The crash that killed Kobe Bryant, his 13-year old daughter Gianna, and seven others aboard a helicopter shocked millions around the world. Near the Staples Center in California where Bryant played for 20 years as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, make-shift memorials appeared. And online, fans posted messages of grief and condolences on social media.
One of the greatest joys in life as a father is the ability to embarrass our kids. Nothing makes us happier than throwing out some completely irrelevant and perfectly timed dad joke. Or maybe it’s the joys of embarrassing our teenage daughter while she's hanging out with her friends—that's the best time to bust a dance move, even if it’s in line at Chik-Fil-A.
Although some may feel like I'm some sort of rockstar photographer that is so busy he has to turn down work he doesn't want, the truth of the matter is right now I am just a guy sitting on a rock typing out a letter to people he has never met with the hopes that it helps just one person keep their head up.
I have a confession to make. I often shoot in aperture priority mode. I’m a reasonably competent photographer with a solid grasp of the factors that drive exposure, but I don’t want to fiddle with multiple dials when I just want to take a photo.
Sitting with a group of picture-takers last night, it dawned on me that even though all of us call ourselves “photographers,” so much of what we care about, the way we shoot, the very core of what we like about taking pictures, is distinct — almost to the point of us having little useful to share.
The National Archives of the USA is putting on a show. "Rightfully Hers: American Women and The Vote." Out front of the show, there is a large visual display that includes an iconic photograph of the Jan 21, 2017 Women's March on DC with some blurred out elements. Specifically blurred out is some language on the protest signs, language the Archive staff judged to be political or NSFW. You can read more about it here.
Over the past few years, I've experienced a number of lenses that were optically stunning. Near-perfect examples of optical technology, lenses like the Sony 135mm f/1.8 (which I reviewed and loved) and 24mm f/1.4 (also loved) along with the Canon RF 28-70mm f/2 or their RF 50mm f/1.2 all exhibited these traits of pushing towards "perfection."
Photographer and YouTuber Mark Holtze thinks that you (and everyone else) should give vintage lenses a try. And in the video above, he lays out his top 5 reasons why you should try vintage glass in 2020.
No presets. No one-click edits. While presets may be a welcome time-saver for wedding, portrait and travel photographers (often offering a solid base to then apply custom adjustments), editing a landscape photo is different.
I don’t want to photograph models. They are lovely and beautiful and work with you and do what you ask and most are a dream to photograph, resulting in beautiful images. All this is true, but… I don’t want to photograph them. I don’t.
As camera technology continues to progress, the way in which we operate them is changing as well. Photographers should always use the most familiar and effective technique to get the shot, and to that end I want to be clear about the purpose of this article: I’m not trying to convince anyone to blindly stop using back-button focus.
A few weeks ago, I was in town when I heard a lady say to her friend, “That photo you posted of Sebastian was soooooo beautiful. While you’re on maternity leave, you should totally start doing photography as a business…”
I am writing this after getting a torrent of texts from friends and family who have been watching the documentary Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez on Netflix. It turns out I'm in it... an image of me on set with Aaron appears in the second episode.
On December 19, 2019, Flickr (and SmugMug) CEO Don MacAskill posted a letter entitled “The world’s most-beloved, money-losing business needs your help.” MacAskill described how SmugMug saved Flickr from an imminent demise at the hands of Verizon, and how the company needed the photo community to step up to staunch the money-losing operation.
After the Second World War, if you were a professional photographer, then you would have used cameras from companies like Hasselblad and Leica. Photojournalists tended to shoot predominantly with Leica cameras, and they were essentially the standard.
It’s a brilliant start to the year for Canon with the full announcement of the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III. Updating their flagship DSLR in time for the Olympics, it’s an announcement eagerly awaited by photographers across different genres who are looking for the best camera on the market.
When it comes to image quality, there are very few cameras that can compete against a good medium format system. The resolution, detail, and colors they produce are difficult to match using cameras with a smaller sensor. This is one of the reasons manufacturers can charge what they do for these types of cameras. The issue, however, is that many people tend to romanticize what medium format cameras are. And for the most part, it’s complete nonsense.
