This is the World’s First Underwater Portrait, Taken in 1899

It's been called the first underwater photograph and the first underwater self-portrait, but it doesn't seem to be either of those things. No, but this photo by diver and photography pioneer Louis Marie Auguste Boutan, taken in 1899, does seem to be the world's first underwater portrait.

Rigid vs Collapsible: Comparing Two Types of Beauty Dishes

The Beauty Dish is revered by many photographers for having a soft, but contrasty quality of light. The classic design puts the flash tube behind an opaque or translucent tube cover, which helps eliminate a central hot spot. Like umbrellas, beauty dishes are available with white or silver interiors and can be fitted with a “sock” or grid to control quality and spread of light even more.

A Pro Photographer’s RAW Workflow in Lightroom Mobile

Professional travel photographer Elia Locardi made this 30-minute video tutorial that shows how he's able to shoot and edit top-notch RAW photos without carrying a laptop around, and instead using the Adobe Lightroom Mobile app, which got RAW editing in June 2016.

Canon to Sell CMOS Sensors to Other Companies for the First Time

Sony has become the world leader in image sensor production in recent years by supplying the sensors to third-party companies. Canon, however, has been content with using its sensors solely in-house on its own cameras and products. That's set to change: Canon is now planning to supply Canon-made CMOS sensors to other companies for the first time in the company's history.

How I Photographed a Model with Fire and Water

I firmly believe creative work is the most important element to maintaining a strong work ethic and absolute focus. I make an effort to book at least one personal project a month, sometimes it involves a mood that is completely outside of my comfort zone, which often leads to finding new lighting, composition and techniques.

Snapseed Can Now Edit RAW Photos on iOS

Snapseed has just released version 2.9 of its popular Android and iOS photo editing apps. This latest update brings RAW editing to the iOS app, giving Snapseed full RAW support on both major platforms. RAW files from 144 different camera models are currently supported.

How Many Photos Can You Recognize By Their Nickname?

How many famous modern and historical photos are you able to recognize simply by hearing the nickname? Go ahead, read each nickname then try to picture the image in your head.

How Stop-Motion Photography Has Evolved Since 1900

Stop-motion photography has come a long way since the early 1900s, but it still involves creating an animation one frame at a time by introducing slight changes and movements between still photos. To see how far we've come with the technique, check out this 3-minute video, titled "The Evolution of Stop-Motion."

Photog Cribs: A Tour of Michael Jang’s Home Studio in San Francisco

Here's a 2-minute video by SFMOMA that offers a tour of photographer Michael Jang's home and studio in San Francisco. Jang, who has had many works acquired for the SFMOMA collection, has an incredible body of work that includes portraits of everyone ranging from the Ramones and Jimi Hendrix to Robin Williams.

We’re Giving Away 3 Think Tank Photo Camera Bags Worth $975

Update on 9/7/16: This giveaway is now over and the winners have been announced at the end of this post.

The PetaPixel Photography Podcast passed the 100 episode mark last week. To celebrate the milestone, we're giving away three top-of-the-line Think Tank Photo camera bags worth a combined $975.

Stock Students: Iowa Senate Hopefuls Used the Same Kids in Ads

Republican state senate candidates in Iowa have been releasing advertisements in recent weeks, introducing their lives, views, and plans. With all the photos and videos emerging at around the same time, someone noticed something peculiar: the candidates are all seen talking to the exact same group of kids in the same school hallway.

PortraitPro Body Packs Drastic Body Retouching Into Simple Sliders

Doing extreme retouching to the human body in photos has gotten a great deal of bad press as of late, but that's not keeping a London-based software company Anthropics Technology from trying to innovate in that space. It has launched a new program called PortraitPro Body, which it claims is "the industry’s first dedicated full body retouching software."

Portraits of the Armed Civilians Who Patrol the US-Mexico Border

Arizona Border Recon is a volunteer group of armed civilians that patrols the border between the United States and Mexico, keeping watch for traffickers, terrorists, and illegal immigrants and bringing those caught to the attention of the US government's Border Patrol. Photographers Neil Kremer and Cory Johnson of Kremer Johnson visited the group and shot a series of portraits of its members.

Shooting Human Body Vehicles for a Transport Company

An advertising agency recently approached me about shooting photos for a transportation industry company. They had the idea of forming different modes of transportation (e.g. car, boat, motorcycle and truck) out of the bodies of the workers.

104 Photo Editing Tools You Should Know About

Hello, photographers. For the last two months, I've been doing market research for my project Photolemur and looking for different tools in the area of photo enhancement and photo editing. I spent a lot of time searching, and came up with a large organized list of 104 photo editing tools and photography apps that you should know about.

Photos of Hermit Crabs with Beach Trash Homes

Crabs with Beach Trash Homes is a series I am currently working on. I photograph Blueberry hermit crabs (Coenobita purpureus) on local beaches in Okinawa, Japan, that have begun to use beach trash as their shell.

Lytro’s First VR Demo Uses Immerge to Take You to the Moon

In 2015, light-field camera startup Lytro did a huge pivot, redirecting its focus from consumer light-field cameras (the original and the Illum) to its new light field virtual reality camera, the Immerge. Today the company released a first peek at what the Immerge can do.

The Fame-Seeking Models Who Pose for IKEA Photo Shoots

The majority of "photos" you see these days when you flip through an IKEA catalog are actually purely computer generated images, but some of the shots are still done in a photo studio. To promote its 2017 catalog, IKEA released this humorous 2-minute tongue-in-cheek video that offers a glimpse into the minds of a few of the models involved in the photo shoots.

Making Gobos Out of Unusual Things for Creative Portrait Lighting

Typically, the term “gobo” is reserved for the lens filters and patterns that are affixed to theater lights. The terms “flag” or “cucloris/cookie” are actually more accurate for what we’re going to be using in this post, which is an object placed between the light and the subject, but not attached to it.

How Olympus Designed the PEN-F for ‘Timelessness’

I’ve always found Olympus cameras to have excellent quality. But when I first picked up the PEN-F, it was immediately apparent that the quality of this camera is of a higher caliber. The PEN-F oozes quality.