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.
This past Sunday, I photographed the "Rally against Hate" protests in Berkeley, California, which was organized to oppose a "Say No To Marxism" rally that had been planned. There was very little representation of the so-called alt-right at the park on Sunday. However, there were 100 to 200 Antifa (or anarchists, or whatever they are called) who showed up dressed in all black to the protest.
Nevada Law and the Nevada Administrative code have a simple definition of when you need to have a permit to shoot photos in their parks. It is based entirely on whether or not the pictures will be sold.
There was a new camera that was just announced. It's really good, apparently. It's got more megapixels. A brighter screen. It can stack lots of images together. It does everything you've ever wanted.
Much ado about nothing or a serious ethical breach of photojournalistic norms? A debate emerged on Facebook when freelancer and Pulitzer Prize winner Ken Geiger’s image appeared in the National Geographic Instagram feed and in a slideshow on the NatGeo website. The image was a composite of multiple images created in-camera that resulted in an photo that never existed because the eclipse was never positioned against the Tetons as depicted.
While visiting Yosemite in June, I took this photo of 4 riders on the road. A couple of days later, I posted the photo on Reddit's /r/pics. It made it to the Reddit front page with more than 40k upvotes and almost 600 comments.
I’ve dreamed of seeing a total eclipse of the sun all my life. When I read there would be one on August 21st that passed dead-center over the town of Newberry, South Carolina, I was overjoyed. This was my chance. My wife and I had lived in Newberry in 2013. I had friends there. I had a place to stay. I wouldn’t need to pay $1,000 for a hotel.
I decided a while ago that for my high school graduation and summer trip, I was going to photograph the Canadian Rockies. I started pursuing landscape photography seriously a little over a year ago and wanted to build a photography portfolio.
Photography is a lot of fun. For the most part, it’s a solo pursuit where you are completely responsible for your own success or failure. But anyone can be a great photographer! Most people in the world are professional photographers now that phones are taking world-class, billboard-worthy images. If you want to stand out in this sea of photographers, you’re going to have to learn how NOT to swim. So here are some tips on how to become a successful failure in the photography age.
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.
I’ve been ordering used lenses for years and have never had a problem with any purchases. That is, until now. I recently ordered a $1,500 used camera lens from Amazon. The lens never showed up, and Amazon is refusing to return my money because they claim the tracking number shows that it was delivered to my address.
One of the greatest things about photography is the seemingly endless supply of new opportunities and new challenges. No matter how many “new” or “weird” or “difficult” experiences you’ve had as a photographer, you’ve never seen it all, and there’s always something unique about each project.
About two years ago, I used to go about my usual everyday life like most people do, not noticing all of the beauty around me. After I picked up a camera and started taking photos of my kids, I started to see the world in a whole new way. Once you start to see it, you can't unsee it.
Painting and photography are often considered similar artistic expressions. Henri Cartier-Bresson was a painter before he became a photographer, and became a painter again in his retirement. While his artistic sense informed his photography in terms of his ability to see the world in constantly changing light and compositional potential, he never considered photography as art.
We didn’t start Unsplash to reinvent an industry. We started Unsplash because we thought it might be useful. Unsplash is a community where anyone can share high-resolution photos for anyone to use freely.
Dear Nikon,
I am writing as a longtime Nikon photographer and someone who has been working extensively with your cameras and who has written many reviews in the past years. I have been shooting in the area of timelapse photography for many years now, and have given many workshops and training sessions.
My name is Ryan Horban and I’m a wedding photographer based in Southern California. I shoot 30+ weddings a year, drink IPAs because they are tasty and get me buzzed, have an amazing family that I absolutely love, and won’t be staying at a Sheraton Hotel anytime in the near future unless I’m kidnapped by terrorists and held against my will at a Sheraton property.
My name is Scott Davenport, and I'm a landscape photographer. And I'm part of a crazy lot. I had this realization during a sleep deprived afternoon. My hazy mind was trying to get me through the rest of the day. It was also trying to comprehend how I arrived at the miserable state I was in.
Beware. There's a new scam on Instagram that preys on people who would like a free camera drone. I was messaged by a scam account, and here's how it works.
In the last couple of weeks, my little brand, 3 Legged Thing, launched a brand new Universal L Bracket, the QR11. For the most part, the response has been overwhelmingly positive.
I've seen a lot of posts and comments raving about how f/1.8 on a 14mm lens is revolutionary for anyone wanting to shoot astrophotography. Yes, having a larger aperture will collect more light, but you're still limited in the exposure length because of the Earth's rotation.
Photographer Max Dubler struck a nerve last week with an article documenting the theft of one of his downhill skateboarding images. After finding a skateboard brand using one of his photos without authorization, he did as he always does: he contacted the offending party and requested a payment of $25 for social media usage.
Dear photography workshop and conference organizers, we need to have a chat. There is a lot of nonsense going on in the workshop world, and it needs to stop. Taking someone’s money and promising that you can help their business is no joke, and it needs to be taken seriously!
My name is Max Dubler, and I am a professional photographer who has been working full time in downhill skateboarding for the last several years. I am a well-known person within this little niche: I started an influential website with my friends, was on staff for the only downhill magazine since its first issue, have written extensively about downhill skate safety, and have been hired by almost every major downhill skate brand to shoot photos.
On Saturday July 1st, 2017, £600 worth of cameras and equipment were stolen from inside my rucksack, itself packed into a larger suitcase, during a Tunisair flight from Tunis to London Heathrow while they were checked into the hold of the plane.