Seeing that it's a new year and a lot of folks have recently gotten cameras, I thought it might be helpful to put down my thoughts and advice for beginners.
I guess we've all been there: people question our images, saying they're "fake" because we edit our raw files.
At the turn of the millennium, veteran photojournalist David Hume Kennerly embarked on a project using a single camera outfitted with a single lens – a medium format Mamiya 7II with a 43mm f/4.5 lens. As he crisscrossed the country, he committed to taking a photo each day, which culminated in his book Photo du Jour.
Yes, it's post-processed. I get this question all the time, like every other photographer on the planet, and it often sparks heated debates that challenge the notion of objective reality and the meaning of photography.
After Canon shared the development information on the impending 1D X Mark III last year, we called out that its specs not only blow away any previous notions of what a camera with physical moving parts could do but also noted that it's got all the makings of a great mirrorless camera... with a mirror.
Whether you're a photographer, a filmmaker, a YouTuber, or a painter, this latest video by Kaiwan Shaban will probably hit home on some level. It's an honest, candid message for artists of all stripes who struggle with the fact that they are never quite satisfied with the work they are creating.
Ever since Adobe announced that Lightroom would become “Lightroom Classic”, the writing has been in the wall. Lightroom as I know it will someday become a technological dinosaur. If Adobe gets their way, the replacement—confusingly known as Lightroom (non-Classic)—is the way of the future.
Photographer and YouTuber Matt Granger just released a video titled "The Truth About Sony," but while this might sound like some sort of exposé, it's really not. What we have here is an honest discussion about the growing pains that Sony users have been dealing with for years, and how Sony has addressed (almost) all of those issues over the past couple of years.
At the end of every year, I get to see, for the first time, all the things I’ve already seen. New Year’s Eve is my final film pickup day for One Second, an ongoing project in which I, an otherwise sane, rational, working modern photographer, make one photograph, and only one photograph, on film, every day, with no do-overs and no second chances.
Every camera made today is great. This is a statement I have stood behind for several years now because it's true. It's hard to go wrong with any camera made today because the technology gap has narrowed considerably. But even so, each year there are cameras that stand out from the rest and deserve praise.
My country is burning. In the summer of 2019–20, fires raged across Australia. In my home state of New South Wales, over 3,400,000 hectares have gone up in flames—an area larger than the entire country of Wales. The land, habitats, and lives lost continues to rise.
If you know me, then you know I love a good one-liner. In fact, I put together what may be the best collection of portrait photography quotes in history. But even I can get sick of hearing the same old pearls of wisdom from the same old boomers. So I’ve upgraded 10 famous photography quotes so they make more sense in our modern photography world.
I think the question of whether something is or is not "art" is a bit disingenuous, often used more as a tool for gatekeeping than true analysis or critique. There is no objective standard for what makes something enjoyable as a piece of art, whether that's a photograph, music, sculpture, or a blade of grass in a field.
Flickr users received an email a few days ago asking for help to save Flickr by subscribing to the Flickr Pro service. Don MacAskill, the CEO of both SmugMug and Flickr, explained that the platform is still losing money and needs our help to keep it alive.
If you haven’t heard of personal branding photography, you’re not the only one. It’s a small but growing sub-genre of commercial photography that has been gaining popularity among female entrepreneurs and small-business owners.
Perhaps you have a dream of becoming a professional photographer or you have already started your professional photography business. If for you it’s still a dream what is it that’s holding you back? If you have already started how was it for you? Did you start part-time, nervous about taking that first step or did you, like me, jump straight in?
Though we went into great detail recently into why the SD card isn't going anywhere anytime soon, the format's days are likely still numbered. Positioned as a response to CFexpress, the SD Association published an initiative about a year ago for the next generation SD card called SDexpress (SDx).
