Maria Santos learned to stop looking at faces.

Color calibration and color checker cards might seem complicated, but they're simpler and less critical than you might think. Getting your color balance right matters, but obsessing over every swatch can often become more trouble than it's worth.

Mastering macro photography opens creative doors beyond traditional outdoor scenes. With controlled techniques and thoughtful setups, even your own living space can transform into a studio, allowing you to produce professional-grade images without elaborate equipment or spacious locations.

For many, photography starts as mastering camera settings, but true artistry emerges when the technical becomes second nature and creativity takes over.

Storytelling in photography can be tricky, often leaving you wondering if you've captured something meaningful or if you're just overthinking the whole idea. Yet, understanding how stories form within an image can significantly improve your photographic approach and ultimately strengthen your pictures.

Exploring familiar surroundings through photography opens opportunities to rediscover overlooked beauty. Even places you've visited repeatedly can offer new visual stories if approached intentionally with a camera.

The bell above the door hadn't stopped ringing for twenty minutes. It was a Saturday afternoon in March 1985, and Harrison Camera on 47th Street was packed with its usual crowd: wedding photographers arguing about lens choices, art students pawing through used equipment bins, tourists asking endless questions about film types, and the regulars who came not to buy anything but simply to belong somewhere that understood their obsession.

The DJI Mini 4 Pro is undeniably a marvel of modern drone technology. It is currently the best compact sub-250 g drone that money can buy. Packed with tons of new features such as omnidirectional obstacle sensing, true vertical shooting, and 4K video recording up to 120 fps, it is clearly designed for creators who demand both performance and portability—and for working professionals like me who prefer a smaller drone for easier flight access in most areas. It's easy to see why it's a popular choice among drone enthusiasts.

Turning your passion for photography into a full-time career can be more realistic than you might think. Success doesn't hinge on talent or gear but on shifting your mindset and actively creating opportunities.

When dealing with intricate details like tree branches against skies, creating precise masks in Lightroom can feel like an uphill battle. Precise masking is essential to control edits effectively, especially when working with scenes involving complex edges, such as foliage or fine structures.

Wide angle portraits are uncommon because most people assume distortion ruins them. But understanding distortion can elevate your photography by giving you deliberate, dynamic control.

The Meike 85mm f/1.8 Pro AF offers photographers a compact and budget-friendly alternative for capturing striking portraits and detailed telephoto shots. Can it keep up with more expensive options?

Mastering color channels is a powerful Photoshop skill, crucial for achieving precise cutouts and unique creative effects. Channels can significantly elevate your editing capabilities, especially for handling images with intricate details or soft edges.

I’ve been a fan of SanDisk’s portable Extreme Pro SSDs for many years. When I travel with my laptop, I take a couple with me so I can back up my photos and videos each day. The ones I’ve been using transfer data up to 2,000 MB/s (sustainable read and write speed). They’re also very durable, with good water and dust resistance (IP65).

How might you take a night photo of an observatory near the entrance of Joshua Tree National Park? We take you behind the scenes to discuss photographing this image for a local magazine and some quick problem-solving. And you'll learn more about how to create photos such as this.

The chemical stains on Samuel McKinney's hands told the story of his profession before he ever opened his mouth. Fine brown flecks of silver nitrate freckled his fingertips; years of handling pyrogallic developer had yellowed his nails. His clothes reeked faintly of sulfur and ether no matter how many times his wife scrubbed them.

Camera settings can make or break your images, yet sorting through endless menus to find the right combinations can be overwhelming. Getting comfortable with just a few important settings can greatly speed up your process and improve your results.

The Fujifilm X-E5 is a mid-range mirrorless camera aiming to deliver the aesthetics and experience of the popular X100 series, with the added flexibility of interchangeable lenses. For many, a compact form with powerful image quality and lens versatility is exactly what's needed, making the X-E5 an intriguing option to consider.

Real estate photography has always been about precision, speed, and aesthetic intuition. Photographers are the unsung heroes behind listings that sell fast and above the asking price. But as the housing market shifts faster than ever, the expectations for visual content have reached new heights. Enter artificial intelligence.

Lightroom's AI tools offer a practical solution for common touch-ups when time is limited. Here's how to make the most of them.

Landscape photography often brings you face-to-face with frustrating situations where great images feel just out of reach. You know that sinking feeling returning home with a card full of disappointing shots and a sense of wasted effort.

Photography often gets tangled in gear debates and technical perfection. You might be overlooking simpler principles that actually strengthen your work long-term.

Landscape photographers often argue about the practical value of superzoom lenses. A lens with a broad focal range sounds appealing, but is it truly effective in real-world use?

Always photograph with the end in mind. Make life easier for the guy in the darkroom, or the person in Lightroom—usually you.

The photography was stunning—moody, atmospheric, deeply personal. Each image told a story through dramatic lighting and unconventional composition. The photographer's Instagram followers loved it, fellow artists praised the vision, and it even won a local competition. But six months later, the photographer was struggling to book paying clients, questioning whether to continue pursuing photography professionally, and wondering why artistic recognition wasn't translating into business success.

