May 2017

An Oregon-based plant retailer was just awarded almost one million dollars in actual damages by a federal jury in one of the biggest photography copyright wins of the year so far. Despite the strange circumstances of this case, it's being called, "a huge win for artists, photographer, and creators."

Lia Konrad is a 23-year-old photographer who grew up in small town Hof, Germany with big ideas. With a very small budget for a camera with a single lens—but none for lighting—and a homemade costume, she has created a marvelous series of fantasy environmental portraits.

It’s easy to obsess over gear. We all love new toys, and it’s natural to lust over that hot new mirrorless camera or convince yourself that a lens upgrade is going to take your photos to the next level. But amid the onslaught of pretty-looking shots and gear reviews, never forget: story is king.

Fine art photographer Nicolas Bruno has suffered from the terrifying condition known as sleep paralysis for 10 years. Therapy for the condition ultimately led him to creative expression as a way to cope with the affliction, as he discusses with VICE’s Creators Project in this video.

Profoto isn't being shy about their new B1X monolight. They're calling it the "new benchmark for on-location lighting." A significant improvement on the Profoto B1, "This isn’t an update," explains Profoto. "This is a significant replacement with improvements in three important areas: power, power and power."

This lovely video from photographer Thomas Heaton sees him heading out in to the wilderness with his tent and an Intrepid 4x5 to try large format photography for the first time.

The question of zoom lenses versus prime lenses is an endless debate in photography, and one that has never really been definitively resolved. Essentially, the whole thing boils down to what’s more important: image quality, or versatility.

Filmmaker Robert Nyerges is about to make you cry. In an emotional Mother's Day Gatorade commercial he created on spec, he draws from his own heartbreaking experience of losing his mom to create one minute of pure, tearjerking brilliance.

Check out this Nikon DSLR rig, which apparently uses a pistol-style grip for triggering the shutter. It seems this kit looks too much like a firearm for the TSA's liking.

There are certain people that seem to play a consistent role in your life. I'm not talking about friends or family -- being part of your life is in their job description. I mean people that seem to always be around. People you know in passing. A name that keeps popping up. A face you recognize from days gone. For me, that person is -- oddly enough -- Tim Tebow.

Photographer Canonjon of São Paulo, Brazil, shared this photo that represents "£12.5K worth of ouch." It shows a $13,000 Sony 500mm f/4 G SSM lens that fell and shattered on the ground.

Here's the crazy corner Nikon is in: they can claim a modest 7% increase in operating income for the fiscal year that they just finished, but had far lower net sales and, with restructuring costs, had a significant loss. Nikon predicts that they'll recover to profitability next fiscal year, but with lower sales.

In this 8-minute video by Macroscope Pictures, learn how to build a color changing wand light with your own two hands for only $30 in materials. For an extra 15 bucks, you can add a Wi-Fi controller and control the finished product with your phone.

The White House was criticized by the media this week for allowing a Russian press photographer into the Oval Office for President Trump's meeting with Russia’s foreign minister while the U.S. media was shut out. Now the White House is reportedly "furious" about being "trolled" with the photos by Russia, and the Russian photographer is calling the media stories "nonsense."

The Creative Cloud team at Adobe has launched a new weekly interview series title “Make It”. The show runs at around 10 minutes, and features members of the Adobe team interviewing guest creatives, including photographers. The first episode featuring a photographer is embedded above, with Lindsay Adler in the hot seat.

What’s the difference between a hobby, and a job? Ignoring money, of course, I’d say that a hobby’s primary purpose is entertainment and relaxation, whereas a job’s primary purpose is to produce value. And yet, defying common sense, photographers seem to have this reversed.

Microsoft will be launching their Windows 10 Creators Update in September, and the company has just unveiled one of the apps that’ll come with it. It’s called Story Remix, and it’s a video-crafting app that looks to be the spiritual successor to Movie Maker.

Google announced this week that they are releasing a new certification standard that they are calling “Street View Ready”. This certification will be used for 360° cameras that are able to publish to Street View, and are guaranteed to support the level of quality required for Google’s 360-degree mapping service.

