It's standard procedure for photo labs around the world to contact authorities if illegal activity is discovered in pictures, but what constitutes "illegal activity" can different widely from place to place. Case in point: three French tourists were recently given jail terms in Sri Lanka for photographs they took containing Buddha statues.
Legendary American portrait photographer Gregory Heisler was recently invited to give a talk to the American Society of Media Photographers in Oregon. Prior to the lecture, Stumptown Visuals caught up with him to ask him for some words of wisdom. What resulted was this 8-minute gem that contains a good deal of advice you can apply to your own portraiture.
If you're a photographer looking for a gig on Craigslist, be careful. As with virtually all the types of "help wanted" listings found on the site, requests for photography services are often used by scammers as a way of luring the naive. Scammers also regularly send out emails to photographers advertising their services.
Preparing for a trip to a foreign country where you don't know the language? If you don't have an Internet-connected phone handy, a camera can help you out. Redditor Jhojgaard regularly travels to various countries around the world, and suggests that storing some key photos on your camera can come in handy when you're in a communication crunch.
Recognize the warning message above? It's what Windows XP would show whenever you tried to rotate a JPEG image 90° using the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. If you're like me, you probably didn't think twice about it (and checked the checkbox), since you had done it many times already and hadn't noticed any difference in quality. After all, how hard can it be to turn a digital photo sideways? You just move the pixels around right?
Well, not really. The fact of the matter is, JPEG is a "lossy" compression algorithm that's geared towards storing and sharing photos without taking up too much disk space. Rotating these compressed images is usually done by decompressing, rotating, and then re-compressing. Since the re-compression is lossy (i.e. data is thrown away), this process results in slightly degraded photos (hence that warning).
In this guide, you will find out how you can save money on film photography. I will go over five basic ways on how any film photographer can pursue their artistic dreams and develop their creative outlets without having to spend a fortune.
Here’s an interesting TED audition by artist Phil Hansen, who speaks on embracing …
There's a reason that most of the foods you buy never look like the photos used to advertise them. Food photographers and stylists have all kinds of random tricks up their sleeve for making food items look picture perfect. Here's a list of various household products that are commonly used to make dishes look more appealing. A warning, though: you might lose your appetite.
UV lens filters are a popular way to protect the front element of lenses from damage, but you should make sure you invest in a high-quality one unless you want to make a huge sacrifice in image quality.
If you regularly send emails containing links to your photographs, perhaps you’ve wondered whether the recipients actually viewed your …
There are many things a photographer has to take into consideration when composing a phenomenal picture, but one that you don't often think about is perspective. In an educational article over on National Geographic, photographers Cary Wolinsky and Bob Caputo -- who have a combined 64 years of experience shooting for NatGeo -- talk about how important it can be to "Get Some Perspective," sharing some helpful tips and tricks they've come up with along the way.
While there are ample resources available on portfolios, websites, leave behinds and promotional materials, there’s one important subject that I’ve found little helpful information on: the photographer’s bio.
Almost always found on a professional photographer’s site, the bio can make or break you. In a world where creatives often only have a couple of minutes to view your site, the bio can play a significant role. A biography is a glimpse into your personality and gives the reader a sense of what you might be like to work with. Creatives will often seek out the bio to help them make quick judgements. Therefore, just having great pictures isn’t enough. Many people will quickly abandon a website to jump to the next, so you have to make sure your entire site is not only engaging, but successfully portrays your personality. With bios being one way to express who YOU are, I’m always surprised at just how many dreadful ones I find. So, after reading one too many boring, exaggerated, absurd, grammatically incorrect and simply over the top biographies, I decided to come up with a few Dos and Don’ts.
In this B&H Event Space seminar, David Brommer takes you “Beyond The …
There's a lot of resources out there for people who want to get to know their SLR just that much better -- ranging from books to about a gazillion (that's a technical term) YouTube tutorials -- but not a lot of people seem to know about Nikon's own Digitutor website. The Nikon Digitutor offers helpful flash tutorials about all of the different aspects of your Nikon camera.
Watermarks are a popular way of “signing” photographs and deterring theft, but having a giant logo overlaid on your …
Beginners: Ever wonder why your photos don’t look ‘professional?’ Amateurs: ever wonder why you lack consistency? Pros: Ever wonder why you lose your edge or drive? Wonder no longer. This article deals with some of the most common oversights by photographers of all kinds, and how to avoid them.
Here’s a short and sweet video in which photographer/entrepreneur Gary Fong shares his …
At some point or another, as a creative professional, you will have the option to exhibit work to the public. Exhibitions are a great tool to market yourself, and your work to potential clients and art buyers.