Masks are essential tools, but many photographers keep their use pretty basic. Complex masks, where you combine or modify multiple masks, can transform your editing process and dramatically improve your images.

Pick n’ Pluck, TrekPak, foam hybrids—Pelican has given us plenty of ways to organize our gear, each with its own quirks and trade-offs. But once you commit, you're stuck—cut the foam wrong or rearrange the dividers, and there’s no undo button. What if there were a system that let you change your mind, again and again, without regret?

Over the years, I have tried every brand of protective cases to protect my gear. There was always one problem: the insert. I hated Pick 'n' Pluck foam inserts; they were not sturdy. Pelican introduced the TrekPak system...

If your shots sometimes look flat or you're not sure why certain images work better than others, toning might be the missing ingredient. Toning is crucial because it helps you shape dimension and guide a viewer's attention within your photo, yet many photographers completely overlook it.

Film choice makes a bigger difference than you might realize. Picking the wrong film stock can leave you frustrated with results that don't match your expectations or your budget.

Creating dreamy images is more than just throwing effects on a finished photo. Learning specific compositional techniques can significantly increase how evocative your images become.

Wedding photographers often debate about lens choices, focusing on a mix of creativity, convenience, and image quality. Choosing a single versatile lens can simplify things, which can ease your workflow and create more opportunities for capturing moments.

Peakto has been a premier Mac app for organizing and finding photo assets, using AI and metadata to quickly find images no matter where you have hidden them. Now, they are adding powerful collaboration tools and tools for pre-editing video, and we know a lot of our readers are also creating videos as well as still images.

Fujifilm has officially introduced the X-E5 mirrorless digital camera, the newest addition to its X-E lineup. Combining a classic rangefinder-style design with cutting-edge technology, the compact X-E5 is outfitted with Fujifilm's latest fifth-generation imaging system. Among its leading features, the camera now includes in-body image stabilization (IBIS), a customizable Film Simulation dial, improved autofocus performance, and a versatile electronic viewfinder (EVF).

Fujifilm North America Corporation has introduced the new Fujinon XF 23mm f/2.8 R WR lens, designed for Fujifilm X Series cameras. Announced today, the lens is scheduled to be available in late 2025 and will retail for $499.

From a frog smaller than a fingernail to a crocodile longer than a boat, here are 10 tips that I remind myself of while photographing herps.

The inquiry email was perfect. The client loved your portfolio, praised your style, and enthusiastically asked about availability for their wedding. You responded within hours with detailed information, pricing, and next steps. Then... silence. Days pass. You send a follow-up. Still nothing. Another potential client has vanished into the digital void, leaving you wondering what went wrong.

Your camera kit can either streamline your workflow or clutter your life—it all depends on how intentionally you create your setup. Your gear should align exactly with what you actually shoot and make your job easier.

Today, we will take a look at new tools inside DaVinci Resolve Studio that help improve efficiency in the early stages of your editing workflow.

Adding convincing artificial fog can give your landscape photographs depth and mood that's tough to create in camera. If you've struggled to do it effectively in Lightroom, this technique can take your results to a new level.

Feeling like you're hitting a plateau with your photography is a common struggle, even if you're putting in regular shooting hours. Knowing how to break free of this rut can redefine your relationship with photography and energize your creativity.

Backlighting is one of those techniques in portrait photography that can quickly elevate your work if you do it correctly. Understanding how different types of backlights work and how each impacts your image is crucial to creating portraits that have depth rather than feeling flat.

Commercial filmmaking offers unique opportunities to sharpen your skills and potentially get your work in front of a massive audience. Many talented filmmakers wonder what it takes to actually succeed—not just to produce impressive work, but to also navigate the business side and effectively put themselves on the map.

Let’s face it. So many travel tripods out there share the same features and flaws. This one seems to offer the smartest solution that expands the travel tripod’s usability altogether.

Imagine taking a photo and not seeing it for a week. Imagine every click of the shutter costing real money. Imagine gathering your family around the kitchen table to pass around actual printed photographs, holding them up to the light, flipping them over to read date stamps printed in orange numbers.

I’ve always loved wandering around with my camera, looking for interesting things to photograph. Often, I struggled to find interesting things to shoot. Often, I didn’t have the motivation to put in much effort, which was weird because I love photography. And then one day, I learned something, and everything changed. From that point on, there was no looking back, no lack of motivation, and no difficulty in finding things to photograph.

The never-ending debate between the zoom and prime lens users only seems to get more heated with every argument for and against. As a user and enjoyer of both, I figured it would be only natural for me to weigh all the pros and cons of each in a somewhat unbiased article.

Capture One recently introduced a new AI facial retouching feature, presenting an intriguing tool for speeding up your workflow. Here's how well it performs.

Deciding whether to use a 70-200mm f/2.8 or a lighter, more compact f/4 version involves more than just image quality and price. Your style and where you shoot play a huge role in this choice.

Sony's latest lens, the FE 50-150mm f/2 GM, raises some interesting questions about gear priorities and lens preferences. Is it right for you?