Photojournalist Gary Hershorn has a distinctive flair for enchanting luminosity and utilizing unconventional vantage points. This is a persistent challenge when shooting one of New York City's most popular subjects: its skyline.
I began working on a long-term project on child sexual abuse after receiving a three-day assignment from Marie Claire magazine USA to work with the Police Child Protection Unit in South Africa documenting infant rape. This was back in 2001, but I feel the lesson learned is still very relevant today.
Reflections are the sole reason we’re able to see objects. An object that absorbs 100% of the light is invisible. Fortunately, we don’t encounter these in our daily lives. Any lighting-conscious photographer would be aware of the fact that their light positioning directly influences reflection and hence the viewer experience.
Artist Michael Ranger recently had the idea of "unwrapping" the reflection seen in the visor of NASA astronaut Buzz Aldrin in an iconic photo captured by Neil Armstrong during the Apollo 11 mission. The result is an image that reveals what Aldrin saw the moment the photo was snapped.
Scottish photographer Alan McFadyen recently spent a great deal of effort digging a pool in a forest. He then used the water's surface to capture perfectly symmetrical reflection photos of wildlife.
Landscape photographer Lewis Carlyle was recently trying to figure out a photo project to do at home, when he came up with a totally unique, never-before-tried idea: close-up photos of flowers. Okay, fine, it's not exactly revolutionary, but he did manage to put an interesting twist on the concept and create some beautiful images in the process.
Refraction photography is an exciting subject that has been enjoying increasing popularity amongst photographers. You've probably seen refraction photos before: where an out-of-focus background appears sharply defined inside a crystal ball or a dew drop for example. In today’s post, we will examine this phenomenon and learn how to take beautiful photos by taking advantage of this effect.
Amateur photographer Steve Biro was shooting at the Canadian Raptor Conservancy in Ontario last week when he managed to capture this remarkable photo of a bald eagle flying straight at him with a perfectly symmetrical reflection in the water below.
Wedding photographers are always looking to take creative, novel portraits and a quick, simple trick is often sitting right in their pocket. By using a phone screen as a reflective surface, it is possible to cover up unsightly elements, add intrigue, and make an image that much more interesting.
The past few hours of digging up and scanning my old files of MLB baseball star Darren Daulton have only made the pit in my stomach tighter. Sometimes looking through old pictures after someone’s passing is cathartic, but not now.
Here's a helpful 4-minute video in which photographer Phillip McCordall shares a few tips and tricks for dealing with reflections in still life photography.
There are three basic types of surfaces, as far as lighting is concerned: reflective, transparent, and neutral. In this video, you'll learn about the 3 basic techniques for properly lighting each of these—in other words: the 3 techniques for lighting ... everything.
Icelandic photographer Sigurdur William trekked to the Kerid volcanic crater lake at night a couple of weeks ago and captured this amazing photo of the northern lights and starry night sky reflected in the waters.
Window reflection portraits are a popular style, but you don't need to live near an empty cafe on a busy New York City street (do those even exist?) to create a photo like this. The effect is pretty easy to replicate in Photoshop in just a few steps.
We've seen a number of photographers use mirrors in creative ways in recent years. Photographer Stefan Schlumpf recently decided to go big with the idea for a series of portraits.
For his "Silent Dialog II" project, Schlumpf set up a large mirror in outdoor locations -- including a giant open pit mine -- and used it to create a beautiful backdrop to frame his models.
HTC today unveiled a new limited edition 24-karat gold version of the HTC One M9 smartphone. Unfortunately for HTC, there was just one small (and rather embarrassing) problem: one of the promo photos was taken with an iPhone.
Photographers often use products such as the Lens Skirt when shooting through windows in order to reduce or remove reflections. Thanks to advances in computer algorithms, those physical tricks may soon find themselves alongside suitable software solutions.
Scientists at MIT have created an algorithm that can automatically remove reflections from photos that were taken through windows.
Wonderful Machine photographer Donna Dotan has stumbled across what she hopes to be a lifelong personal project. Holding her camera outside the window of skyscrapers, Reflections From Above captures the symmetry of the city below by using the reflection of the buildings’s mirror-like exterior.
When it comes to taking product shots of glossy items, one of the most difficult aspects is getting the correct amount of diffusion when using softboxes. When the incorrect amount of diffusion is applied (or the right amount is applied incorrectly) this can lead to harsh reflections and minimal gradients, which isn't usually the look you're trying to achieve.
Nothing like starting hump day off with some visual inspiration, and this promo video, released by Canon Australia earlier this week, certainly fits the bill.
Put together as part of the company's #whatdoyousee campaign, the video is made up entirely of reflections in people's eyes that answer the campaign question, "What do you see?"
Turns out you may not have to be stupid enough to post incriminating evidence on Instagram to get busted via photo in the near future. A pair of British researchers are working on a way to collect identifiable images from the reflections of people captured on a photo subject's eyeball.
Light-painting, like time-lapse, is a genre of photography that is packed full of talent, making it really hard to pick quality work to feature (if you haven't already, check out this list of 10 amazing light-painting photogs you should follow right away).
We were thrilled, therefore, when we stumbled across Nicolas Rivals' series of steel wool light painting Rorschach tests dubbed, simply enough, Light Rorchach.
Here's a neat photo idea: capture a city's skyline in the reflection on the front of a camera lens. Photographer Christopher Anderson recently shot this picture of the Minneapolis, Minnesota skyline -- a picture that landed on the front page of Reddit.
I have sat staring at the computer monitor for the last hour and words refused to appear on the screen. Even in times of stress I can write out a quick blog, but the current situation with Aaron Hernandez has proved tough.
It is important to me to be respectful of the man that was killed and the ongoing investigation, as well as tell about the photoshoot and the side of Aaron that I met on set. With that said, please read this as a story about a shoot and not the lobbying of an opinion over the current investigation.
I have always been interested in photos. When I was younger, I used to pore through drawers of photos and photo albums that my parents made, looking at them, rearranging them and remembering the moment that they were taken.
I loved those photos. When I went to college and returned home for holidays and summers, I would always return to those drawers, collect the photos to view the new ones and to catch up on everything that had happened while I was away. When I looked at the pictures, I tried to imagine myself there and what I would have been doing at that time.
Last Saturday, we featured a creative music video by the band James Wallace and the Naked Light that was shot entirely in one take in the reflection of a fan's eyeball. It was a wonderfully simple video and an approach we hadn't seen before in a music video.
But shortly after featuring that video, we were told that a similar idea had actually been done before by the Italian band K-Conjog, when they made the award-winning video for their song Qwerty.
Check out this creative and moving music video that was shot entirely through the reflection of an eyeball. The band is James Wallace and the Naked Light, the song is "To the River," and the video is a beautiful example of simplicity and creativity working hand in hand.
Over the last week or so, my series 'Amazon Unpacked' has gone viral. The photographs were made to accompany an article researched and written for the Financial Times Weekend Magazine by Sarah O’Connor. The magazine came out at the start of February, and I put the gallery up on my website a week later.
Flect is a simple device I developed to take photos through glass without reflections or glare from the surrounding environment. Here's a step-by-step tutorial on how to make one for yourself.
One of my favorite recent projects was a deceptively simple image of an ant on black. Black is easy enough to arrange for the upper portions of a photo. Just make sure foreground lighting is powerful enough to overwhelm the ambient light. Black all around is a challenge, however.