Late last year, my wife and I had to say goodbye to one of our beloved dogs, Sophie. She was far too young and our loss was devastating. After several months, one of my breeder clients (Kristen from Zero Gravity Australian Shepherds) announced a litter coming.
This is a story about a camera, a rather special camera. Every camera has a history, so they say. But it is not all that often that one has such a rich and documented history. One that was thought to be lost but has been found again. This is the story of Sean Flynn’s Leica M2.
I have been shooting using Zeiss optics for decades. The appreciation was instilled in me by my grandfather who collected cameras quite seriously, including a large Leica collection. He passed on a few cameras like the Argus C3, Zeiss Ikoflex Twin Lens Reflex, Rollei 35, etc. as well as a few large format and enlarging lenses, often explaining to me that Zeiss was the real leader of optics.
This post is dedicated to all the people who have completely lost their sense of common decency. I have a destructive humbleness that most people do not understand (myself included). I do not have a Patreon page, I do not run ads on my website, I have never asked for donations. However, for some reason, I get the feeling that this leads people to believe I do everything for free. This could not be further from the truth. You want to use my work? Great! How about you pay me for it? No? Of course not, what was I thinking. I’m sorry.
Many Sony shooters rave about their cameras but rant about the menu systems within them. Camera reviewer Maarten Heilbron has some ideas on what's wrong and how things can be improved. Here's his 11-minute video "rant" on the subject.
I’ve been a professional photojournalist for 24 years and I’ve seen major changes in my industry. I’ve gone from film to digital. I’ve seen the reduction of staff, the reduction of print pages, and even the complete shut down of newspapers and magazines. And I’ve been at the forefront of the explosion of the World Wide Web and digital content.
The Internet is becoming a hectic and volatile place for photographers to share their work. Social media enables photos to be put in the hands of tens, thousands, and even millions in a matter of minutes. However, one small break in this sharing frenzy can lead to massive loss and frustration for the creators that dedicate themselves to doing their passion well.
It was a classic NCAA Championship game. Perennial powerhouse Alabama comes back to tie the game in regulation and then win it in overtime. The game-winning play was a 2nd down, 41-yard heave-ho into the end zone that broke a lot of Georgia fan’s hearts. It was a play that will be etched in their collective memories for a long time. And one image, a screen grab of that play, will also be etched in the memories of a few people... for a totally different reason.
Designing and manufacturing camera gear ain’t easy, as anyone who has invested in a Kickstarter project can attest. The amount of technology that’s stuffed into gear is astonishing, but that doesn’t mean each product meets the needs of the photographer. So in the spirit of “there’s always room for improvement,” here are a few of our hopes in the new year.
I see the posts. You see them, too. A session gone wrong because a photographer didn’t know want to do. And they didn’t know what to do because they hadn’t yet acquired the skills necessary to do that thing they were hired to do. They said “yes” before they knew what they were doing.
Lately, the photography sphere has been inundated, not with the gazillions of photos everyone is talking about, but with article after article proclaiming that photography is dead/over/irrelevant/trash.
Just another article about film photography? Well yes, but bear with me and hopefully you’ll see why film really does still have a place in my heart and might have a place in yours too... even when digital is such excellent quality and so convenient.
The other night I couldn't sleep (too much coffee at 5 pm) and was in bed scrolling through my Facebook feed, when this ad for the Samsung Gear 360° camera came up (below), with the instruction to "capture more of the moment." Through my groggy state of semi-consciousness, it hit me in a new way. We don't need to capture more, we need to hone a vision. If anything, we need to capture less. More wheat, less chaff.
Image quality, weight and value for money. We have come to accept that most lenses are strong in only one or two of these three factors, which I personally focus on when researching lenses to buy. Sometimes though, we stumble upon a great lens design which is strong in all three.
On December 22nd, I received an email from 500px saying that I sold a photo for $600. Obviously, I was thrilled -- it's nice to get something like this right before Christmas. Upon logging into my 500px account, I saw that there was another sale too for the same photo. The total from the two sales: $2,700.
