Inspiration

German photographer Sandra Bartocha has been making fantastic and ethereal nature photography for many years and is among the most creative landscape photographers working today. PetaPixel chatted with Bartocha about her interesting techniques, artistic vision, and the importance of authenticity in photography.

Breaking a pattern can work to bring attention to that pattern. You may not notice how quiet it is until some subtle noise disrupts that silence, reminding you of the context it is punctuating.

The Environmental Photographer of the Year 2023 (EPOTY) photo contest winners have been announced, including a pair of grand titles and four additional category winners.

Over the last month, communities around the world have felt passionate responses to the developing conflict in Israel, Gaza, and surrounding areas. As simple or complex as one might find the hostilities in the abstract the ripples of geopolitics affect us all, sometimes very obviously, and sometimes subtly.

The Leonid meteor shower will peak this weekend with persistent lights streaking across the night sky.

NASA astronauts who accidentally dropped their toolbox during a spacewalk may have provided a unique picture challenge to photographers on Earth.

We recently visited the Salt Flats of Uyuni in southwest Bolivia for the fourth time, having previously visited in 2015, 2017, and 2018. What a big surprise! We were not expecting to see the colors that we did.

I’ve taken quite some mushroom photos over the last few years and most of them were done with my macro lens. Mushrooms are often tiny, and it’s very inviting to single them out with a beautiful soft background. I wrote a specific article about this back in 2020.

AI is all the buzz and it seems to be attaching itself to everything, everywhere, all at once. The canary in the AI coal mine? Images and writing.

Do your photos suck? Feeling discouraged by your photography lately? Not making the progress you expected? The good news is, it’s completely normal — all photographers grow at different rates and hit speed bumps along the way.

I’m a native of Las Vegas, having lived here my entire life, and I have been a professional photographer here for over 25 years. With Formula One coming here soon we’re we’re about to be thrust onto the world stage of motorsports but many don’t realize the city is no stranger to car enthusiasts.

Between 2008 and late 2016, I took tens of thousands of pictures and proudly vomited the vast majority of them online. While I’d toyed around with things like depth of field and long exposures, I didn’t understand anything about photography, so my camera rarely left ‘auto’. I’d checked out an online tutorial or two, but as far as I was concerned, ‘exposure compensation’ was something victims got after winning a public indecency lawsuit.

When you look at your wedding photos, do they tell a story both individually and collectively? Can you feel like you’re back in that moment? Does the image help you remember not only what it looked like but how it felt?

I’ve spent countless hours walking streets both near and far from home with My Precious in my hand and a muscle memory for it in my fingers that made it effectively part of me — an extension of my arm. My Precious is, of course, my camera.

Ben Krasnow of the YouTube channel Applied Science shows how to make images on living plant leaves in his latest video.

Quick question: what’s the best lens for photographing wildlife at different distances? A telephoto zoom, of course, because then you can zoom for the focal length and framing you want. But if that’s true, then why did I take a fixed telephoto with me on the safari I just led to Africa? Because, paired with two teleconverters and one camera feature, it actually gave me MORE focal lengths to work with. Let me explain…

French photographer Mathieu Stern is no stranger to taking photos with unusual cameras. However, his latest camera is perhaps his oddest as he turned Paris apartment into a giant camera obscura and captured a beautiful photo of one of the world's most famous sights, the Eiffel Tower.

Landscape photographer Michael Shainblum is extremely experienced across a diverse range of landscape photo subgenres, including woodland, seascape, and abstract landscape photography. Among Shainblum's favorite landscape photography genres is waterfall photography, the subject of his latest tutorial.

Sometimes there is too much going on, in which case simplifying a scene can make it easier on the eye. We can choose to highlight particular shapes or colors and leave out or remove others.

It’s difficult to see how anyone other than the photographer is responsible for a photograph they may take, although I’m sure there are some specific exceptions – but usually, if a photographer is not responsible for their photograph, then who should be?

A photographer has investigated how light and the weather affects a photo by shooting the same location twice -- once when it's sunny and once when it's cloudy.

In my daily routine as a photographer and filmmaker, I work with two Canon EOS R5 cameras. Along with the standard f/2.8 zoom lenses, I also carry a few prime lenses in my camera bag, such as the RF 50mm f/1.2 or the RF 85mm f/1.2.

The Association of Photographers (AOP) in the U.K. has unveiled the finalists of its 38th Photography Awards.

In traditional landscape photography, context is important in visual storytelling, especially in grand scenic images. Context helps anchor a scene by including foreground, midground, and background (i.e., the sky).

Social media is an incredible tool for propagating ideas, allowing the potential for mass outreach to anyone with an Internet connection and something to say.

At one point during his career, the late film photographer Jerry Uelsmann gave a slide presentation to a large audience of photography students, showing all the photographs he had made that year.

People, they’re literally everywhere. At least that’s how it feels when you live in a country as densely populated as Japan. For the longest time, I was incredibly fussy about having people in my frame.

NASA has released a guide to the night sky this July pointing out which celestial objects will be prominent and highlighting that it is one of the best times of year to capture the Milky Way Galaxy.

Nigerian photographer Bade Fuwa is a newcomer to the world of photography, having fallen in love with the camera in the last couple of years. However, despite a relatively short time behind the camera, Fuwa's portfolio is emotionally and stylistically mature.

A photographer who was given his first camera when he was homeless which inspired him to break the cycle of transiency has explored his past with a project that challenges people's perceptions of the unhoused.

A photographer has recalled the day a shark bit his leg off and why he now fights to advocate for the creatures through portraiture -- despite his life-changing injuries.

A photographer has used a variety of artificial intelligence (AI) and photo editing tools to imagine what the next James Bond could look like.

As we all know, there are many things that can make or break a photograph. While technical aspects might immediately jump to mind and the light may grab our attention, one word that tends to pop up a lot in my feedback is “intent”.