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Articles by Guest Author

A person wearing a tan jacket and a black backpack stands on a rocky shore, holding a camera up to take a picture of the foggy ocean.

ProMaster’s Holiday Sale: Up to 30% Off Tripods, Bags and Studio Lights

ProMaster, a brand known for making quality gear for every kind of creator, is bringing you deals you can’t miss this holiday season. From a multitool tripod and stylish rolltop backpack to a portable studio kit and adaptable softlights, there’s something for everyone (including you!). These products are on sale for a limited time, so shop now to take advantage of the sales and check your favorite photographer off your list!

A split-screen view shows a cyclist riding through a vast, mountainous landscape under dramatic light and cloudy skies.

Biking and Hiking My Way Across Kyrgyzstan With a Fujifilm X-E5

Sweating with labored breath, I push my fully loaded bicycle over Kyrgyzstan’s 12,400-foot Koi Dzolu Pass. The 23,000-foot peaks of the Pamir Mountains loom above while storms dance on either side, pelting me with occasional hail. In moments like this, I deeply appreciate every ounce shaved from my setup to stay mobile.

Five boxes of Fujifilm Instax Mini instant film are arranged on a patch of green grass scattered with small white daisy flowers.

Small Prints, Big Charm: Giving Fujifilm Instax Mini Its Due

It’s about time that the diminutive king of instant film got some Film Friday love, so we are giving this week’s spotlight over to Fujifilm’s Instax Mini color instant film and sharing why we love these small prints (and why you should as well).

A triptych showing a woman sleeping in a bed, a film crew setting up a studio scene, and a man lying on a blue surface with headphones and a controller.

From Spreadsheet to Studio: Inside a Commercial Production for Tempur-Pedic

I ’ve photographed campaigns in some pretty unusual places over the years, from the highlands of Ethiopia to the plains of Iraq, and I've been fortunate to be part of projects that were both challenging and incredibly rewarding. Somewhere along the way, I got used to the idea that the complicated jobs would probably involve an airplane, a passport, unpredictable weather or some combination of all four. So when an 12-day studio project for Tempur-Pedic and Tempur-Sealy came across my desk, I …

A man in a plaid shirt stands on a large rock, adjusting a camera mounted on a tripod overlooking a turquoise glacial lake surrounded by snow-capped mountains.

All Bundled Up: Winter Picks for Photographers

When it comes to creating content during the winter, the last thing you want to worry about is your gear. You want to focus on capturing your images and videos. To accomplish that, you need gear that becomes an extension of your own artistic process. Before you set out on that cold weather shoot, stock up on these ProMaster products and you’ll be able to stay warm, protect your equipment, and keep creating all season long.

A black-and-white action shot of a boxer landing a punch on his opponent's face during a match.

4 Cameras, 7 Lenses: What It Takes to Cover the Commonwealth Games

Four cameras, seven lenses, and one Commonwealth Games. That was the equipment I brought to Glasgow 2026. Most days, however, only three cameras came with me to the competition venues. The fourth stayed at the hotel as a backup, unless I planned to use it as a remote camera.

A smiling woman with dark, curly hair wears a bright pink sweater against a solid green background.

The Empty Gesture of Smiling for Photographs

We are all familiar with the social mandate of smiling for photographs. Every time someone points a lens at our mug, we are expected to give a wide, toothy smile. If you don’t comply, the photographer will quickly remind you with a religious “say cheese!”. Many years ago, it occurred to me that this practice was not only shallow but silly. Granted, a candid smile captured in photography can be telling and beautiful. On the other hand, a contrived smile for a photograph, not so much. Here …

A black Pentax Zoom 90-WR camera rests on a grid of Kodak ColorPlus 200 film boxes, accented by several dried autumn leaves.

Vintage Tones on a Budget: Why We Love Kodak ColorPlus 200

Today’s Film Friday takes a look at a blast from the past: Kodak ColorPlus 200. This all-purpose film is one of the most affordable color negative films available for loading into your favorite 35mm film camera. It is very much a jack-of-all-trades type of film (and a master of none) that will do everything you want it to decently well and save your camera budget in the process. So let’s get started.

A box of Kodak Professional Portra 160 120 film floats against a background of vertical blue and purple string curtains.

Kodak Portra 160 Might Be the Best Fine-Grain Color Negative Film

We stated in our Film Friday review of Kodak Portra 400 (and again in our Portra 800 write up) that it is pretty much a perfect color film, so you’ll hopefully understand and forgive us if we start off this Film Friday by insisting that Portra 160 is a more perfect film.

A split-screen image showing an older man with white hair in a white martial arts uniform on the left, and a large, abstract white sculpture in a workshop on the right.

