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.
One of the most frustrating things I see is photographers limiting their knowledge of light to one modifier. So much so, that there are people who can build whole portfolios with just one single type of light. While this is not wrong, it must get boring for the viewer after some time. That is why I went searching for some of the most unusual light shaping tools.
Diffused and soft light are often used interchangeably among photographers. Indeed, to an untrained eye, the two can sometimes appear to be the same. Furthermore, modifiers such as softboxes that give both soft and diffused light make it hard to spot the difference. Nonetheless, diffused light is not necessarily soft, and soft light is not necessarily diffused.
How does renowned portrait photographer Albert Watson light his photos? With a foolproof three-light setup that makes his photos look amazing, of course! Except... he doesn't. In fact, setups are very far from what professional photographers do when they light their work. Here is what mindset photographers have when they light.
Chances are, if you’ve ever tried to document your travels with a camera, you’ve taken some cliché, if not really cheesy travel photos. I certainly have, and I’m embarrassed to show those photos to friends and family after my trips.
Should photographers sell their unedited RAW files to a client? Is there any benefit in doing so? These questions are discussed in this eight-minute video from David Bergman and Adorama.
If I can afford to, I always try to spend time in shops where I know there is a good selection of photo books. The books offer me inspiration for my photographs as well as the way I present my own work in printed publications.
Have a passion for photography and are thinking of turning it into a full-time profession? That’s an admirable and ambitious goal, and while it sounds exciting, the reality is that running a photography business is very different from pursuing photography as a hobby.
In December of last year, Hubble captured a photo of a distant galaxy that, thanks to gravitational lensing, appeared almost as a perfect "Einstein Ring." A year later, astronomers revealed what they learned from examining the photo.
I am writing this article because I see a lot of photographers asking the same questions over and over and thought it would be nice to give you all the tools to answer your own questions. Or at least the 2% of you who search before asking questions.
In this 15 minute video, we break down a step-by-step approach to capturing the images needed to composite an attractive cosmetic drip.
Social media is a vital part of how a business promotes itself, and having a wide variety of social media tools at your disposal is important. While you can link all your social media accounts together to create one post appearing on all of them, this strategy ignores unique opportunities each platform offers to its audience.
If you're in the market for a new digital camera, make sure you do your research, and it's generally recommended that you go with a reputable brand. There are cameras out there that look absolutely fantastic on paper but are almost certainly not what you're looking for.
UV photography has been used by dermatological laboratories since the era of film photography. This technique was then used by the R&D centers to show the protective properties of dermatological and cosmetic products against UV radiation from the Sun.
Spirit photography was an important development within bereavement rituals of the early 1860s.
There are literally hundreds of different flashes on the market. With brands competing for attention and offering some very unique features, it is often hard to decide which flash to pick. What is more, buying a flash is sometimes like buying a whole lighting system. If someone buys Profoto they are likely to stick with it for a long time because it’s part of a lighting system, not just one flash.
Saildrone and The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have released the first video footage gathered by an unmanned surface drone (USV) from inside a major hurricane while it moved across the Atlantic Ocean.
Here are a few tips to help you improve, or maybe get started with, drink photography. Drinks can be quite tricky: you have unpredictable liquids and glasses with reflections, so these tips may come in handy. Just remember, like all of my advice, these aren't die-hard rules, but instead they are just a few things that you can choose to consider with your photography.
The Hubble Space Telescope in concert with the Atacama Large millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile found what NASA describes as odd: early, massive, "dead" galaxies that have run out of the fuel necessary to continue to make stars.
Syrian photographer Serbest Salih has set up a mobile photography school that introduces vulnerable Syrian, Iraqi, and Turkish children to analog photography.
If you're tired of the unrealistic beauty standards set by all the edited pictures on Instagram and long for a return to "the good old days," here is some bad news: people have been "Photoshopping" portraits for just about as long as photography has been around.
Why is it so difficult to compare one light to another? It would be bad enough to say that watts, LUX, watt-seconds, and guide numbers aren’t directly comparable. And unless you’ve been around lights for a long time, these measurements won’t even make intuitive sense.
Fashion photography is one of the most lucrative but also one of the hardest genres to pursue on a professional level. Good fashion work can’t be done with a one-man band. Eventually, every fashion photographer learns the importance of such things the hard way. Here are some things that I wish I knew when photographing my first fashion and beauty images.
Losing priceless digital photographs is something that all too many people experience these days. If you want to make sure you store your digital files properly, read this guide on the best ways to backup your photos for a lifetime.
Astronaut Thomas Pesquet has shared numerous beautiful photos of Earth taken from the International Space Station, but contrary to popular belief, making these photos isn't as simple as just hanging out in the space station's cupola.
What is an aspherical lens and what does it do? Canon has shared a video that explains the problems engineers face in lens design and how the company solved them using aspherical lenses.
