journey

How I Found My Niche in Professional Photography

I’m Alastair Philip Wiper, a British photographer based in Copenhagen and working worldwide. From the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, to giant shipyards in South Korea and radio observatories in Peru, I work with the weird and wonderful subjects of industry, science, architecture. Finding a niche has been very important for my career, so I’m going to share a bit about how I went about it.

Photo Essay: My Road to Recovery from Traumatic Brain Injury

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.

How I Turned $3,000 Into a Successful Fine Art Photo Business

About a year and half ago, after what seemed like a lifetime of living paycheck-to-paycheck (paying off student loans and other debts) my wife and I were sitting in the office of a financial advisor with money to invest. After hearing the options to best set us up for retirement, he asked, “What are your goals?”

I Photographed the Wonders of North America on a 15,000 Mile Trip

Back in September 2016, I decided to fulfill my dream of traveling and photographing North America. Without any set itinerary, I hit the road and ended up driving and flying more than 24,000km (~15,000mi), experiencing some of the most amazing scenery and adventures.

How to Get Better at Photography

I think you can look around at a lot of the content based around photography on the Internet and extract a theme: people want to be better photographers.

You Don’t Need to Spend a Fortune to Have a Great Photo Studio

I have a studio. For those of you that know me -- the author of the Studio Anywhere books, which focus on shooting anywhere but a studio -- this statement may sound oxymoronic or even blasphemous. Nonetheless, after years of shooting in my cramped basement, I finally outgrew my space and needed a slightly larger, dedicated space to have for working with clients.

My Journey in Switching to Mirrorless as a Photojournalist

It started with a phone call from the picture editor of one of UK's best-selling newspapers asking me to catch a flight that evening to Amsterdam to accompany a journalist for a story first thing the next morning.

The Power of the Internet: My Journey from Vimeo to Planet Earth II

Five years ago I was somewhere in the wilds of central Vietnam, about to click upload on my first ever video project. If you had told me then that, in just a handful of years, I would be contributing to one of the entertainment world’s most prestigious and popular wildlife documentaries — BBC’s Planet Earth II — I think I’d have had trouble keeping a straight face. But that was before I witnessed firsthand the power of the Internet and a good idea.

Wild and Pure: Photographing Wildlife in Kamchatka

Kamchatka. Just the name evokes so many different and exotic feelings as flashbacks emerge from National Geographic features.

In recent years, as a pro wildlife photographer, I’ve been doing incredible features worldwide, but Russia is complicated and Kamchatka is remote and isolated… so it took me a couple of years to get everything ready for my special photography project in one of the last wild places on earth.

In the Footsteps of 1938 Italy Pictures That I Found in a Thrift Store

In 2013, I made by far my most amazing thrift store find. In the Good Samaritan shop in my hometown Roanoke, Virginia, I discovered several rolls of old nitrate negatives. The following day I had the negatives digitized and discovered the rolls contained a considerable trove of nearly 400 images, the majority of which had been shot in Italy about 80 years ago.

Photo Essay: The Longest Train in India

If all journeys are teachers, it may well be that a journey to India is the greatest teacher of all. As Kurt Vonnegut said, "Bizarre travel plans are dancing lessons from God," and it was in search of a new dance that I purchased a one-way ticket on the longest train in India.

This Couple Turned a 1 Year Trip Across Asia Into a 3-Minute Running Hyperlapse

Daniel and Gina of Sunrise Odyssey recently completed a 1 year journey across Asia that spanned 12 different countries. Throughout the trip, the couple documented major locations with a series of photos of them jumping in front of the camera.

Those self-portraits were then turned into this wonderful hyperlapse video showing the duo running across the continent in just 3 minutes.

From Birth to Near Death: The Story of My Journey in Photography

They say everything in life happens for a reason and while I didn’t hold much faith in that phrase before, I definitely do now. It took a serious life threatening experience to ignite in me a passion for my own photography as part of the healing process and then turn it into a career.

I know in my heart that I have always loved photography, but the way I stumbled into becoming a photographer is anything but a fairy tale -- in fact, it's quite the opposite.

Traveling to Cuba as an American Photographer

My name is Mark Cersosimo, and I'm a hobbyist photographer and filmmaker living in New York. Way back in 2014, when President Obama announced that U.S. relations with Cuba would be normalized, I knew I had to make a move. While “tourist” travel is still prohibited, 12 new options became available in January 2015.

So, I went with my girlfriend. Upon returning we’ve been inundated with questions from our curious American friends who up until now, Cuba had just been a twinkle in their eye. I’ve decided to share our experience, as I know millions of others out there are eager to visit our “it’s complicated” friend, Cuba.

Minais Gerais Highlands

In early 1950s, Brazilian novelist Guimarães Rosa went to a 10 days journey with 8 native cowboys along 150 miles in Minas Gerais, resulting in one of most important works of Brazilian literature, "The Devil to Pay in the Backlands (1956)". After more than 60 years I decided to follow his path based in this journey, and also the scenario described by Riobaldo in all his adventures of the book.

