people

Nikon vs Canon vs Sony 135mm lenses

The Battle of the 135mm Lenses: Which Lens Takes the Portrait Podium?

The 135mm focal length is one of my favorite portrait ranges due to its compressed rendering of people’s faces, as well as lending itself to stunningly dramatic full-body environmental portraits. Last year saw the release of two new 135mm lenses, one each from Canon and Nikon. Take into account the venerable Sony 135mm G Master and you have all three of the major full-frame mirrorless companies now offering a 135mm f/1.8 lens.

How to Use People to Enhance Your Photography

People, they’re literally everywhere. At least that’s how it feels when you live in a country as densely populated as Japan. For the longest time, I was incredibly fussy about having people in my frame.

Route 66

An Uncropped View of the Mother Road: True-Life Images of Route 66

The nostalgia-inducing, expansive roadway known as Route 66 has been a pop culture darling in the U.S. for decades. But in photographer Jeff Sonnabend’s latest photo series and upcoming book, The Route 66 Primer, An Uncropped View of the Mother Road, viewers are left with an alternatively more grounded and realistic view of the renowned roadway.

Eye Autofocus Comparison: Canon Has Caught Up to Sony, Nikon Lags Behind

Back in May of 2019, Jared Polin of Fro Knows Photo ran a side-by-side Eye AF comparison that showed (to nobody's surprise) that Sony was the king of Eye Autofocus. But a lot has changed since then, including several firmware updates and an updated focus system from Canon. Is Sony still king? Jared wanted to find out.

3 Lessons in Photographing People I Learned from My Favorite Shooters

I like to be very aware of my influencers and the effect they have on my work. When I find that I particularly like an image from another photographer, I will give it a lot of thought before I try and apply any of my analysis to my own images.

Portraits of Federal Workers Affected by the Longest Government Shutdown

The following is a photographic essay of 21 real people – 21 of 800,000 workers – affected by the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. Federal workers have become unwilling pawns in the shutdown. Perhaps most dehumanizing, the media and certain politicians relegate these great individuals to being part of a blind number -- “800,000 federal workers.”

Unconditional Love: Portraits of People and Pets in a Seattle Homeless Camp

In October 2017, I visited a good friend in Seattle, Washington, who runs an international animal rescue organization. Animals can have a positive impact on people’s lives. Unfortunately, I also saw and learned how much animals suffer abuse around the world. During my visit, I saw that many homeless people kept animals with them, and it gave me an idea to document their connection and dependence on each other.

People Magazine Once Paid $10,000 for a Photo It Didn’t Even Want

Photographers often reminisce about the glory days of magazines, when they were given huge budgets, freedoms, and paychecks to create images. Here's one crazy example of what things were like then: People magazine once paid $10,000 for exclusive rights to a photo it didn't even want... just to keep it away from competitors.

After Years in Prison, Man Emerges a Talented Street Photographer

Donato Di Camillo's "how I got into photography" story is different. You won't hear it's like at the camera store check out counter, and we can pretty much guarantee it's nothing like yours. That's because Di Camillo developed his passion for photography behind bars.

Portraits of People Looking Like Their Dogs

People often say that dogs and their owners look more and more alike as the years go by. For her ongoing project "The Dog People," German photographer Ines Opifanti is shooting portraits of dog owners trying to mimic the expressions on their dogs' faces.

Portraits of People and Their Essential Everyday Items

How much can you tell about a person from the small items they carry around every day? Do they provide a more comprehensive picture of who a person is? Atlanta photographer Jason Travis explores this question in his project Persona.

It's a series of diptych in which the top half of each image is a portrait of a subject, and the bottom half is a photo of that person's essential everyday items.

Eerie Portraits Created by Combining Two Different Half-Faces Into a Seamless Whole

Croatian photographer Ino Zeljaks has created an interesting series, titled Metamorfoza. The series consists of a multitude of portrait compositions, each seemingly usual at first, until you look a bit closer. Upon looking closer, you’ll realize that each individual portrait is made up of an amalgamation of portraits of different individuals, ever-so-cleverly pieced together.

Get Lost in These Captivating Natural Light Portraits by Cristina Hoch

Spain-based photographer Cristina Hoch has a knack for shooting portraiture. Also a Biology major at the University of Granada, Hoch has been taking photos since 2009, improving one photoshoot at a time. Some of her most poignant work is her portraiture, which are rich in environment and color, giving off a strong-willed vibe through the subjects.

Them and Theirs: A Cinematic Look at People and the Cars They Drive

Los Angeles-based photographer Ryan Schude started a a fun little photo project while attending San Francisco Art Institute a number of years ago. He would travel around and capture portraits of people who had vanity plates on their vehicle.

Upon graduating, his project carried on, becoming a bit more broad as time went on and his style become more refined. And once again, he’s revisiting the project, bringing the eclectic cars and owners to life in an ongoing series.

‘Face Cartography’ Captures Portraits at a Whopping 900 Megapixels

Using an industrial–strength robotic arm, custom software, a Canon EOS Mark ll and a 180mm macro lens converted into a telecentrical lens, Swiss photographer Daniel Boschung has created an automated portrait machine. Made to map out "Face Cartography", the machine and resulting images capture incredibly detailed and hyperrealistic photographs of subjects.

Instagram Now Lets You Tag People and Brands in Photographs

One of the key features afforded by the fusion of photo sharing and social networking is people tagging. On services such as Facebook and Flickr, adding information to identify the people in photos is as easy as clicking/tapping a face and telling the service who that subject is.

Instagram this morning announced that it's joining in on the people-tagging fun. The company has released a new "Photos of You" feature that makes tagging a person as easy as adding a hashtag.

Time-Lapse Shows What San Francisco Looks Like Without Any Humans

Two years ago, director Ross Ching created a viral hit by showing Los Angeles in a time-lapse video in which every trace of cars and people was removed. That project was such a success that Ching tells us he's now planning to create an entire series based on the same idea, showing what iconic cities around America would look like if the humans within them suddenly vanished. The first stop in his "Empty America" tour was San Francisco, captured beautifully in the haunting video above.

Fake People Suck: Citizen Stock Invites Real People Back Into Stock Photos

"Fake People Suck" -- now that's a tagline. In 2009 David Katzenstein and Sherrie Nickol began a fine arts project that involved asking people off the street to come to their studio and photographing them against a white background. The idea was to capture the striking diversity that's commonplace in New York. But after photographing about 50 people -- and due also to a steady drop in commissions from commercial and corporate projects -- they realized the potential the project had as a commercial venture. Thus was born Citizen Stock.

Flickr Chief Matthew Rothenberg Departs

Matthew Rothenberg, the man who has led Flickr the past two years has Head of Product, announced today that he is leaving the service. In a message posted to his Twitter account, Rothenberg states,

Here goes: after 5 years, I will be stepping away from Flickr. Will miss working with such a talented, hard-working, and hard-drinking team.

Despite reassurances from Yahoo that Flickr is doing well, many will undoubtably look at this development and wonder whether the future for the service is as bright as the company would like us to think. TechCrunch also reported today that the situation inside the service isn't too great.