How to Make a Camera Lens Lamp

After Canon handed out camera lens mugs at the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010, novelty lens look-alike mugs and cups have flooded the market. If you've received one or more of them as gifts, one thing you can do is turn them into camera lens desk lamps.

Light Painting with a Paper Tube and a Shower Curtain Dress

After our flight to NYC got canceled last summer, we got stuck in Chicago for one night with no light painting tubes, no dress, no tripods, and no battery chargers. During the shuttle ride to the hotel, we started joking about using a bed sheet to fake a dress and to use whatever we could find in the hotel room as a light-painting tool.

How I Got Banned from Photographing the Band Arch Enemy

Back in June I covered Fortarock, a fantastic metal festival in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. I had the opportunity to shoot bands like Dragonforce, Watain, Týr, Alestorm and Arch Enemy, all of whom are not only really fun to photograph, but also extremely talented musicians.

The Basics of Equivalent Exposure in Photography

The concept of equivalent exposure can be a tricky one to wrap your mind around when you're just getting started in photography. Photography enthusiast and animator Vincent Ledvina of Apalapse made this helpful 5.5-minute video that explains it in a simple and visual way.

Tired of Lightroom? Ditch the Catalog and Try Adobe Bridge

Over this past year, an increasing trend in photography seems to be finding a viable alternative to Adobe Lightroom. Some have done it to get out from underneath the subscription service while others aren't pleased with what remains to be inconsistent speed and performance. It seems to be more of the latter than the former, with the Lightroom Catalog largely responsible for the latter.

Review: Is Sigma’s New 70-200mm f/2.8 Sport the New Top Dog?

Sigma completes its “Holy Trinity” with the release of the all-new 70-200mm f/2.8 Sport – is it the ultimate 70-200mm on the market right now? Sigma sent us a review piece of the upcoming lens for us to try out for a few days.

New Photos Show Water Ice on Mars

The European Space Agency (ESA) has released an eye-opening pair of new photos that show a massive crater of water ice on Mars. The crater measures 51 miles (83km) across and contains a 1.1-mile-thick (1.8km) mound of water ice all year round.

5 Things More Important Than Camera Brand

Debating which camera brand is best is a sure way to create a lively discussion among photographers. It’s easy to endlessly discuss specs and online reviews and to think that the latest model will give us some missing edge. But what about when you really put images to the test with prints?

We Shot an Award-Winning Landscape Photo Using a Fog Machine

I needed a landscape photo of a foggy forest on a sunny day, in which beams of sunlight were streaming through the trees and creating beautiful sun rays. The only problem was that it was summer and there was no fog to be had... so I decided to rent a fog machine and see if we could make enough fog to simulate real fog.

Shooting Portraits with Colored Shadows

Finding new ways to create isn't always easy, so you have to keep your eyes open for inspiration. One day while making my way down the rabbit hole of YouTube, I stumbled across a video. These guys had created 3 colored shadows off this pencil while keeping a perfectly white background. What in the world was this sorcery? Turns out it wasn't sorcery, it was science.

Photos of the Madness and Motion of Tokyo’s Shibuya Crossing

I crossed Shibuya Crossing 10 times for a new series of photos, and I watched pedestrians cross another 13 times. Crossings happen every two minutes, and there’s a one minute window for you to run out there to photograph.

On Photo Contest Controversy and Criticism

I'm Allen Murabayashi, the co-founder of PhotoShelter. We recently launched our Guide to Photo Contests 2019, an annual look at contests around the world that we think are worth your consideration. Here's an excerpt from this year’s guide that looks at the sometimes controversial world of contests.

Creating Surreal Photo Art of Flying Whales in Space

In this article, I'll share how I created a photo art piece titled, "Flying Whales." The idea was to create surreal artwork using only toys and some handcraft and make it as real as possible.

How NASA’s Iconic ‘Earthrise’ Photo Was Shot

"Earthrise" is an iconic photo of Earth rising up from the Moon's horizon that's considered one of the most important environmental photos ever made. Here's a fascinating 3-minute visualization by NASA that recreates how the photo was shot in real-time.

10 Lessons from Street Photography That I Apply to Set Stills Photography

One of the questions I am asked most frequently is “how do you make money from street photography?” So far, aside from print sales and teaching courses, the answer has been that I approach street photography as a form of “practice” -- a space in which I can experiment with new techniques, work on my style, and rehearse different fast-paced scenarios.

How Do You Thank the Strangers Who Saved Your Child’s Life? I Shot Portraits

On January 17 of this year, I suddenly found myself in a terrifying, all-too-real nightmare. I was standing on the edge of a frozen lake near my home on Mount Desert Island, Maine. In front of me were snowmobile tracks that disappeared into the blackness of the frigid night. I knew that my 13-year-old daughter, Jolie, was a passenger on that snowmobile; and I had just received word from local firefighters that the tracks ended in open water.

Stop Using Tape to Attach Your Gels: How to Use Magnets Instead

If you’re like me and you’ve tried to attach gels to your lights in the past, you’ve likely resorted to using one of the many types of sticky tapes available. When I used to manage a studio, I would see all manner of tapes being used to attach gels to hot modifiers.