Editorial

Rescued Photos from Chernobyl Show Life in Ukraine Before the Disaster

Ukrainian photographer Maxim Dondyuk has been collecting and archiving photos and negatives that he has found in the Chernobyl exclusion area for the last six years. He has rescued around 15,000 artifacts, which include films, photos, postcards, and letters, but with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he has been forced to put his Untitled Project from Chernobyl on hold.

Judge Jackson

Behind the Viral Photo of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Daughter

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman confirmed to the Supreme Court, was being grilled at the Senate confirmation hearings. Her 17-year-old daughter was in attendance and beamed with pride as she watched her mother bravely tackle the often-hostile questioning. This split-second moment between daughter and mother was captured by The New York Times fellow Sarahbeth Maney and went viral.

8 Useful Ways to Describe and Measure Your Photos

A leading textbook on creative photography, released in 1980, devotes more than 90% of its 460 pages to technical considerations — how cameras and lenses work, darkroom procedures, lighting — and just a few pages to aesthetics and composition.

How One Photo Changed the Lives of a Refugee Father and Son

Photographer Mehmet Aslan captured an image in April 2021 of a father and son with amputated limbs in a Turkish refugee camp. His powerful shot went on to tug at heartstrings, win a prestigious international photo competition, go viral online, and completely transform the subjects' lives.

Ricoh Pentax faces a defining moment

Ricoh Pentax: The Beginning of the End or the Start of a Bright Future?

Ricoh seemingly made the significant announcement that it would cease the mass production of digital cameras (which includes the Pentax brand), shifting instead to a direct-to-market model. For now, it only affects its business in Japan, although the ramifications could affect its business more widely. What does this mean for Ricoh (and Pentax) and their future?

What is the difference between lightroom and lightroom classic

Lightroom Classic and CC Are Nearly Identical, So Why Two Programs?

When Lightroom CC originally launched it was woefully behind Classic from a features perspective. Photographers who had come to expect certain tools and performance were greeted with an underpowered CC, and few gave it a second glance after that. But now, nearly five years later, those same photographers might not know that they are nearly identical now. So then, why do we have two versions of the same software?

Leveraging Visual Language and the How to Capture ‘Mood’ in a Photo

I often hear photographers express frustration with their images, saying something like, "My photographs don't capture what I really see." But cameras actually do a great job of capturing what things look like. I think what people really mean is that their photographs don't capture what they felt when they made the exposure.

PetaPixel's Bold Camera Predictions

PetaPixel’s Bold Camera Predictions for 2022

We're starting a new tradition here at PetaPixel, where our staff gets together to discuss the things they know, not just think, will transpire over the course of the next calendar year. As bold predictions go, we're almost certainly going to get a lot of this wrong.

A Review of Visual Technology in 2021

Within its half-open, half-closed status, 2021 will be remembered as a transition year: A melting pot between ending lockdowns, rising vaccines and masks mandates, new variants, ending and restarting restrictions. But if anything, it did nothing to slow down the pace of online innovation—quite the opposite. If visual tech experienced a landmark year, 2021 could be it.

Instagram on phone over a pink table

Stop Hoping for an Instagram Replacement – Diversify Instead

Instagram is well on its way to no longer being a photo-sharing app, and those who rely on it for their business are left questioning the future. If and when the day comes when Instagram is no longer viable, where can photographers turn?

An illustration of a photographer in front of a declining sales chart

Back Where We Started: The Camera Industry is Again a Bit-Part Player

Remember those heady days of 2010? The release of the iPhone 4 and iPad, the New Orleans Saints won Superbowl XLIV, Iron Man 2 hit the cinemas, Eminem released Recovery, and Biden was Vice-President. It was also the year when camera shipments peaked at over 120 million units. How did the industry become the bit-part player it now is, shifting 9 million units just ten short years later?

Fully Loaded: The Complex Connection Between Guns and Cameras

“Why are guns and cameras so closely connected?” This is what I set out to explore and investigate recently through my own experience in film. Between starting the production and finishing it, one major event made this connection a lot darker.

Shimmering Wall: The Story Behind This Photo Taken in 1997

In my previous article, I walked you through the making of one of my signature photographs, Fallen Sequoias, exposed in 1977. I’ve decided to use the same process in the creation of another image, made 20 years later, on a one-day hike with two friends in 1997.

Contracts Are Not the End, or the Beginning, of a Photo Project

Successful professionals -- that is, people who make most of their living as photographers -- have a kind of global view of their career. They behave as though marketing and contract negotiations and digital workflow are all just as important as composition and lighting.

Eye Autofocus Tracking Isn’t Really for Pro Photographers

This article is bound to stir up a little controversy. Still, I believe there is some clarity to be had on the issue of professional photographers and the eye autofocus (Eye AF) technology craze found in the current generation of mirrorless cameras. The truth about who eye autofocus is really for and why many professionals are somewhat ambivalent about it might surprise a few people.

Which Medium Format Mirrorless System Should You Choose?

For decades, medium format film was the standard for professional photography work, so it's no wonder that its bigger-than-full-frame resolution, shallow depth of field, and magic tonality is still sought after by pros and enthusiasts to this day.

Falling Out of Love with Photography

In the corner of my living room lives my piano, a cat tree, and an unassuming black Billingham camera bag containing a film and digital body. The thing that connects the three is that they’re all static objects.

I Made a Mistake and Gave My Photos Away for Free on Unsplash

I’m sure most photographers have heard of Unsplash, the free-to-use stock image website. You upload any of your photographs, then after a short moderation process, they become available in the Unsplash library for anyone to download and use in any way they like.

How the Kodak Brownie Changed Privacy Rights Forever

It was the kind of summer day that your mind instantly recalls when you hear the words “summer day”. Warm, sunny, gorgeous. William Meredith’s daughters, as was their habit when a day felt this good, lounging in the backyard, sunning in their swimsuits. All was peaceful -- until the girls entered the house, warning their father of an intruder in their backyard.

Apple Finally Put the ‘Pro’ in MacBook Pro Again

In 2016, after Apple removed the memory card slot from MacBook Pros, I complained about this loudly. “Everything is going wireless,” a since-departed executive told me, adding that there was no need for the slot anymore.

Don’t Make the Critical Facebook and Instagram Photography Mistake

I have a good friend that uses Facebook as his photography business’s digital platform. I have multiple friends that use Instagram as their portfolio. This also goes for, yes to a lesser degree, using Behance, Tumbler, Model Mayhem, Imgur, and Flickr as a portfolio destination.

Apple Silicon is Still a Pain to Use with Color Accurate Monitors

If you've been using an Apple Silicon Mac with an external display for photo and video editing, you may have noticed a few issues. Whether it's ultra-wide monitors not displaying correctly, calibration software not working right, or high-end monitors displaying in YCrCb mode instead of RGB, Apple Silicon still has a bunch of issues with color-accurate monitors.