The Fujifilm X half Makes Composition Harder to Avoid

For several months, the most interesting thing about the Fujifilm X half to me was not its image quality, its Type 1 sensor or its resemblance to an old half-frame camera. It was the number of times it made me stop before taking a photograph.

Two vintage photographs side-by-side, each showing a baby held by a person completely obscured by a dark, draped cloth.

The Historic Practice of the Hidden Mother in Photography

The “Hidden Mother” is a genre of photography that has been practiced since the infancy of the photographic process. Many examples date back to 1839 and the daguerreotype. A shroud or sheet would be thrown over the adult in the composition, or the mother hid behind a cloaked chair. They used varied methods and had varying degrees of success, depending on what worked for the photographer and the sitter. Sometimes an adult stabilizing the child would be just out of frame, and the photographer …

A split-screen image showing a dark silhouette of an elephant against a golden sunset on the left and a white bighorn sheep framed by birch trees on the right.

The Magic of Mystery: Why Great Images of Nature Ask More Questions Than They Answer

There’s a paradox at the heart of great photography: what you choose not to show your audience is often more powerful and provocative than what you reveal. In an age of oversharing and instant gratification, mystery has become the photographer’s secret weapon and perhaps the most undervalued tool of all. The unseen, the suggested, and the ambiguous can transform a literal photograph into an expressive one that haunts us long after we’ve looked away.

A close-up view of a medium format camera body with a lens cap labeled "X SYSTEM" and a wooden handgrip attached to the side.

8 Ways Hasselblad Can Make the 907x CFV 100C Way Better

Hasselblad cameras' excellence comes from decades of engineering, and that results in a polished product built with the best of the best in mind. Everything is good: the grip and body are built to last, the optical quality is better than Leica.

A split-screen image showing a white tiger yawning on the left and a close-up portrait of an orange tiger on the right.

Photographing Tigers: Portraits of Big Cats Unlike Any Before

By some strange turn of fate, I found myself sitting on a camera case, face-to-face with a 500-pound tiger from less than a foot away. I could feel his breath on my skin, and more than once, that same breath fogged the front element of my lens as I photographed him.

A Minolta SRT 101 camera with a red textured grip sits above four boxes of Kodak Ektar 100 film arranged on a dark surface with a red painted shape.

Kodak Ektar 100 Brings Fine Grain and Vivid Color Saturation

Welcome back to Film Friday. We’re featuring one of our heavy hitters this week with Kodak’s Ektar 100. Alongside the Portra films, Ektar is one of the most popular films on the market and definitely one of the most used color films out there. The film is well-known for its fine grain, vivid color saturation and poppy contrast.

A roasted half chicken topped with chimichurri in a brown sauce, served alongside a side salad, fries, and a glass of white wine on a wooden table.

Apparently ‘Photography Is All Fake Anyway’

A short while ago I was reading the comments on a restaurant's Facebook group post. The post was a set of dodgy AI-generated food images, and they had that giveaway look. Too glossy, sauce behaving strangely, and bread that somehow looked like a sponge.

A box of Rollei Retro 400S 135-36 film sits centered on a decorative amber-colored glass plate.

Rollei Retro 400S Is a Film for Making Loud, Brash, Dramatic Statements

Welcome to another Film Friday review, where we like to dig into a particular film emulsion, lay out a bit of its history, share our personal experiences with it and provide some inspiration for why you should try it out. This episode features Rollei Retro 400S, the high speed member of the Rollei Retro family that also includes 80S and Superpan 200.

A person wearing blue gloves and a striped sweater operates industrial machinery processing a bright pink material.

A Close Look at a $100M Piece of Photographic History: Machine E

In a town close to the French/German language split in Switzerland lies a piece of photographic history that is worth taking a look at. In Marly, Switzerland, lies Machine E, a multilayer photographic coating machine that has been used to bring many world-beating photographic products to the market.

A split-screen view showing a large, towering cumulus cloud against a blue sky on the left and a roof with a sign reading "THE WINDLASS" under a cloudy sky on the right.

What Shooting 6×6 Taught Me About Formats and Rules

I recently added a camera that shoots 6x6 to my shelf. Square negatives, twelve per roll. I expected to enjoy the lens, the build, the ritual of loading film backs. What I didn’t expect was how much the shape of the frame would mess with the rest of my photography vision.

A Nikon camera sits in the center of a circular graphic surrounded by several boxes of Rollei Superpan 200 film.

While At First Unimpressive, Rollei Superpan 200 Is a Bag of Tricks

Rollei Superpan 200 is a curious sort of film, making it all the better reason to feature it today. The first impression we would give you of Superpan 200 is that on the surface it can be easily unimpressive, but dig a bit deeper and Superpan quickly reveals that it has quite a bag of tricks at its disposal.