In a world where everybody wants more for less, it’s hard to justify spending money on things which may or may not make your clients happier. I have always been a believer in the idea that you need to spend money to make money, yet I find other photographers are very split on this subject. I know photographers who are proud that they use the same camera and laptop they bought 5 years ago citing that their clients aren’t complaining so it must be working just fine.
Is your browser color managed? If not, the photographs you are looking at are distorted versions of what their creators intended them to be. Is the car above rendered in school bus yellow, or in a jarring purple?
If you've ever gone out to try your hand at street photography you probably experienced your fair share of anxiety once you were out there. Taking photos of strangers, even on crowded city streets, takes practice and time, time that's mostly spent getting over the natural fear of taking people's photos without their permission. But the fact that it requires practice and time doesn't mean that a few good tips won't speed the process along significantly.
Portrait photographer Peter Hurley gave this talk at the recent …
Here’s a quick tip from photographer Jeffrey Guyer that’ll help to keep you …
Portland-based photographer Jimmy Hickey made this helpful video in which he shares how …
In this short video, courtesy of Red Bull, Swiss photographer …
Here's a great little-known tip coming at you via photographer Dan Carr that has the potential to make using Lightroom just that much easier. If you didn't already know -- and it seems most people didn't -- assuming you have enough card readers, you can actually import multiple memory cards into Lightroom all at once.
Every year I meet with lots of students, assistants, young photographers, and photography educators and discuss the business of photography. Over the years I have complied a list of the biggest mistakes that most young photographers make when trying to become full-time money-making commercial photographers. I want to share those with you in the hope that people stop making the same mistakes.
Here’s a cool little trick courtesy of Justin Leyba from ImagineNow Entertainment. If …
Those of you lucky enough to already have Photoshop CS6 already know about all the popular, highly-advertised features like …
Peter West Carey of DPS has a neat trick for always having a …
If you’re looking for a thrifty way to have gigantic (monochrome) prints made of your photographs, look no further …
This video points to a pretty horrific, disturbing future if the scourge known as Vertical Video Syndrome — VVS …
One tip that instructors often pass onto the beginning photographers is to use their …
If you’re a fan of shooting portraits in outdoor environments, David Hobby of …
Kai over at DigitalRev put together this video that offers photography advice in burst mode: 50 (or 49) short and sweet tips in less than 15 minutes. If you take yourself too seriously, be warned: the tips are presented in Kai's trademark "infotainment" style.
For those of you who’ve ever wondered what it takes to get your work into National Geographic, here’s a …
Hanging pictures straight is a bit difficult as it is, but when we’re talking about two screw or two …
I try to stay involved as much as I can with students studying photography at different institutions in the area. Every year I go back to RIT and do a lecture on the business of photography and I feel it's important that I do so.
Recently I got an email from a young photographer asking me about the career of being a still life/food photographer.
Using keyboard shortcuts while editing your photos can save you loads of time, and cheat sheets are a good …
Here’s an interesting video in which street photographer John Free shares a system …
Digital Camera World magazine created this handy free infographic showing the color temperature …
Trey Ratcliff is the well-known and well-loved HDR photographer behind the travel photography blog …
Large portrait taking gigs can be a bit of a nightmare. If you’re taking multiple portraits of a few …
Admittedly, lighting tutorials are pretty common these days; but when it comes to a subject as vast as proper …
If you’re planning to hang a bunch of picture frames on a wall, Marissa Waddell of …
You may remember photographer Benjamin Von Wong from last week’s behind-the-scenes video of …
Last week we reported on how photographers and a magazine are being sued for $300,000 for allegedly …
Michele over at The Scrap Shoppe offers this handy trick for hanging picture frames: hammer a nail through a clothespin and use it to determine nail placement. Simply hang the picture on the clothespin nail, figure out where you want to place the frame, and then push the clothespin into the wall to make a small indent. Voila! Target acquired.
It might not be very applicable to the vast majority of photographers, but NASA astronaut Captain Alan Pointdexter has written up a fascinating article over on Luminous Landscape in which he shares advice about doing photography in space. Taking photos on the ground is one thing, but imagine using not just the sun, but the earth itself as a source of light.
In this video from Master Photo Workshops photographer Jim Zuckerman shows you how he creates his iconic sunrise photography, using a beautiful lighthouse as his subject. He begins with the basics of choosing your subject and exposure well and then continues on to explain the need to move quickly, "work the scene," and understand that auto white balance works against you in sunrise and sunset scenes.