My name is Eli Dreyfuss. I'm a professional portrait photographer and documentary filmmaker attending Florida Atlantic University and studying film. This past month at my university (FAU), I had the honor and privilege of producing a short film about a man named Bobby.
My name is Connar L’Ecuyer, and I shoot photographs for the National Park Service. That's me in the photo above, off-duty in front of one of my LAX prints. Currently, I am working at the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, which is down in Southern California, near Malibu and Santa Monica.
It’s not surprising when camera companies hire photographers to pitch their products. But photographers have also been enlisted to sell other types of products -- the result of Madison Avenue trying to romanticize the occupation, even though the reality often fails to meet the expectation. Nowadays photographers are more likely to spend the majority of their time sitting at a desk in post-processing or trying to collect on invoices that are 6 months past due.
Something just happened that shocked the hell out of me. I made my first sale on Adobe Stock and was notified that I earned a commission of 18 cents.
Choosing the right camera can be one of the hardest decisions you will make and possibly one of the most expensive one too. In the last 3 years, I've gone through over 10 different cameras before finally being happy and content with what I have now.
Detaching ourselves from the amount of work we've spent on something, and the end result, is a critical part of the creative creation process. Nobody cares how hard it was to create something unless it shows in a material way.
My name is Leila Boujnane, and I'm the CEO of TinEye, a reverse image search tool many photographers use to find copyright infringements on the Internet. This post is about how not even copyright infringement search tools are immune to copyright infringement.
As creatives, we all go through a very similar journey when it comes to improving our skill. Though details of the turbulent ride vary for everyone, it always boils down to two things; the how, and the why.
Maybe you’re aware of Netflix. Maybe you even have a subscription for their services. You might have also heard of or watched a series called Stranger Things, produced by Netflix. But did you know that Netflix has been selling a Collector's Edition box set of Stranger Things that incorporates pictures from my webpage, The VHS Corner? I didn’t, until some kind netizens contacted me to tell me all about it.
My daily stroll through the newly-built but already-decaying park near my apartment in Hanoi while listening to Spotify on a brisk (by Southeast Asia standards) morning has me in deep thought. We only get this type of weather for a couple months a year here and I absolutely love it.
What if your house burned down? Have you still “made it” as a photographer?
Today I used Lightroom Mobile to capture images on the street for the first time. I recently remembered that you can sync images from Lightroom Mobile right to the Lightroom desktop application. This was huge for me as I'm tired of syncing via Airdrop. It takes forever to select which images you want to import.
I’ve wondered for a long time what it means to be an ethical landscape photographer. Sure, this field isn’t known for its wide-reaching moral dilemmas or particularly sticky situations, but the question still deserves attention.
Nine months after taking office, the White House has finally released official portraits of both President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. Last month, the Washington Post did a story highlighting the empty walls of some 9,600 federal buildings, all waiting for for an official portrait of the new POTUS.
My name is Simon Sharp, and I'm a documentary photographer. In this article, I will explore why I believe a photographer took pictures he should have refrained from taking and why the industry -- both print and NGO -- promoted them without apparently seeing what they were.
So, you want to be a photographer? And why not, it seems to be a valued and respected profession. Or is it?...
The phrase heard every day in the world of photography is “I am a professional photographer.” This statement must be viewed in the context that 8 out of 10 people with a DSLR refer to themselves as professional photographers. Of course, this statistical claim is a MUS (Made-Up-Stat). OK, the math is fuzzy, but in reality, the claim is not that outlandish.
Dear Minted,
I’ve been photographing families for seven years. Let me tell you; it’s been a long slog. I’ve learned so many things through the years that make my work consistent and creates happy clients, I’ve also learned that I work in a community of other independent photographers and we have also come to help, rely on and yes, compete with one another and still be friends at the end of the day.
In the usual places we're seeing the monthly "Urbex (urban exploration) photographer dies in fall" story making the rounds. These are guys that trespass on rooftops, on ledges, in abandoned buildings, and so on, to take photographs.
