After seeing Gina LeVay's work from the March on Washington I wanted to try something similar here in Boston during a demonstration. I loved the feel of separating the subject with beautiful portrait light juxtaposed with the darkened ever changing crowd behind them.
Almost one year ago, my Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS) started flaring up. I started getting interested in medium format photography, and the Pentax 645Z caught my attention.
Antarctica is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent on the planet, but despite its hostility and isolation, it is home to some of the most incredible wildlife seen anywhere on Earth, making it a paradise for nature photographers like myself.
Introductions to basic lighting don't get much simpler or better than this. You could call it Lighting 101, and whether that light is coming from a window or an artificial light source, the info here qualifies as "must know basics" for anybody with a camera in hand.
Most online photography tutorials focus on one thing—how to sharpen better or how to retouch shiny skin, for example. This video goes way beyond that, walking you through how to retouch a portrait from start to finish using both Lightroom and Photoshop.
A controversial executive order signed last week by President Trump is causing problems for multiple photography institutions in the US. World Press Photo has been forced to replace a judge last-minute, and a photographer scheduled to speak at the International Center of Photography has been denied entry into the country.
We're a little weary about drone Kickstarter campaigns these days, but that hasn't stopped people from flocking to a new campaign to fund the Selfly: a "Smart Autonomous Flying Phone-Case" that's already raised over $150,000 by promising to put an autonomous drone in your pocket.
I had everything I ever needed, all the dream gear: Broncolor lighting, the latest professional Canon cameras, and all the fastest Canon lenses. I had the latest Apple laptop, C-stands, tripods; I had it all, and at the time it was good. So why did I decide to get rid of everything after only a few years?
Episode 146 of the PetaPixel Photography Podcast.
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Featured: Chris Niccolls and Jordan Drake, The Camera Store TV
2016 was a very interesting year for street photography. It seems that more and more color work is getting popular. Especially in scenes with high contrast light, color images seem to be on equal footing with their colorless counterparts.
After ABC News aired an interview with President Trump this week, controversy erupted after people began accusing the White House of Photoshopping a photo of Trump to make his hand look bigger than it actually is. It turns out that Photoshopped photo was actually a fake.
Photographer Mathieu Stern made this 2-minute video walkthrough on how you can remove fungus on the glass elements of a camera lens.
When I started working in photography, digital already ruled the industry. I never got the chance to perform controlled photography (don't wanna use the term "professional") using film.
My name is Trevor Gavin and I'm a photographer based near San Francisco. I'd like to share a very personal story of my darkest time. It’s a part of my healing and a part of moving on. It’s the only way I know how to express my emotions.
One year of planning, one year of shooting, and four months of post-production is a lot of time to spend on a single timelapse, but photographer Morten Rustad's creation SEASONS of NORWAY makes a good case for the old saying: good things come to those who wait.
You probably didn't know this, but at the beginning of this year, you could still purchase a brand new boxed copy of Adobe's four-year-old Creative Suite 6 by calling an Adobe call center. But as of January 9th, Adobe officially pulled the plug on CS6: now it's Creative Cloud or bust.
We talk about composition a lot, but have you ever really dived into the subject of color theory and thought about how it applies to your photography? If you haven't, you should... and arguably the best place to start is this incredibly comprehensive demo by landscape photographer Dave Morrow.
Perry Oosting—Hasselblad CEO and veritable knight in shining armor to those fans who saw him transform the company back into a respected camera maker—has suddenly and without explanation announced that he is stepping down from his post.
FujiFilms’s X-Trans III sensor has been out since the X-Pro2 hit the scene in March 2016. It was joined recently by the X-T2, and presently the X-T20 and X100F are about to be unleashed upon the world in February 2017.
Kodak made a lot of people happy when they announced they would be bringing back Ektachrome, but they blew those same photographers' minds when they admitted they were "looking into" bringing back Kodachrome. Those people won't be happy about this update.
Last week we reported that Shealah Craighead, a former photographer for the Bush administration and Sarah Palin's vice presidential campaign in 2008, was at the "top of the list" to be President Donald Trump's chief white house photographer. Now the appointment is official.
Ultra high ISO with lots of noise... There’s a lot of buzz going around about the new Pentax KP with it’s maximum ISO of 819200. Every comment I read says ‘what’s the point’? …
The Australian island state of Tasmania has 4 of the top 10 tallest tree species in the world and is home to the tallest flowering plant in the world, the Eucalyptus regnans, which can measure 99.8 meters (327 feet) tall.
A career in commercial photography is a progression in learning. One that wanes when complacency creeps in and thrives when pursuit of knowledge lives at its heart. Having a broad mind in both approach and equipment is the key to clearing your mind to be creative.
Want to shoot soft focus photos without shelling out money for a specialty lens (like a Lensbaby)? You can build your own soft focus lens to play around with for about $15.
Ricoh just officially announced its new KP APS-C DSLR, and now there's a small gallery of official sample photos to show the camera's quality.