1991. What a great time to be alive. Seeing movies like Robin Hood and Hook in the theatres, and hearing hits like "Joyride" by Roxette or "Losing My Religion" by REM are some of my favorite pop culture memories of that time. Not to mention watching TV shows like Home Improvement, America’s Funniest Home Videos, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
In 2014, I started my project Applied Metaphysics – Ground Truth on exemplary still life. The goal was to produce very large prints (2 to 9 square meters and more) at a high resolution so that people could look at them very closely.
How do photographers freeze motion? With shutter speed, of course! This is something fundamental that everyone starting out in photography learns to do. If you’re shooting sports, for example, just crank the ISO up, set a high shutter speed, and expect a good frozen-in-time image. However, when using a flash, things are a little different. In fact, shutter speed is by far the worst way to freeze motion. Here’s why.
By removing color, we change how the viewer’s eyes see the photograph. No longer dependent upon color cues, we …
Last week, Canon launched its latest high-end photojournalist-focused mirrorless camera, the EOS R3. It is capable of firing up to 30 frames per second in electronic shutter mode -- and the sound of it doing so is wild.
In this nine-minute video from Workphlo, photographer Dustin Dolby explains how to light catalog quality reflective product photos using just a single Speedlight.
The American Museum of Natural History has published a helpful video that explains how the human brain processes color and shines a light on the importance of color accuracy in technology.
Photography is evolving -- Dramatically! I am talking about advances with smartphones, mirrorless cameras, and AI technology -- this is an exciting time to be a photographer. But there must be a better way than watt-seconds to compare lights.
Kuwait is known for its oil, the Gulf War, the Daguet division, and the “Desert Storm” operation. But what most people are not privy to is its rich history, heritage, and architecture.
I'm photographer Jay P. Morgan of The Slanted Lens, and in this video and article, I'm going to look at photo conferences, photo/video conferences. Are they dead? Are they going to happen this year? Is it kind of the nail in the coffin for conferences? Because they were sliding before. Where exactly are they at? What’s going to happen and what can you expect coming in 2021 and 2022?
“The Sony Alpha 1 is like driving a Formula 1 racecar," says photographer Nick Didlick. "Give the race car too much gas going into a corner and you're going to spin out of control. With the Alpha 1, shoot too early and you will have endless amounts of data at 30fps on a 50-megapixel camera.” The secret for both is timing.
To commemorate 20 years of the tragic September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, photojournalist Richard Drew looks back on the split-second moment in which he captured "The Falling Man," an iconic and powerful photograph that brings back the horrors of that day.
If you’re just starting out with strobes, there’s more choice than ever to overwhelm you with! In this guide, we will help you systematically narrow down which lights are going to work best for your type of photography.
What is the most important aspect of a camera to consider when looking to buy a new one? In this video, Engadget put camera sensors in the spotlight and reviewed how they have improved and what role they play in today's photographic equipment.
Compatible with the legendary lineup of Mamiya Press lenses and Mamiya RB67 backs, the Goodman Zone is, at its core, a 3D printed medium format film camera body. Designed and built by Dora Goodman Cameras, this modest little box isn’t quite as simple as it may seem at first glance.
Crazy. Ambitious. Innovative. While those may not be the first three words that come to mind when you hear about the iPhone 12 Pro Max and Profoto Pro-11, they are precisely what I think this pairing comes down to.
A newly digitized and colorized newsreel from 1933 is providing the world with a fascinating new look at the Tasmanian Tiger, an animal that has been extinct since 1936.
I’m sure photographers out there are one of two minds. One is that Peter Parker being both a photographer and a superhero is amazing and that we wish we could get those crazy angles. The second is that by taking pictures of himself for money, he is a total scam artist that raised the bar on pictures of Spider-Man no one could hope to accomplish.
Photographer Neil Bromhall runs a popular YouTube channel that features mesmerizing timelapses of plants growing and blooming over multiple days. His latest effort is this pair of 1-minute timelapses that show a sunflower opening over the course of 10 days.
The Canon Zoom Lens FD 35-70mm f/4 AF was a lens originally manufactured in 1981 and features an unusual motor system that allowed it to autofocus. In Kai Wong's 13-minute video, he shows how it still works remarkably well even today.
Filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg has been creating timelapses of different fungi over the course of the last 15 years as part of his film Fantastic Fungi. In a video with Wired, he explains how he creates these epic sequences.
1982. Michael Jackson releases Thriller, E.T. hits the movie theatres and Cats opens on Broadway. It was a great time to be a fan of movies, music, and theater. But it was also an amazing time to be a photographer -- there were innovations with every release and more around every corner.
Anna Mazurek has achieved a true photographer dream life. She is an editorial and commercial travel photographer, is paid to roam the world, and photographs for famous publications.
Scientists have captured the first-ever images of a giant tortoise hunting, killing, and eating a bird. The "gentle giants" were previously believed to be herbivores.