Apple wants to train you to be a master of iPhone photography. The company just launched a new microsite called "How to Shoot on iPhone 7" that contains 16 videos with mobile photography tips and tricks.

Snap Inc., the parent company of image and video sharing app Snapchat, reported their quarterly financial results for the first time since going public on Wednesday, and it isn’t pretty. Snap’s user growth slowed down and revenue was below Wall Street expectations for the quarter.

Ever since I jumped into photography several years ago, I've always had a fascination with Leica. I used to think their cameras were overpriced and absurd—they were heavy and lacked many of the latest features I was accustomed to being on the latest DSLRs.

Ed Greggory of Photos in Color has put together a 3 minute guide that will show you how to shoot the so-called "perfect wedding photo" in just 10 steps. We're not sure about that "perfect" bit, but it's a fun idea that's worth checking out.

Need something fun to build this weekend? This step-by-step tutorial will show you how to turn an old bicycle wheel and some fabric into a simple DIY softbox that you can use for photography or, just as a cool studio accent light.

I recently found myself with a spine injury, which proved to kinda be a big road block to my photography. My photo projects usually involved lots of driving and walking, two things that proved to be extremely painful due to my crappy health. One day, sitting around bored, I decided to create a camera that was as immobile as I was. Armed with a rough sketch, and a misguided sense of self-confidence, I built a 20x24 camera over a weekend.

Neutral Density (ND) filters are a great tool for producing unique photos in lighting conditions where a long exposure would otherwise not be possible. This 7-minute video tutorial goes in to detail about which filter to select for your scene, with before and after photos showing the effects possible.

Johnson & Johnson has been fined over $3 billion for marketing the antipsychotic drug Risperdal to children. Over 18,000 boys and young men are now suing the company over a side effect of the drug called gynecomastia, which causes adolescent boys to develop female breasts. Photographer Richard Johnson recently completed a photo project to tell the boys' stories: it's titled Risperdal Boys.

Mike Mezuel II puts on workshops at Big Bend National Park in Texas for photographers who want to learn best to photograph the night sky. In this 5-minute video, follow along as Mike leads his students out on a shoot beneath the dazzling night sky over Texas.

With a background in literature and journalism, today Eugene Reznik is the Digital Features Photo Editor at Bloomberg. Before grabbing that gig, he was the Director of Photography of the digital publication Hopes&Fears, an editor at American Photo Magazine, and a writer for TIME Magazine’s LightBox photography section.

I needed a monitor hood for quite some time but wasn't willing to pay the retail prices charged for them, so I decided to build one myself. In this tutorial I'll show you how to build your own DIY monitor hood for less than $12.

Sony is squeezing as much hype as it possibly can out of its impressive stacked sensor technology. Not only did they use this tech to create the 20fps Sony a9, they also created a smartphone that can shoot 960fps super slow motion. And now they're showing it off...

“Yeah, I’m in a crevasse”, Jamie Mullner radios to his friends after tumbling 60 feet to the depths of a glacier in the Swiss Alps. “I had the GoPro recording; how epic is that!?”

If you're interested in product photography, Dustin Dolby's channel workphlo is definitely worth a bookmark. Using minimal equipment, he's able to capture distinct looks like this makeup shot, and in this tutorial he'll show you how a single speedlight can produce a bold beautiful wine bottle photo that looks 100% pro.

We've seen a lot of creative setups for faking that 'bullet time' look—one guy strapped his GoPro to a ceiling fan—but this creation filmmaker Luca Amhofer is the most versatile and functional DIY rig of its kind we've ever seen... and it's dirt cheap to make!

The Trophy Camera is an experimental camera powered by artificial intelligence that can only shoot images that it deems to be "award-winning."

Are you stressed? What better way to de-stress is there than to break things while making cool photographs at the same time? You can break anything, from spaghetti to fancy glassware, there is no limit. It will take you about half an hour to build the Arduino circuit and write the code for this sound triggering photographic system.