Recently there has been a spate of very sad, and ultimately defeatist articles decrying the “death of photography.” We have no shortage of examples. Seriously.
Black-and-white still remains the photographer’s favorite for street photographers, and with very good reason. Where in other genres monochrome has become a niche look, street photography is different. Why does B&W remain the favorite choice of street photographers, and are there logical reasons to go for it?
My name is Ion Paciu, and I'm a photographer based in London. I recently purchased a new camera kit with a camera body and lenses. However, it wasn’t an “upgrade” -- it was, in fact, a “downgrade.”
My name is Marc Weisberg, and I'm a luxury home photographer based in Southern California. This is an article about why I'll never use FedEx again to ship my camera gear to a workshop, as well as what you need to know before ever shipping camera gear. It's the story of how FedEx utterly screwed up my delivery and cost me over $1,000 to get new gear and re-printing of all my workshop materials.
It's not every day that you receive free stuff from strangers on the Internet. (Much less, stuff you actually want). I figure that something like this should be commended...
Editor's note: This article has been removed at the request of the author.
My wife Sara and I used to have this running joke leading up to her birthday each year. Each year I’d say, “Honey! What would you like for your birthday?,” and she would reply “I’d like a Hasselblad”. Usually with a big smile on her face, in a wink-wink-nudge-nudge kind of way.
I think the first time I actually met Richard "Chip" Benson was at Wellesley College in the 80s. It was at an opening reception and Chip and Lee Friedlander were being honored as they had both just received MacArthur grants. I knew the Bensons were from Newport, RI and were friends of my sister and brother-in-law Marc Harrison, an industrial designer and chair of the ID Department at RISD.
In its best form, art can lead major innovations in science and technology. The earliest photographers were more like scientists and chemists than artists.
What makes a pro photographer a pro? How do you do it? Do you just wake up one day and the photo gods anoint you a pro? Do you have to pass the pro photography exam and get some sort of certificate?
Over the years, I’ve joked frequently with my best friend Marc and my brother about things that are cocky in life. We sort of have this ongoing dialog pointing out cocky things and cocky people in the world, which is pretty cocky of us. They’ve also given me a lot of s**t since I became a photographer a decade ago.
If you’ve heard of Bitcoin, then you’re peripherally familiar with blockchain. Blockchain is a distributed database technology that creates a public ledger of every transaction within the system – perfect for cryptocurrencies that lack a central issuing bank.
Hey guys. I'm a long-time PetaPixel reader and guest writer, but to avoid tarnishing my photography business forever and making my clients super uncomfortable, I’m going to use a pseudonym for this story of my worst nightmare coming true. Just call me Ernst Barnak.
There is something amiss with the photo above. I’m not talking about the missing teeth on the left -- that’s the correct photo. The problem is the photo on the right. Surely we have lost the plot when we start Photoshopping an 8-year-old’s gappy grin.
Sony recently released firmware v.4.0 for its a7S II and a7R II mirrorless cameras. The announcement that this firmware version “Improves image quality when Long Exposure NR setting is off” raised hopes for many photographers that Sony had at last addressed the issues caused by their automatic smoothing of all exposures of 4 seconds or longer, sometimes referred to as the "Star Eater" effect because of the way that it removes stars in astrophotography images.
My name is Mustafa Turgut, and I'm a professional photographer based in Istanbul, Turkey. One of my photos was published on the cover of the China edition of National Geographic Traveler magazine in November 2011... and I was never paid for it.
In the fall of 2008, Barack Obama had just become the Democratic candidate and was heavily favored to win the White House to become the first African American President of the United States. His popularity created media frenzy as the world was thirsty to learn more about the young Senator from Illinois. Because Obama was a presidential candidate, a media corps began to follow and report on Obama’s every move.
One thing I've realized over the past few years as a professional wedding photographer is there are not many people, guides, or information out there on how you should approach a career as a pro wedding photographer.
When you glance through a women magazine, different rules about relationships and their make-or-break moments turn up. One such …
I remember how excited I was when I first started posting on Instagram. I finally had a platform to get my work seen, tell my stories, share my life and get inspired by those of others. It was all about creativity and art and the work. It was fair and ethical and just awesome!
I discovered this week that my 500px Marketplace photo is being sold elsewhere, and I haven't gotten a dime of sales (yet). If you sell photos through 500px, this is something you should be aware of.
I'm not usually one to talk about celebrities that I keep in touch with from photo shoots. Some of this comes out of professional courtesy, and another part of it is that I'm a bit of a private person. However, a current project and fun day in the studio has made for some new images and behind the scenes video that I think you will all enjoy. Here's a look at the shenanigans that take place when I share the studio with my photographer friend (who plays football), Larry Fitzgerald.
Back in January 1995, I upgraded my Mac 8110 desktop to 256 megabytes of RAM for $6,544. Why? Because Photoshop needed a minimum of 5 times the RAM to work with a 8.5×11 RGB 8-bit color page, and that was 24 megabytes.
After many years of experience using different lenses, I now have resorted to only using a single prime lens. I started with a 50mm, then added an 85mm, 35mm, 100mm, and 28mm to my collection, and I’ve played around with zooms. But now I exclusively use a 50mm lens. No more zooms and no more choices. But why would I volunteer to limit myself?
Antelope Canyon had been on the top of my “must-photograph” list ever since I saw the first picture of a sunbeam penetrating the curvy, orange walls of the Arizona natural wonder. This unique beauty captivates most photographers in love of landscape photography.