How To Edit For YouTube

The Mango Street YouTube channel has been a great source for learning some new skills, or for teaching you more efficient ways of achieving certain effects. In this video, they show how they make videos in Premiere for the channel, which is a great insight into their workflow and process.

How To Successfully Use Blur in Your Photographs

Blur is generally seen as a negative thing in photographs. Sure, it can fully ruin an otherwise good image or take away from a moment that would have otherwise been wonderful to document. But, blur can also be an amazing and helpful tool, one that can add a lot to an image, as long as it is used intentionally and thoughtfully.

Here’s What I Learned From Not Judging My Work

A problem that many photographers face is being unhappy with their photos. This ends up running shoots and makes matters even worse. Some never fully experience the joy of creating that photography can bring.

A Review of the Irix 45mm f/1.4 Lens

A wide-aperture 50mm lens is often one of the most versatile options in a photographer's bag, suitable for a lot of work ranging from portraiture to low-light events. A lesser-known option is the Irix 45mm f/1.4, which offers some unique features along with an interesting focal length, all put together in a rugged package that can handle a variety of tough shooting scenarios. This excellent video review takes a look at the lens and the kind of performance and image quality you can expect from it in practice.

7 Tips and Tricks for Better Pet Portraits at Home

If you've been trying to get some portraits of your furry friend but your images aren't quite cutting the mustard, then these seven simple techniques might be just the thing you need.

5 Tips for Taking Good Portraits in Ugly Locations

A lot of the time, you have complete control over a portrait, including where you take it and thus, the background that complements your subject(s). But in other situations (wedding photography, for example), you do not get much of a choice and may be stuck with a boring, distracting, or simply unpleasing background. If that is the case, this helpful video tutorial will give you five tips for still making professional portraits.

Canon's DSLR Lens Library Is Rapidly Disappearing

The Canon EF lens exodus is continuing, with over a dozen more being discontinued or slated for it at some point this year as the company rapidly pivots toward mirrorless and its RF mount.

How to More Effectively Use Shadows in Your Photography

We talk about how to add light and shape it in a scene quite a lot, but as important as that is, so too are the shadows in your photos. This great video tutorial discusses how you can use shadows to create better, more dynamic, and more compelling images.

Hyperfocal Distance Made Simple: Forget the Charts and Calculators

The majority of landscape photographers tend to prefer keeping the entire scene in focus from back to front, using smaller apertures to maintain greater depth of field. Using this simple technique, any photographer can quickly find the hyperfocal distance, or the focusing distance at which a lens, given any aperture and focal length, will produce the greatest depth of field.

How To Use Textures To Improve Your Photos

Overlaying textures on top of your photographs is an underused way of adding real interest and creative flair to a final image. This tutorial on exactly that might be the best one I have seen to date.

The Incredible Journey From 9 To 5 To Astrophotographer

Taking the leap into photography as a career can be a terrifying prospect, but on the other hand, some of us are simply not happy stuck in the tedium and repetition of a more traditional 9 to 5. This inspiring video essay discusses one man's journey from a 9-to-5 job in IT to professional astrophotography.

Hey Photographers! Why Are You So Mean Online?

The internet has been an integral part of allowing photographers to showcase their work to the world. Yet, no one is safe from the trolls hiding behind their computer screens.

The Sony a1 Is So Fast That You Can Make a Movie From Still Image Bursts

The Sony a1 is probably the most extreme camera we have seen so far, with one of its most notable features being that insane 30 fps continuous burst rate. While the camera also has some equally impressive video features to accompany its photo capabilities, it is more fun to see just how truly fast that aforementioned burst rate is by shooting video using it.

Do I Really Need to Explain My Photography?

There is a trend growing in the photography world. The trend is to accompany photographs with explanatory text. I am not convinced this is a good thing. What do you think?

How to Use Perspective to Give Your Photos a Sense of Depth

One of the marks of a lot of good images is the ability to make a two-dimensional photo have the feel of a three-dimensional scene. This excellent video tutorial will show you how to take advantage of the way the human brain determines distance to give your images a deeper sense of depth.

We Review the Portable Gitzo Légende Tripod Kit

“The last travel tripod you’ll ever need” might seem like a very definitive statement, but let’s take a look at what Gitzo is talking about and exactly why is this tripod kit worth getting.

Six Minutes of Tips to Improve Your Portrait Photography

Portrait photography is a tricky genre that takes the combination of good technique, creativity, and the ability to work with people simultaneously. If you have been struggling with it a bit, this helpful video tutorial contains six minutes of rapid-fire tips and techniques to help you improve your work.

