When is copying another’s work not stealing? Andy Warhol copied a photograph taken by Lynn Goldsmith of the musical artist Prince and created sixteen colorized and stylized visual works.
It’s time we put some updated sensibilities’ behind the statements “fix it in post” and “getting it right in the camera”.
It may not have come as a surprise for those with ears to the ground in the mobile phone industry, but LG is officially walking away. Despite that, it does leave something of an imaging legacy behind.
Over the last few weeks, it seems like the world wide web has been swamped with both explainers and critiques of Non-Fungible Tokens, or NFTs. It’s a pyramid scheme! It’s the next thing in Fine Art! It’s an ecological disaster! I am making so much money!
The "Creator Exodus" is a phenomenon that has been accelerated by the COVID-19 era. With the requirement for non-essential businesses to operate from a remote-first capacity, the 2020 experience has encouraged creators at all levels to redefine their metrics for productivity and success.
As a professional photographer, you can imagine my surprise when I found that my favorite iPhone (possibly ever) was not the one with the best camera. In fact, the phone I am talking about the rarely-mentioned iPhone 12 Mini.
A Massachusetts judge has dismissed a woman's lawsuit claiming that she is the rightful owner of the images of an enslaved father and daughter and not Harvard, the New York Times reports. The judge cites common law that the content of an image cannot be used to claim ownership of that image, regardless of the subject.
Ethics in photography is a topic that just keeps popping up. Whether it’s the latest dish on Magnum, or an argument about photographing the homeless, some days it seems you can’t turn around without stumbling across another disagreement.
In 1976 while rummaging through an attic of Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in search of old museum publications, editorial assistant Lorna Condon opened a drawer in a wooden cabinet. Inside, she found a number of flat leather cases which contained a series of daguerreotypes of partially and fully nude Black people.
I recently came across an interesting comment made by a participant in a photography forum: "You should only upgrade your camera only if it’s limiting you, not just because you have the money to."
Many photographers have had the same reaction that I did upon hearing about yet another new social media app hitting the radar: a yawn and a roll of the eyes. We have seen countless apps and image-sharing sites emerge with fanfare and then fail to gain traction in the crowded sphere of social media, and we feel pressed to carve out time for the platforms that we already use.
Since the Alpha 1 made its way into the hands of YouTubers and reviewers, a flurry of videos has been released that compare Sony's flagship against the Canon EOS R5. But is this really a comparison that we should be making?
Square format simplifies shooting because you never have to rotate the camera. You can edit the image to any format you like.
The new Sony Alpha 1 is undoubtedly impressive. It's the culmination of years of technology advancements across multiple camera lines that have converged into a single, outrageously powerful capture device. It also is a return to the idea that the best camera a company can make is not for the masses.
If you pay any attention to the photography industry, it's hard to ignore the news of the financial struggle that Nikon has been dealing with since late last year. What were once rumors are now confirmed: the company isn't in a good place. But that said, Nikon is going to be fine... probably.
Crash! I tentatively turn my body in the direction of the sound already aware of its cause. There, a few feet away in the rocks, lay one of my cameras, its lens akimbo.
DPReview just released its annual camera industry predictions video where Chris and Jordan discuss what they think will come from the leading manufacturers. I think that, for the most part, they're right on the nose.
Recently, we had a private Facebook group member ask what others thought about buying a used digital camera. The response was around 70% for and 30% against.
Recently, the more I study my photographs, the more I feel that bokeh is cheating me out of a more substantial image. I really like photographs with a lot of visual complexity -- well presented, not chaotic, but a clear arrangement of multiple elements.
With all the attention AI Photo editing software has been getting lately, specifically Skylum's Luminar AI, I felt compelled recently to share my own thoughts on the software and what I believe it means for the photography industry as a whole.
Ross Bernards left Vail, Colorado, in June of 2018 to live the #VanLife full time to provide flexibility and more opportunity to "explore the most photogenic and best-kept secrets of North America" and its iconic landscapes. He feels most at home and a tremendous sense of peace with his feet firmly planted under the stars.
AI is the #1 buzzword in the digital photography world. Skylum, which has ridden the AI photo editing craze better than any company, is about to release Luminar AI. ON1 now offers ON1 Portrait AI. DxO announced DxO DeepPRIME, which it describes as “an artificial intelligence technology dedicated to editing photos in RAW format.”
Just the other day, a tall metal “monolith” was discovered in the Utah desert. From what I have learned, this tower of shiny metal was placed in a very out-of-the-way location sometime in 2016 (based on its sudden appearance in Google Earth images in that time frame.) In the ensuing week, this object has created quite a public stir and generated even more theories about its origin.
Let me ask you a question. Is this photo real or fake? This might be a difficult question because the answer depends on what you define as real or fake.
Late last week, Apple unveiled its most consequential product in at least a decade. 10 years, 9 months, 2 weeks, and 2 days after Steve Jobs took the stage to unveil the first iPad, Tim Cook announced the release of three new Macs powered by Apple's own M1 system on a chip (SOC)... changing the industry forever.
Instead of giving users an edit button, Twitter instead today rolled out a new feature called Fleets. Fleets are a knockoff of Instagram Stories, which are of course a knockoff of Snapchat Stories. Time is a flat circle.
