Educational

PetaPixel's editorials are in-depth stories, thought-pieces, and opinions on the photography industry led by the minds of our editorial team.

10 Props To Use for Better Beverage Photography

With summer in full swing here in chilly Scotland, the slightly warmer weather has made me want to a more summer-themed series on my YouTube channel. To finish off the few prop videos I have been doing, and to start a summer drink series I decided to list 10 of my favorite drink photography props.

11 Tips for Great Nature Photos That Stand Out From the Crowd

So, you just bought a fancy new telephoto or macro lens and can’t wait to get in super tight, frame-filling photos on a cool subject of animals or plants set off against a posterboard smooth background. After all, that’s why you spent lots of money on those lenses, right?

Get Started Using Vintage Lenses with These Five Tips

The world of vintage lenses can provide a whole new experience to photographers but not everyone knows how to get started. To help others explore the unique characteristics of these decades-old lenses, a filmmaker has shared his best tips.

7 Critical Mistakes You Must Avoid When Photographing Waterfalls

The fascination and beauty of chasing waterfalls never seem to wane and I know I’m not alone and it is not just photographers chasing them. Some of the best times I’ve had in landscape photography have been hiking to a waterfall and then sitting in awe at its beauty as water cascades over rocks.

11 Tips to Achieve Better Street Photos

Street photography is one of my favorite ways to create photos because it affords so much variety and opportunities for different types of photos.

Pour Shots: How Best to Add Action into a Food Photo

If you follow the food photography community on Instagram, I am sure you will have seen some lovely, dreamy images with syrup or chocolate being poured over some equally lovely-looking food. If you're not sure how to make these kinds of photos, I'm here to help.

Your Rights as a Photographer in the United States

As a photographer, it is important to know your rights in every aspect of the medium, from where and what you can photograph to what people are allowed to do with your photos without your permission. This article is a guide to your rights as a photographer in the United States.

Learn 21 One-Light Portrait Setups In Less Than Six Minutes

Sometimes photographers may be in a situation where they only have a single light source at their disposal during a portrait session. The good news is there are many ways you can use a single light to create unique and dramatic looks for portrait work as Dima Metkin demonstrates.

The Ultimate Guide to Softboxes: The Anatomy of Light Shaping Tools

Softboxes are among the most popular light shaping tools. Few photographers have never shot with softboxes, and more often than not a softbox is a go-to modifier for beginners. In this article, I will break down the anatomy of a softbox, from physics to possible applications for it. Read on to become a master of using softboxes.

You’re Using Your Ring Light Wrong

At some point during the history of the influencer, the ring light became an accessory de rigueur, fueled by the availability of cheap Chinese-made devices. The original ring light was invented for dentistry by Lester A. Dine in 1952 because of its ability to cast an even light with diffuse shadows in a confined space. An ideal solution for photographing teeth and gums.

How to Use Props to Add Depth to Your Food Photography

Props are a vital part of most food photography. They can help you add interest and story to your scene, but they can also help you add depth. To that end, here are a few tips to help you use props to add depth to your images.

How To Snap Spectacular Fourth of July Fireworks This Summer

After a year indoors, this year’s Fourth of July fireworks are sure to be one of the highlights of summer. As most photographers know, the bright flash from fireworks against the dark night sky can make it tricky for both novice and experienced photographers to get a crystal-clear image of the spectacle.

A Detailed Tutorial on How to Pose Couples During Photo Sessions

I am a professional wedding, portrait, and fashion photographer and have been photographing couples for nearly three decades and I have been teaching photography for over two years. My goal with this video is to provide simple but very effective posing tips when photographing a couple.

Timelapse Reveals How Quickly Mount St. Helens Grows

Mount St. Helens's famous eruption in 1980 was the deadliest and costliest volcanic event in the history of the United States. In 2004, a new dome-building eruption began that lasted 4 years, and a camera was pointed at the volcano to capture the growth as a timelapse.

