Editorial

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

Today marks one year to the day that my book went on sale. It’s a very personal project that means a huge amount to me. I wanted to write a post that not only reflects on the past year since the book became available, but also on the project itself. It took a huge amount of work to get to that stage in the first place.

Photographer Joseph Cristina thinks the era of "good enough" is ending, and that's great news for photographers. In a recent vlog, Cristina explains why he thinks professional photographers are going to benefit from a "return to quality" as more and more clients get burned by sub-par work.

Before I going into this one, let me first share a little recap about my background with Apple. A number of years back, I was in love with the iPhone 4S. I felt it was a phone made for photographers and supported it wholeheartedly, going so far as doing speeches at Apple stores about how their products catered to my workflow.

Last Wednesday, Apple announced the new MacBook Pro with a 16-inch Retina display. I have been testing this new laptop computer (locked behind closed doors) for the last couple of weeks and am excited to share my findings with all of you.

I want to start this off by saying two things: one, this isn't a review or hands-on impressions as I have not used the computer (PetaPixel's hands-on coverage is forthcoming) and two, I am an Apple power user and have been since I was indoctrinated in high school.

It’s been around a year since I switched to photographing on 35mm film for the majority of my work. Beyond a couple of false starts and some misconceptions, I think I’ve adjusted well, and I’m really happy to have made the change. Now that I have a good amount of work to reference, I’ve been thinking a lot about some of the adjustments I needed to make in order to adapt to a film mindset.

Patrick Hall from Fstoppers and Pye Jirsa from SLR Lounge recently sat down for an in-depth conversation about how photography is changing in 2019. In a fascinating and insightful discussion that lasts almost 45 minutes, they ultimately try to tackle one question: is photography as we know it dying?

Photography can be an expensive pursuit, and the cost of things (and the pressure to buy them all, buy them new, and buy them now) can get in the way of putting that money in better places.

Yesterday, I was at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia shooting for Flashes of Hope, a wonderful non-profit organization that gets photographers like myself to volunteer their time and create portraits of kids who are literally fighting for their lives. These portraits are given to the families for free. Flashes of Hope is a truly wonderful group.

At Adobe MAX 2019, Chief Product Officer Scott Belsky announced the Content Authenticity Initiative – a nascent and ambiguously defined way for attribution to travel with an image and allow consumers to know, in the words of Adobe VP Dana Rao, that “the content they’re seeing is authentic.”

Up until a few weeks ago, I had never used a Leica. I don't think I'd ever even held one or knew much about them other than the occasional story of an outlandishly expensive iteration on a camera previously on the market. I had preconceived notions about the kind of company Leica was, about their goals, and about their strategy. I expected very little, regardless of what they were going to show me.

Adobe has launched Photoshop on the iPad, a fully rebuilt application on the real base of Photoshop that purportedly runs smoothly and efficiently despite being on the pseudo computer that is the Apple tablet. Normally, this achievement would be seen as a gigantic accomplishment, but multiple stories over the past year have put a damper on what would otherwise be a celebrated announcement.

One of the most unintentionally useful influences on my photography has turned out to be the time I’ve spent playing computer games. Some photographers use cinema as a learning tool to observe the way cinematographers and DOP’s use their cameras to capture a scene. This can be a great source of inspiration, but I think it can lead to some photographers heading out and seeking to recreate shots or aesthetic styles (color palette, depth of field, grain, etc) rather than capturing anything …

Taking a look at popular images featuring food on Instagram, you'll see a pattern. Andrew Scrivani, a New York food photographer veteran puts it bluntly: "They are almost exclusively shooting from the top. Almost everything is a round dish of food and in a square, because Instagram is square, and a lot of it is on white or very light backgrounds, and white or very light plating, and consistently less and less propping."

Does that photo of the new Canon 85mm f/1.2L DS IS lens look a bit dark to you? Well, that's because the new Defocus Smoothing coating Canon applied to its latest prime lens isn't without its tradeoffs. Though the Defocus Smoothing that helps improve the look of bokeh in photos, it's going to cost you a stop and a half of light wide open.

The release of the Fuji X-Pro3 this morning came as a bit of a surprise to me; not what was unveiled, but the general reception to it. So many comments (yes, I know you're not supposed to read the comments) of ridicule and annoyance were not what I was expecting. And as I read them (which I promise not to do again) I noticed an underlying theme that was a bit worrying.

A year or so ago, I wrote an article on why I switched from Nikon to Sony. A few people asked why I didn’t move to the Nikon mirrorless system. And the answer was simple: I didn’t want to risk shooting a wedding with a single memory card slot.

It can be very easy to arbitrarily limit oneself by genre; I think the effect this has on the mindset of a photographer can potentially really damage the quality of the work they look to produce.

Recently I came across a blog post that essentially blamed professional photographers for creating boring stock photos, and that boring stock photos are the key reason that companies should be using User-Generated Content.

Two months ago, popular photographer and digital artist John Wilhelm's Facebook was hacked. Below, he shares the step-by-step story of how the hack happened, and how the hacker used his very popular Facebook page to scam hundreds of his followers out of their hard-earned money.

Photography offers an escape unlike any other. It allows us to capture moments, create moments, and interpret the worlds we see through a lens. We document, we study, we create art, and for me, this was lifesaving.

It is now exactly 2 years since I started uploading stock photos to Unsplash, the "slightly" controversial stock photo platform where everything is free for everyone. I thought this would be a good occasion to share what I've gained from my presence on Unsplash.