Wildlife photography in Yellowstone National Park is an incredible opportunity, yet some bad photographers are giving all photographers a bad name by not following the rules. I won’t even get into the plain rudeness of too many “professionals” that further that bad name.
Photography has always held a weird space in my head. In my mind, I make things that look neat. I have always held great envy to those who create such complex, emotional narratives to their images. I sit and observe with awe and wonder at the tales that come from them, their reasons for color, pose, and other infinitesimal details. Pixels for me are a means to an end, but it’s still something I can’t help but create. It’s how I tell a story, but it’s not how I tell my own.
I’ve often received emails from photographers who have approached my little brand, 3 Legged Thing with offers of "collaboration". There's is nothing wrong with making an approach at all, and while I rarely act upon these unsolicited approaches, they can, occasionally, yield gold.
When I returned to Egypt in August 2014 after studying civic engagement in the US, I found a country of failed revolution and lost aspirations; a country polarized and torn apart following three years of protests and clashes.
I've been wanting to take this photo for a while. Years, actually. The reason it's taken me so long is it terrified me. The idea of taking a photo showing the real me, the unretouched me, was an idea that filled me with dread and empowered me at the same time, equal measures of the opposing emotions.
When I first began posting my photos online, I started getting comments like "Wow, you must have a great camera!," or "Anybody can take photos like these with expensive gear," or "I can’t take photos like these because I can’t afford an expensive camera like yours."
It’s 7:15 am on Sunday morning. I’m driving through the middle of Newcastle on my way to shoot wedding prep at a venue just over an hour away from my home. I pull over to the hard shoulder. Head in hands, crying and asking myself: “Chris, What the f**k are you doing?”
This is the story of how I recently almost lost a Nikon D850 DSLR to a scam on eBay. Scammers are now targeting higher value eBay sales with fake PayPal phishing emails.
I confess: I’m a photo gear junkie. I’ve bought dozens of cameras and lenses, way too many tripods, camera bags and backpacks, and many thousands of dollars’ worth of filters, flash units, and other accessories. I’ve tempered my obsession over the last few years, mostly because there's only so much room to store these things, but from the flood of new products hitting the market recently I'd say I slowed down just in time.
As much as we talk about the lack of true innovation in the camera market, particularly when it comes to integration with the Internet and social media, every day I keep encountering cameras that have the same "hey this is the way it used to be" design philosophies underlying them.
There's a feature tucked away in the new iPhones that doesn't seem to be getting a lot of traction, but it represents a massive sea change in photography. It's the "Portrait Lighting" mode, and it's the second shot across the bows of traditional photography from the world of computational photography.
My name is Susan Stripling, and I'm a wedding photographer based in New York. This is an open letter about sexism, feminism, the industry that I love so much, and everything in between...
My name is Michael Sechler, and I'm a photography enthusiast based in Sarasota, Florida. I recently shot a Hurricane Irma photo that went viral and was used by media all over the world... and I wasn't paid a dime. Here's why.
Dear Canon,
You and I have had a very, very long friendship that has lasted many years and many, many generations of cameras. Ever since my first camera purchase, you have been my brand of choice. I still have my original Canon IXUS 40 and multiple generations of full frame and APS-C SLRs going back as far as the 450D, which was released in March 2008.
My father passed away a month ago, and his birthday was on August 31st. I'm letting that sink in. Death is never easy and for those that have lost a parent, it has a certain significance. The person who has been there your entire life is now gone. There are things that I am now thinking about that hardly, if ever, crossed my mind. The biggest being that I am mortal and I too will meet the same fate some day, and the other, related to photography, is the importance of the photograph.
Ever since I was a kid, I loved saving stuff. I saved all my baseball cards in rubber band stacks in shoe boxes. I collected stacks and stacks of 7-Eleven Slurpee baseball cups in 1973. Every San Francisco Giants yearbook and media guide going back to the early 1960s? Yup, got them too.