20 Essential Photography Tips For Beginner Photographers

Starting out in photography can be really confusing. There is so much stuff to learn, so many things to do, and so many resources to read, not to mention the insane amount of people screaming opinions at you all the time. It’s hard to fight through all the noise.

The Crazy Inventions of Two Wildlife Photography Pioneers

Throughout photography history, determined, creative, and brave photographers have gone to extreme lengths to capture the perfect shot. Here's a curious photo from the 1890s that shows a crazy tripod setup used by wildlife photography pioneers in the 1890s.

How to Best Photograph Food with a Straight-On Perspective

The straight-on angle is great for food photography because it gives your subject a sense of grandeur and can make it jump out of the picture. This angle is well suited to foods that are tall or layered as from this angle you can get a better idea of its scale or better reveal those layers.

The Inevitable Convergence of Social Media, Commerce, and Visual Content

You walk through the supermarket aisle until you face various choices for the product you wish to eat. In the case of cereals, it can be 20 or more different options. You reach out and pick one, which you feel is the right decision based on a well-educated process.

This Astronomy Calendar Details Major Astronomical Events Through 2022

Those who want to photograph the night sky can leverage techniques common to all of landscape photography, but they still need to know when, and where, the objects they want to capture in the night sky are going to happen. To help out with that, Telescope Guide has released its 2021-2022 Astronomy Guide and Events Calendar including the best things to see in the night sky.

Photography Copyright and Licensing Simplified and Explained

Although professional photographers may deal with copyright and licensing regularly, it is not right to assume that clients are just as versed. For that reason, an architecture photographer has put together a simplified explanation to help business owners better educate their clients on who owns the produced photos and how they can be used.

This is How Film Capture and Development Actually Works

While film is appreciated by a growing number of people, how it actually works may be a mystery to most of them. This in-depth video explains the process of film photography and gives an easily digestible breakdown for anyone interested in the medium.

9 of History’s Rarest Cameras You Can Actually Buy

The history of photography is over a century old -- in fact, it was 107 years ago that Oskar Barnack created the Ur-Leica, a camera that would later be known as the genesis of the 36x24 “full-frame” format. Since then, hundreds of companies across the world have, to varying degrees of success, produced everything from 35mm to 127 to an assortment of medium format sizes and finally to digital.

Retro Review: The 2001 Canon PowerShot Pro90 IS

Launched in 2001, the Pro90 IS was Canon’s flagship PowerShot and shared a similar external design to the earlier Pro70 from 1998 but greatly boosted its zoom capability from 2.5x to 10x. It became Canon’s first digital camera with optical image stabilization as well.

How To Get Super-Sharp Photos Every Time, With Any Camera

As a professional photographer, I use a lot of different cameras. At any given time, I can use really expensive full-frame cameras combined with the best glass money can buy, to mid-range cameras with kit lenses, all the way down to even compact cameras that fit in my pocket.

9 of History’s Rarest Lenses That You Can Actually Buy

Through the history of camera development, thousands and thousands of different types of lenses have been designed and produced. Some did not advance beyond the prototype stage, some were privately commissioned, and naturally many were mass-produced to one degree or another. Of these, some are particularly rare.

What Defines an ‘Interesting’ Photo and How Do You Create One?

Why do we create photos? Well, for a variety of reasons, but the one reason that connects them all is we feel we have made something that we want to share and we feel is worth time and attention. So, how can we create photos that are worthy of another’s time and attention?

Stats and Insights From the Websites of the Top 100+ Photographers

What are famous photographers doing right on their websites? Or better yet, what are they doing awfully wrong despite being successful? In this detailed research report, I thoroughly reviewed over 100 individual websites (from the most well-known photographers out there) to try to uncover all of that.

What is Hyperfocal Distance and How Do You Find It?

One of the more complex technical topics in photography is something called hyperfocal distance. At first glance, the basic definition of hyperfocal distance seems pretty straightforward: It’s the distance at which you focus your camera lens to get as much of your shot in focus as possible, from the foreground to the horizon.