The New York Daily News recently published an opinion piece by a writer named Jean Son titled “When your photograph harms me: New York should look to curb unconsensual photography of women” and I would like to address it here.
I recently watched a video on YouTube by the very popular landscape photographer Thomas Heaton. The video was titled "AI editing will ruin photography as we know it" where Thomas discusses a new photo editing program soon to be released by Skylum: Luminar AI.
Dear camera manufacturers, I am deeply annoyed that my phone often takes better pictures than my DSLR (or any mirrorless) straight out of the camera.
When I was young, I had a vivid imagination but no real inclination towards art and creativity. I distinctly remember having trouble keeping my crayons within the lines of any coloring book I attempted. Fast forward to today and I’m 35 and have been a full-time professional photographer for seven years and a shooter for 13 years.
Audience: a broad term, of course. Evokes all kinds of responses. Since this is a photoblog I am referencing the audience that sees our work. In this very odd and terrible of times, I find that having no audience for my photographs is very difficult.
Face tuning apps have thrived for years in the mobile phone ecosystem, allowing users to make subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) changes to their appearance for a selfie-obsessed generation.
An opinion piece in the NY Daily News has sparked outrage among street photographers after the author called photography "a vehicle of gender-based violence in public places." The author believes that all candid—or "unconsentual"—photography of women should be outlawed, and is taking steps to encourage such a law in New York City.
Do you want to switch from Canon to Sony? From Sony to Nikon? From Nikon to Panasonic? From Panasonic to Fujifilm? Well, I’m going to ask you to stop, take a deep breath, and consider doing the most boring thing: absolutely nothing. Instead of switching camera brands, you should probably stick with what you have.
Color is complex. Achieving great color can be cumbersome, both in analog and digital workflows, and developing and researching it has been as hard as rocket science.
What a strange year this has been, right? Yet, curiously, this has also been a year in which I have probably taken the greatest leaps in my photography for some time. Because when you are doing something new, or have been pushed into a new way of life, you can either freeze and panic... or you can use it as an opportunity to try new things. To innovate.
On the 14th of October, Nikon is set to announce its latest cameras. These are due to be updates to the Z 7 and Z 6 mirrorless cameras. There are a lot of expectations, but the biggest expected update for these cameras is... the second card slot.
Social media is always an uproar, there's no way around it. Photography social media is much the same, and mostly it's mostly harmless fun. I want to draw attention to two recent episodes that were not harmless fun, and which I worry point toward a larger trend.
Over the last few years, several companies have been actively producing accessories for smartphones. The majority of these accessories have been for iPhones and for the most part the accessories haven’t been overly significant devices. What I mean is that the accessories most manufacturers produced have been small LED flashes or add-on lenses. This seems to be changing with what Profoto has done and I wonder if this is the right direction for the market.
What’s happened has happened. But I just kind of want to rant so that maybe, if some future brides/grooms see this, they'll understand the perspective of a photographer who may also be their friend.
Last week, in the span of slightly over 19 hours, news broke that the Whitney Museum had 1) acquired images from a charity print sale by Black photographers to mount a show entitled Collective Actions: Artist Interventions in a Time of Change, 2) offered the photographers a lifetime pass to the museum for their unsanctioned participation, and 3) canceled the show following a tweetstorm of outrage over the exploitative move.
As a photographer, wishing for the departure or death of a camera company is like a musician getting excited to have one less guitar to choose from. In many ways, it is the most self-destructive thing that one can hope for their art.
While teaching a recent workshop, I joked that street photography was the only genre where people would buy $3,000 worth of cameras and lenses and then deliberately use them to make out of focus, grainy, imperfect images. This led to a pretty interesting discussion about the merits to imperfection.
A new op-ed published by the Deputy Editor of the Nikkei Asian Review in Japan is making waves in the industry today. The article strikes an ominous tone, foreshadowing difficult times ahead for the camera giants and blaming "excessive competition" for their financial woes.
The purpose of this article is to have a discussion about the current online photography community, flame wars about hardware, and some toxic behavior I see, all while trying to be as impartial as possible.
The Leica SL2 replaces the SL typ 601 and represents the very best performance and image quality that Leica can produce. It’s the flagship. While maintaining iconic colours and shooting experience, this camera is one of the best pieces of equipment I have ever had the pleasure of using.
When a few days past, the news circulated that Kodak Alaris had sold its paper division to Hong Kong-based Chinese company Sino Promise, reactions were mixed and ranged from disinterest over protectionist outrage to the fear that analog photography would finally meet its demise.
During the global lockdown, many landscape photographers who would normally be traveling the world and leading workshops have found themselves cooped up at home. Away from their element on location and with an abundance of free time, they’ve joined the online circuit of photography webinars, panels and interviews.
When Sony first started producing full-frame mirrorless cameras, the leading manufacturers at the time pretty much sneered at it. Ricoh, for example, still seemingly believes that DSLRs are due to make a comeback and that mirrorless cameras are just a fad. With how the industry has been progressing, it’s clear that mirrorless is the future and Canon is probably the company to rule.
The photography industry has been shrinking and the COVID-19 pandemic has not made things any better. This smaller market is being shared by the same number of companies, which could mean some huge changes for the industry. As formats go, Micro Four Thirds isn’t looking strong through this time.