Just over a week ago I saw some big news reported by PetaPixel: Antelope Canyon would be ending photographer-only tours. These tours were long favored by photographers because, well, Antelope Canyon is a pretty tough shooting environment and a tripod made cleaner shots and bracketing possible.
A few weeks ago, I wrote an article about Apple's latest laptop and a wish list for things that weren't included in its design. One of those things was a return to the built-in SD card reader.
For Canon, Nikon and Panasonic, 2018-2019 was the first year where they all truly "went for it" when it comes to mirrorless. All three released full-frame mirrorless cameras, and all three seemed to have different priorities with those releases. In this three-part series, we're looking at each of these companies in their first year and evaluate where each of them stands today in what is now a very competitive market.
Quite often when I’m browsing my Facebook photographic communities I see posts from people who are depressed because they have lost interest in their hobby. They usually say that they can’t work up the enthusiasm to get out there and photograph anything and that they haven’t even picked up their cameras in weeks, months or even years. They have lost their ‘phojo’ and they wonder if they’ll ever get it back.
After 14 years as a professional photographer, I've decided to become a real artist. The pieces above, which I’ve birthed over the past 72 hours, show what I’m evolving into as a creator. I present to you my Suspended Sustenance, Part 1 (foodstuffs, wood, paint, tape, 2019).
It goes without saying that if you want to get better at something you have to practice. Simple, right? The thing is, that unlike more structured pursuits such as sports or music, the idea of practicing street photography seems a bit hard to wrap one’s head around.
Photographer and occasional PetaPixel guest author Robin Wong recently published a very interesting take on a question that most people thought was settled: why is the camera market shrinking? While most people would just blame the rise of smartphones and call it a day, Wong shares a more nuanced, and possibly more accurate, list of reasons.
Telephoto lenses and landscape photography may seem an odd pairing. Telephotos are more at home in the hands of wildlife, sports, and portrait photographers. They’re used to get close to the subject, help to compress perspective (cue the comments on "lens compression is a myth") and isolate distracting elements.
Photokina is keen to remind you that (1) it is still the industry's "leading trade fair," and (2) trade fairs are still relevant, even if Nikon, Leica, and Olympus dropped out of Photokina 2020. In a press release published last night, the show quotes Canon, Sony and Panasonic executives as they "confirmed their commitment" to the 2020 expo during conversations with Photokina organizers in Tokyo.
Ah, the night, what a wonderful time to go out and do some street photography! As a photographer who got his start in the streets of Tokyo, it was inevitable that I would end up photographing mostly at night.
For Canon, Nikon, and Panasonic, 2018-2019 was the first year where they all truly "went for it" when it comes to full-frame mirrorless. All three released full-frame mirrorless cameras, and all three seemed to have different priorities with those releases. In this first of three segments, we're going to take a look at each of these companies in their first year and evaluate where each of them stands today in what is now a very competitive market.
There is a wealth of information on the internet about composition—endless blog posts about visual rules, geometric concepts, and photos with all kinds of lines and shapes drawn over them to the prove the point. But all of this information focuses on the "what" of composition rather than the "why." A photographer must stop and ask themselves: "why even bother following visual rules?"
My son texted me the other day asking for my meatball recipe. It’s a rarity that he texts me for recipes, so I was thrilled to my toes. About a week later, my daughter texted me asking for my fresh pumpkin pie recipe. Again, joy spread through my body as I thought to myself, “Finally.”
Should you buy an iPhone 11 Pro? That’s a big question many people have had on their minds since Apple recently released their latest flagship smartphone that contains 3 different rear-facing cameras. However, a thorough answer to that question isn’t cut and dry.
I used my Nikon D610 to take the last photograph of my mom before she died. I’ve documented my children's lives nearly everyday. The rubber grip is wearing thin in spots. A rubber tab on the bottom is chronically flapping loose; my fingers push it back into place out of habit. This camera has become an extension of me, and I have grown to love it. But it has not always been that way.
I know how easy it is to be upset at Adobe. Trust me, I feel like I'm in a constant state of that feeling for one reason or another, and for years I have been very hard on them repeatedly.