If you're one of the many photographers criticizing President Trump's official portrait, take a look at the photo above: it's the official portrait of Brazil's new president. After being released yesterday, Brazilians immediately began mocking the photo.
Less than a day after photos and specs leaked onto the Web, Ricoh has officially announced its new Pentax KP DSLR. It's a compact and weatherproof mid-range sibling to the K-3 that Ricoh says is perfect for outdoor photographers.
Photographer Nick Veasey has made a name for himself by photographing large objects using X-Rays instead of visible light. The 6-minute video above is a look at how Veasey creates his art.
Episode 145 of the PetaPixel Photography Podcast.
Download MP3 - Subscribe via iTunes, Google Play, email or RSS!
Featured: Sony Artisan of Imagery, Jeremy Chan
Raymond Thi—the creator of the Composition Cam app and ultra-popular Twitter account—is back with another great database for composition-obsessed photographers. It's called Geometric Shots, and it's a searchable collection of great composition from well-known films and TV shows.
There are some fantastic portrait lenses out there for cheap, if you know where to look. A great example is the Jupiter-9: a 50-year-old M42 mount 85mm f/2 Soviet lens that, in the right hands, captures beautiful portraits with gorgeous bokeh.
You've probably seen photographer Sean Tucker's work around, on PetaPixel if nowhere else, but did you know he didn't start his photographic journey until his 30s? In this video, he shares his inspirational journey from priest, to photographer/waiter, to full-time photographer.
If you want to own photographer Peter Lik's epic photo book Equation of Time, you'll need a lot of money and a lot of space: the gigantic photo book costs $2,950 (for the open edition) and weighs in at 106 pounds (~48kg).
The world of analog photography surprises me a bit more every day! I recently read about a technique called Stand Development, so I have decided to try it myself. For those of who never heard of it before, let me explain you the differences between it and a normal development process.
YouTuber, filmmaker and, more recently, CNN employee Casey Neistat is back with another drone review. After a bit of a gaff last time, Neistat is starting fresh by comparing three of the most popular 4K drones on the market: the DJI Mavic Pro, the DJI Phantom 4 Pro, and the DJI Inspire 1 Pro.
Indra Kumar Jha is a 26-year-old death photographer. He works 16 hours a day in Varanasi, on the banks of the Ganges, the sacred river for Hindus, where an average of 300 bodies are burned every day.
Pentax is preparing to release a tiny titan of a DSLR this week, according to photo and spec leaks by the Japanese website Nokishita. If leaks are accurate, The Pentax KP will make a big splash when it officially launches.
Back in November 2015, Polish photographer Michał Kulesza decided to start a daily photo project in which he would shoot one creative photo involving LEGO bricks every day. He decided to capture the famous bricks as everyday foods and objects.
Photographer Jack Fusco just released a spectacular timelapse that combines several of mother nature's more beautiful elements to powerful effect. It turns out lava flow + ocean + stars = some seriously dramatic timelapse action.
After years of serious drought, California appears to be on the road to recovery. The state experienced its driest years on record between 2011 and 2014, but rains and snow have brought new life to the region since then, and this can be seen in NASA's satellite photos.
CP+ is still a full month away, but already we're getting a peek at some of the gear you can expect to see at the trade show this year. Namely: here are the first photos of the unreleased 2nd generation Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 lens, leaked earlier today.
What I’m getting at in the headline is that the Internet is most likely the cause of your impotence when it comes to productivity. How many people pick up their smartphones and check something online or in an app in the morning, instead of picking up a camera and capturing a sunrise?
The importance of presidential photography cannot be understated in today’s visual world. Although the bulk of photography since the inception of regular presidential photography in the 1950s still consists of “grip and grin” photo ops, White House photographers have sought to capture a more intimate look at the leader of the free world.
The iPhone 7/+ might be more waterproof than Apple has let on. If this report from Russia is to be believed, Apple's latest smartphone can survive a lot more than the official IP67 rating of 30 minutes under 3.3 feet of water.
When Red Bull came to me with the idea for golfer Lexi Thompson to do an underwater boxing/golf shoot, I had to really think about how we were going to do this -- I knew it was going to be challenging.
Many (if not most) of the people reading this have shot 35mm film, and a chunk of those people have shot 120 medium format film, but only a fraction of that fraction has ever touched a large format camera. Here's your chance to see what it's like to shoot 4x5 film for the very first time.
NASA has a new high resolution toy in orbit. The GOES-16 weather satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral back in November, and NASA just published the first photos of our Earth taken by this new satellite and its special "Advanced Baseline Imager."
If you love those timelapses that make our great big world look tiny—people scurrying around Manhattan like ants, or airplanes moving around an airport like toys—this simple tutorial will teach you everything you need to know to post-process your own tiny world timelapse.
Removing a lens from modern cameras is usually extremely easy. It's a great feature for photographers who switch lenses a lot, but it can also make it quick and easy for thieves to steal a pricey lens. Now there's a new open source accessory called Mark's Lens Safe that helps protect against this type of common theft.
