful. It's called the Beastgrip Pro.

The camera on smartphones is one of the main selling points these days, and Apple is working hard to push its iPhone camera ahead of the pack. A newly discovered patent reveals that Apple has created an innovative sensor design that increases quality by using three separate sensors and a prism for splitting light.

Huw Alexander Ogilvie was flying over the Pacific Ocean in 2005 when he …

(The Roosevelt quote above is one of my all time favorites. I have a couple of copies of it and one is on the wall next to my cluttered, USB encrusted desk.)

Ahhh… the world of the artist. A place where we can nurture our ideas and share our bountiful creativity to others who will accept it into their lives with open arms, and smiles of gratitude.

Or… not.

Amazon has just dropped a huge bomb on the file storage industry by announcing two new unlimited cloud storage subscription plans. One lets you store all the files your heart desires for just $60 a year, and the second is one that may be a very attractive backup option for photographers: unlimited photo storage for just $12 a year.

Canon has long been rumored to have a small 4K camera up its sleeve, and now the world is getting its first glimpse of the new product. The company has unveiled the camera at a press event in China ahead of its rumored official launch in the United States at the NAB 2015 show in Las Vegas next month.

Back in June, I was lucky enough to partner with a Boston-based nonprofit, Shooting Touch, to travel to Rwanda and document the participants in their "Basketball Health Corps" initiative. They use the sport of basketball and their partnerships with health administrators to teach children valuable skills and preventative treatments when it comes to HIV/AIDS, malaria, and daily health.

Apple's new Macbook features a redesigned pressure-sensitive trackpad called the Force Touch. In addition to being more powerful for inputs from your fingers, the new design allows for the use of a stylus on the touchpad if you'd like to retouch your photographs tablet-style.

Inklet by Ten One Design is the first 3rd party application for Mac that offers this.

Last year I launched a new initiative called the Streettogs Academy, a biweekly challenge for motivating and sharpening the skills of street photographers around the world. Photographers are given 2 weeks to shoot photos for the latest theme and upload 1 to 3 of them to our Facebook page.

Our latest assignment was "Black and White." The submitted photos that received the most attention from members of the group were those that had the simple basic requirement of a good image: a strong visual hook. Here's a look at photos.

Every year at the Gulf Photo Plus photography festival in Dubai, attendees are treated to a special event called the GPP ShootOut. Called the "most exciting hour in the photography world" by David Hobby, the event pits famous photographers head-to-head in creating the best photo they can on the spot. It's a freestyle battle for imaging.

You can watch this year's GPP ShootOut 2015 in the 18-minute video above, which shows photographers Sara Lando, Ryan Brenizer and Joel Grimes battling each other with their eyes, minds, and camera gear.

As New York City prepares to digitize and publish thousands of historical crime scene photos captured by photo unit police officers, here's a look at the subject from the photojournalist's point of view.

The 9-minute above is an interview with Weegee, a photographer known for his gritty black-and-white photos of crime scenes and urban life. It's from the 1958 vinyl record "Famous Photographers Tell How."