If you're a wedding photographer who has had a change of heart about your chosen path in this industry as lockdown restrictions and subsequent client cancellations continue, you are not the only one. It's never too late to make a career change!
Today marks 10 years since I attended a photography walk that would change the course of my life.
Twenty years ago, few photographers would have questioned your choosing to go out with black and white film loaded in your camera of choice. Today, when I tell people my digital medium format camera shoots only in monochrome, I am prepared to receive just as much criticism as confusion.
When is copying another’s work not stealing? Andy Warhol copied a photograph taken by Lynn Goldsmith of the musical artist Prince and created sixteen colorized and stylized visual works.
It’s time we put some updated sensibilities’ behind the statements “fix it in post” and “getting it right in the camera”.
It may not have come as a surprise for those with ears to the ground in the mobile phone industry, but LG is officially walking away. Despite that, it does leave something of an imaging legacy behind.
I have always looked forward to the rush of excitement I feel when preparing to board an aircraft with the promise of a few hours gazing down at our beautiful planet. Viewing the world from another perspective has held an alluring attraction for me as long as I can remember.
As photographers, we are immersed in a world of creativity, expression, and individuality. Our craft is one that we pursue in hopes of creating something that evokes emotion and thought, insight and so much more. So why are our cameras so... boring?
On Monday, March 15, 2021, a record-breaking sandstorm descended on northern China, engulfing cities including the Chinese capital, Beijing. In recent decades, northern China has suffered from sandstorms as a result of increasing desertification in the north of the country which is largely dry, arid, and covered with deserts.
Most visual creations start with a search—for images, colors, fonts, and inspiration -- but search has always felt disconnected from the creative process. It can be tedious and time-consuming to translate brilliant, imaginative ideas into words.
When I attempt to make a great photographic print, what do I look for? What process do I go through to make the image as perfect as possible? I have spent 40 years making my exhibition-quality Cibachrome prints and I’d like to explain what goes into making a superlative photographic print.
While 2020 wasn't a particularly good year for camera manufacturers overall, by the late fall and into the winter the sales number had rebounded, returning to more typical numbers. Through the year, the big three -- Sony, Canon, and Nikon -- unsurprisingly led total production numbers.
Over the last few weeks, it seems like the world wide web has been swamped with both explainers and critiques of Non-Fungible Tokens, or NFTs. It’s a pyramid scheme! It’s the next thing in Fine Art! It’s an ecological disaster! I am making so much money!
The "Creator Exodus" is a phenomenon that has been accelerated by the COVID-19 era. With the requirement for non-essential businesses to operate from a remote-first capacity, the 2020 experience has encouraged creators at all levels to redefine their metrics for productivity and success.
Over the years I’ve often been asked how I went about making a certain image. That question is commonly asked in my workshops not only of me, but also my co-instructors, where open discussion about all images abounds. It’s a great question, because it gives real insight into the mind of the photographer.
These days people love photo booths and once you have set it up it works -- and pays -- for itself. I found various plans and tutorials, but in my opinion, none of them had a good purchase list or a really good manual. So I decided to make my own.
As a professional photographer, you can imagine my surprise when I found that my favorite iPhone (possibly ever) was not the one with the best camera. In fact, the phone I am talking about the rarely-mentioned iPhone 12 Mini.
One of the unavoidable truths about being an artistic creator is that you’ll undoubtedly and inevitably hit a rut. As is the case with landscape photography, that wall hit me after I realized that all of my photos started to look the same, even when the locations varied.
Ethics in photography is a topic that just keeps popping up. Whether it’s the latest dish on Magnum, or an argument about photographing the homeless, some days it seems you can’t turn around without stumbling across another disagreement.
Earlier this week, Nikon rewarded their fans with the reveal that a flagship mirrorless camera that will surpass the D6 was coming to market this year. The Z9, as it is called, looks like it's going to be a killer camera -- but buying one is likely going to be a challenge.
Seemingly overnight, NFTs became the hottest acronym on social media and in headlines. On Thursday, a single JPG file created by Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple, sold in an online auction for $69.3 million. It was the first digital-only art sale for auction house Christie’s, meaning there was no physical copy involved.
News outlets and social media accounts have been overrun with old photos that have been animated with MyHeritage’s “Deep Nostalgia” feature, an AI-based deep learning algorithm licensed from Israeli-based D-ID.
The Sony Alpha 1 is really impressive on paper. What it can do has taken the industry by storm and the expectations of this camera are just as high as its $6,500 price. Clearly, it has been the focus of a lot of hype. So, does it live up to those expectations?
Doom-and-gloom stories of the state of the camera market have been pretty common over the past year due to COVID-19. But what if the data used to determine the health of the industry was flawed?