5 Months in Asia: Travel Photos by Photographer Chris König

At first it had been a dream to travel to Asia for a long time already, even before I discovered photography. I am now 22 years old and I finished my bachelors in psychology. Along the way I found out that I really wanted to pursue photography, but nonetheless psychology still gave me some really good insights. It never hurts to have some more knowledge about human life in general.

Wedding Photographers Reveal Their Earliest Photos to Show How Far They’ve Come

Confucius once said that "the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." Well, the journey of a thousand weddings begins with one photograph. We asked a handful of wedding photographers to share an early photo that represents their humble beginnings, and a current photo that represents where they are today. Not surprisingly, many of the photographers turned us down.

Apparently, sharing your vintage photos is not cool.

The Art of the Portrait: My Journey to 100 Portraits in 100 Days

As a junior in high school in 1997, when I was deciding which path I wanted to go down, fine arts or photography, things were pretty simple. Did I want to express myself with a camera or a pencil? Inspired by masters like Annie Leibovitz and David LaChapelle, I opted for the camera.

All I wanted to do was create beautiful images for a living. By signing up for a degree in fine art photography, little did I know what lay ahead for me.

I Quit My Job and Spent 3 Years Visiting 60 Countries with My Camera

Sometime during 2010, I began dreaming of quitting my job and traveling around Asia for a year before returning to the work force. I had graduated from college during the global recession back in 2008 and got stuck in a job that I never intended to stay at for long.

So I started saving up as much as I could, sold most of my belongings, and even lived in the building I worked in for a few months. When I finally left on a plane in Sept 2011, I had no idea that I would end up traveling for three years to sixty countries.

Migrant’s Perilous Journey on Instagram Turns Out to Be an Elaborate Ad

Abdou was a young man from North Africa with a dream; he set out to make his way to Europe in order to create a better future for both himself and his family. Abdou documented his migration from Senegal to Spain on Instagram, showcasing the perils of such travel and his determination for a better life.

After two weeks of travels, finally making it to Spain, and seeing his photos make headlines online, the truth about Abdou emerged: he never existed. It was all part of an elaborate ad campaign.

20 Years Digital: A Migrant’s Story

It occurred to me last night that 2015 marks my twentieth year as a digital photographer. I suspect that many of you geezers reading this (i.e. those of you over 40) are approaching or have already passed a similar milestone. You’ll probably agree with me that it’s been quite a roller coaster ride, one that my younger readers might not fully appreciate. So like any other two bit amusement of questionable soundness, I feel it’s my responsibility to post the following notice right up front:

YOU MUST BE AT LEAST THIS TALL TO ENTER!

My Journey as a Legally Blind Pro Photographer

My photography journey started a little differently from most because I was going into it with a handicap right off the bat. It was always a thought that I may not be able to make this work, and that I'd fail miserably, and nobody wants that. From birth, I’ve had a disability that you’d think would make me the last person to get into photography: I’m legally blind.

Photographer Travels Across the Southwestern USA by Freight Train

A couple of years ago, photographer Kevin Russ packed some belongings into his car, traveled tens of thousands of miles across the US, and documented his journey with his iPhone camera. The trip earned Russ quite a bit of media attention and a sizable online following.

Last year he embarked on an even more rugged journey: traveling across the Southwestern United States by freight train with just his phone and a few possessions.

An Interesting BTS Look at What It Takes to Be a Cave Photographer

It might not be one of the best-known or most popular genres of the trade, but cave photography is an actual thing... and it’s not easy.

In the behind the scenes video above, Knoxville-based photographer Chris Higgins shows us just how much dedication, discipline and dirt it takes to get incredible photographs of the mysterious worlds hidden within the Earth.

The first ever photo, showing a rooftop view, by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce

The First Photo: Nicéphore Niépce’s ‘View from the Window at Le Gras’

It has been over half a century since Swiss photo historian Helmut Gernsheim donated the world’s earliest permanent photograph* to the University of Texas for public display in 1963. This article is a look at the story behind Nicéphore Niépce's View from the Window at Le Gras, the world's oldest known photograph captured with a camera.

Photographer Embarks on 40,000km Bike Trek Around the World with His Camera

Yesterday, our own Alan Steadman shared some advice. He told you to go out and explore, to travel, to see the world and meet new people so that those experiences could inform the stories you tell when you're working behind the camera.

Well, if you were looking for a shining example to go with those words, look no further than photographer, writer and cyclist Rob Lutter, then man who is currently 15,000km (about 9,300 miles) into a 40,000km (about 25,000 miles) photographic journey around the world.

The Snowball Effect: Transitioning from a Hobbyist to a Full Time Photographer

I started getting into photography when I was in my mid-to-late teens. I bought a 35mm Minolta XG7 at a local yard sale during my freshman year, and around the same time I took a 3 week summer darkroom course at a local community college. I got really in to it, but when I finally finished high school I went straight into the workforce. I jumped around various manual labor and retail jobs until I was 21. This is when I got married, and shortly thereafter I began considering the distant possibility of making a career out of my hobby.

How I Transitioned from Being a Hobbyist to Being a Pro Photographer

The transition from being a "hobbyist" to being a "professional" photographer was slow and seemed to creep up on me. I've been professional now for 6 years (as in, it's been my only job), and you can find my work on my website. Here's the story of my journey.