What Is Photographic Truth?

Photography struggles with truth as a concept. With other art forms, truth is generally a non-issue. We do not question whether a painting is real. We do not question whether a dance is real. We are generally able to discern fictional texts from nonfiction; furthermore, we’re generally able to sift through multiple nonfiction texts and combine them with our own experiences to arrive at a conclusion of truth. But not with photography.

More Exciting Canon Lenses Are on the Way

We know that Canon is bringing a lot of new RF mirrorless lenses to market fairly soon, and it looks like we have more information coming in, with some exciting news on new designs.

How To Trick WhatsApp Into Sending Uncompressed Images

Having WhatsApp aggressively compress your images, strip out important metadata, and delete your handpicked color profiles is downright annoying for photographers. Thankfully, there is an easy way to trick WhatsApp into sending your precious images unharmed.

7 Common Landscape Photography Editing Mistakes

Landscape photography is a genre that often requires editing to complete your image more heavily than most others, and as such, there are a lot of places where things can go a bit awry during post-processing. This informative video tutorial details seven common editing mistakes landscape photographers make so you can be aware of them and avoid them.

What Makes a Camera Professional?

Today, I’d like to discuss one of the most overused and most misunderstood concepts in photography. What exactly makes something a “professional camera”?

Comparing the Leica Q2 to the Fuji X100V

Both the Fujifilm X100V and Leica Q2 are advanced fixed prime lens cameras, and they each offer a range of great features and excellent image quality. Which one is right for your work? This great video review takes a look at both.

10 Helpful Tips for Taking Better Photos

Are you feeling a bit stuck lately and wondering how you can improve your images? Check out this fantastic video tutorial that will give you 10 helpful tips for improving your work.

Breaking Through Creative Doldrums: Tips for Photographers

Creative blocks and lack of motivation for picking up the camera happen to the best of us. While there are times it is best to just embrace the downtime and wait for inspiration to strike, more frequently, it is better to take active steps to push past the doldrums. It's important to find methods that work best for you, but there are a handful of tricks that I have found to be successful over the years.

A Review of the Zeiss Milvus 85mm f/1.4 ZE Lens

Zeiss lenses are well known for their contrasty, sharp, and nearly flawless renderings with smooth bokeh, making them highly sought-after portrait instruments. This great video review takes a look at one of the company's more reasonably priced options, the Milvus 85mm f/1.4 ZE and the sort of performance and image quality you can expect from it in practice.

Most Photography Pricing Advice Is Wrong

If like me, you were told to work out your overheads, how many days a year you plan to work, and calculate your fees from this, you have also been pricing your photography work incorrectly.

How To Separate Your Subject Without Relying on Narrow Depth of Field

With the increased availability of high-quality lenses with wide apertures, we have become quite obsessed with images that use a narrow depth of field to isolate the subject and blow the background to smithereens. And certainly, that can be a valid way of doing things, but there are many other great ways to draw attention to your subject, and this informative video tutorial will show you some of the best methods.

Tips for Finding Grungy Backgrounds

When you are scouting locations for a photoshoot, what are you typically focused on for the backgrounds? How often do you consider the textures and the colors that they could add to your shots?

NFTs Are Causing a Global Ecological Disaster, I'm Not Exaggerating.

The NFT craze infuriates me, even though it's great to empower artists,and support a vital part of society through a devastating pandemic. The cost of this support is far greater. NFTs have a catastrophic impact on the environment, the true scale of which we can't even begin to understand.

Photography Rules Are Made to Be Broken

Photography is full of rules regarding every aspect, including composition, lighting, editing, and more. And while those rules can be tremendously useful, adhering to them strictly is likely to handcuff your creativity and limit your growth as a photographer. This interesting video essay discusses the ideas of learning the rules, following them, and then breaking them.

Are Good Sunsets and Sunrises Overrated in Landscape Photography?

No doubt, a sunrise or sunset showering a scene with dramatic golden light is a popular look for a good reason, but it should not be all that we look for in landscape photography, and you could be missing out on great shots if you ignore gray days. This interesting video examines the topic and discusses why there is more to life than obsessing over sunsets.

What Is the Right Focal Length for Portraits?

Focal length is by far one of the most important choices you can make when it comes to portraiture, as it makes a huge difference on how your subject is rendered. This helpful video will show you how five different common focal lengths render the same subject.