In 1976 while rummaging through an attic of Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in search of old museum publications, editorial assistant Lorna Condon opened a drawer in a wooden cabinet. Inside, she found a number of flat leather cases which contained a series of daguerreotypes of partially and fully nude Black people.
When I die I will no longer have active control over my archive. My will will outline that my negatives are left to any archive that may want them -- depending on whether my career looks anything like I’d want it to, this may be one or two, or none. The main responsibility falls to me to do what I can while alive if I’m to enjoy being represented in the photography community by work that legitimizes me.
I recently came across an interesting comment made by a participant in a photography forum: "You should only upgrade your camera only if it’s limiting you, not just because you have the money to."
Many photographers have had the same reaction that I did upon hearing about yet another new social media app hitting the radar: a yawn and a roll of the eyes. We have seen countless apps and image-sharing sites emerge with fanfare and then fail to gain traction in the crowded sphere of social media, and we feel pressed to carve out time for the platforms that we already use.
Since the Alpha 1 made its way into the hands of YouTubers and reviewers, a flurry of videos has been released that compare Sony's flagship against the Canon EOS R5. But is this really a comparison that we should be making?
It looks like computer-generated digital humans are rapidly exiting the uncanny valley. Just take a look at Unreal Engine's impressive new MetaHuman Creator, which lets you create photorealistic "fake" people in just minutes.
Back in November, PetaPixel published a story on a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter called the X-tra Battery. A new report has surfaced that indicates the entire campaign may have been a ruse and that the company never intended to deliver on its promises.
If you are reading this article, there's a high chance that sooner or later you are going to buy a new camera. And as we all know, photography is not exactly a cheap hobby.
As a professional corporate photographer who completes around 300 professional assignments a year and has done so for many years, I have used a number of modern, ultra-fast lenses made by excellent optical equipment manufacturers, but I keep on coming back to the Noctilux 50mm f/0.95 lens by Leica.
The Sony Alpha 1 may have many impressive specifications, but one that stands out as having greater implications for image-making is the sensor readout speed: it's so fast it may be able to achieve the computational photography we see in smartphones in a full-size camera.
Drew MacCallum is Canon's Technical Advisor and one of my go-to resources for complicated camera questions. I also happen to follow him on Instagram, which is where I noticed he started posting some stellar bird photos.
Sony's non-surprising Alpha 1 announcement this week seems to have set a few Nikon shooters into panic again. More disinformation and clickbait headlines are also proliferating. The common theme seems to be "Nikon can't/won't keep up and will fail."
On the same day that Sony announced the powerhouse Alpha 1, it also revealed its latest Xperia phone. While it is technically a smartphone, it functionally is something else entirely.
With today’s announcement of the Sony Alpha 1, we saw an important camera capability moved to the forefront of the announcement: shutter sync speed.
The new Sony Alpha 1 is undoubtedly impressive. It's the culmination of years of technology advancements across multiple camera lines that have converged into a single, outrageously powerful capture device. It also is a return to the idea that the best camera a company can make is not for the masses.
It’s undeniable that life is often seen as a kind of race or competition, but I absolutely despise this idea.
When I was a semi-professional 4x5 landscape photographer I often spent a half-hour shooting a single sheet of film and several hours enlarging it to the best of my ability. I sought the sharpest possible result. And now in the digital age, I still pursue sharp images.
In an effort to expand the opportunities for women, Red Bull has hired a group of women photographers to document three key Hawaiian big-wave breaks (Jaws, Waimea, Outer Reefs) for the entire winter season.
One of the many fascinating effects of cross-polarization is called “birefringence”, which is responsible for the psychedelic gradients in the seen here.
If you pay any attention to the photography industry, it's hard to ignore the news of the financial struggle that Nikon has been dealing with since late last year. What were once rumors are now confirmed: the company isn't in a good place. But that said, Nikon is going to be fine... probably.
Cross polarization is a technique that uses two polarizing filters - one on the light source and on e on the camera lens - to get rid of unwanted specular reflections.
One week before what would be my only photoshoot of 2020, I received a phone call that broke me emotionally. My producer, friend and all-around incredible person, Eric, had taken his own life.
Winter photography can be difficult and even dangerous if you don’t take the proper precautions to protect yourself and your gear. In this post I’ll show you how to take better snow photos and have a more enjoyable time in the cold while doing it.
In 2016 and again in 2018, PetaPixel featured the work of Dora Goodman, a woman who was adding hand-crafted elements to analog cameras. Fast forward to 2021, and Goodman has gone steps further and finally created cameras of her own design.
If there was a theme in automotive advertising photography for 2020, it would be minimalism. This not only applies to aesthetics, but also (and more importantly) to production.
As any photo enthusiast will tell you (sometimes without you even asking), the benefits of photography go far beyond the ability to capture a moment or immortalize an expression. It goes beyond a mere understanding of color, or composition, or the ability to see the extraordinary hiding inside of an ordinary scene.
