Recent Historical Articles

Why Photo and Video Gear Doesn't Matter Much and Story Is Everything

What makes a photograph or movie memorable? With cinema as widespread as it is, a film needs to stand out in a big way, not only to succeed at the box office, but to be remembered in any capacity. As for photographs, it's the same challenge. We remember the Tiananmen Square protest photo because it captured the issues sweeping the globe in a single frame. Films like "The Shining" and "There Will Be Blood" are relatively simple in terms of visuals, but have stories that will forever make them classics. And that's exactly what makes a film or a photograph great: story.

Adding Color - Changing History or Making It More Relatable?

At first black and white photos were the only way images could be developed, printed, and shown to the world. With digital technology and having all the information at our fingertips allows some obsessive artists delve into the past to bring the past to life by adding color and making the images more relatable. Or does it? Some people have argued that the past shouldn't be altered, and that it must be left as is, preserved and untouched. They argue that the images shape history, and should remain as factually correct as possible. However, when watching the video and seeing the way the images are transformed surely adds another level to the ability to relate to the images.

Robert Capa's Unseen Color Photos

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Robert Capa, the iconic war photographer and Magnum Photos co-founder whose life, documented in the autobiography Slightly Out of Focus, is the stuff of legend. Capa's centenary has brought with it a number of undiscovered treasures from his life including his only surviving audio interview from October 1947 but also a rich collection of slide film taken on assignment from 1938 until his death in 1954.

A Review of Canon's First DSLR, the D30

The year was 2000: the Y2K bug had turned out to be a flop, a man purchased $200 million in Ansel Adams negatives for $45 at a garage sale, and Canon released their first DSLR, the D30, a camera that would go on to have a significant impact on the photography industry. What was the D30 like? This neat video review takes a look at the camera.

Modern History: How APS Film Became the APS Cameras You Know Today

To almost any photographer today, if you mention "APS," they think of crop sensor cameras, namely APS-C or perhaps the APS-H sensor in older models in Canon's 1D line. However, if you mentioned it two decades ago, the response would have been very different.

Anton Orlov's Road Trip to Share Alternative Photography

Photography is the perfect counterpart to road travel. On a mission that seems to blend aspects of Ken Kesey, Robert Frank and Matthew Brady, fine art photographer Anton Orlov is traveling across the United States in a school bus doing wet plate collodion photography. You might’ve seen his Kickstarter video in 2011 that involved retrofitting a school bus into a mobile darkroom nicknamed “The Photo Palace.”

Photographic Tribute to Preserve the Legacy of Lumberjacks

There's still plenty of families and communities that heavily rely upon the forestry industry. Finland, a country many of us associate with deep woods and arctic temperatures, continues to carry the strong legacy of those who spent their lives working in the forest, and as such, photographer Sanna Vornanen celebrates the lives of lumberjacks all around the world through her latest project.

William Albert Allard Talks About the Making of His Iconic Photo

thinkTank's ongoing series, "About A Photo," is a tremendous peek into the process of some amazing photographers. The series has the featured photographer narrate the story of one of their images. In this episode, William Albert Allard speaks about his photograph of a cowboy named Stan and why he doesn't take a photo of someone - but into them.

What Makes an Extraordinary Photo?

An image is eye catching when it's extraordinary. So why is it that the ordinary and banal can appear extraordinary? And if that really is the case, how can we go about achieving that?

Look Inside a 150-Year-Old Camera

It's very easy to find information online about new cameras, news, rumors, reviews, and which camera you should be using right now. But there's far less information to be found about older cameras. Like many photographers, I find it interesting to look at the origins of photography and how far the science and technology in cameras has come in a relatively short period of time.

Is It Colder in Color?

Non-photographers often complain about black and white images: they’re dated, they’re just a gimmick, or they’re elitist and boring. These are personal preferences; however, we live in a color world, so you can't discount that black and white images can create a disconnect for modern viewers. To bring history alive, is colorization a solution?

A Look at One of the Coolest Cameras of Yesteryear

One of the neatest things about early digital photography was that because few things were really standardized, there were numerous interesting designs and experiments with features. Sony's Mavica line was one such example of this, and this awesome video takes a look at the camera 24 years after its release.

The Family Archive is Dying: Protect Your Family Photographs Now

Access to photography has never been greater, yet now the risk of the family archive dying out has never been more of an issue. This article explains why the digital age has put the family archive in danger, and what we, as photographers, can do about this.

Even Ansel Adams Himself Once Had to Advertise to Make Money

If you're a photographer or really any kind of creative, you've probably at some point experienced the existential crisis along the lines of "does my work mean anything? Does anyone care?" This reminder that even the greatest among us had humble beginnings should put a smile on your face.

A Look Through The Years - Adobe Photoshop Turns 25

Today marks a special day for the beloved Adobe Photoshop, as today is it's 25th birthday. Even at only 25 years old, Photoshop has had a number of facelifts. From it's initial release, Photoshop was revolutionary in it's tools, and still remains to be the best tool for photographers today. So lets take a look at all the changes this iconic software has seen over these last twenty five years.

Locations of Reggae Album's Vinyl Sleeve Photos Traced and Rephotographed

Alex Bartsch has done the incredible. Through a lot of research and after climbing over fences and onto roofs, he sought out 42 locations where reggae artists had photos taken for their album artwork. He even got into the living room of former Trojan label owner Marcel Rodd in Hampstead to take a photo in front of the fireplace. His work documents an era of London's reggae scene between 1967 and 1987.

Bartsch's series looks like it took a lot of hard work. Either the artists, label owners, or photographers had to be tracked down to get the...

FS Reviews PhotoBoothSF, A Portrait Studio Specializing in Tintypes And Vintage Film Processes

I have been absolutely fascinated by wetplate processes for a while now: I find the medium absolutely unlike anything else in the world of art and photography, and the one-of-a-kind results from this hand-crafted process are simply beautiful. When I learned that there was a studio in San Francisco that specialized in taking collodion (tintypes, specifically) portraits of clients, I absolutely had to have one done.

Intimate Exposé On Commercial Photographer Fred Lyon

I'm a big fan of the mission and idea behind websites like Kickstarter. I appreciate creating a community of people from all over the world who help each other pursue their dreams. On Indieagogo, a site similar to Kickstarter, I came across this cool project on photographer, Fred Lyons.

Images of Child Labor Between 1908 and 1924

Working as an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), Lewis Hine (1874-1940) portrayed working and living conditions of children in the United States between 1908 and 1924. The Library of Congress' National Child Labor Committee Collection includes more than 5,100 photographs that came with the records of the organization. Many of the pictures are familiar, but others are relatively unexplored.

Time Magazine Celebrates the 100 Most Influential Photographs in History

Time Magazine will be counting down their selection of the 100 most influential images of all time this month. According to the magazine, the very first photograph was taken back in 1826, so they are presenting this project to coincide with celebrating the "175th anniversary of photography and the birth of photojournalism."

The Smithsonian Just Gave You 40,000 Pieces Of Art, Including 400 Photos

Early last year, the Smithsonian announced that they would be opening up their digital collection for the world to see. The first phase constitutes over 40,000 pieces of art, including over 400 photographs, from the Freer and Sackler Galleries and the Freer Study Collection, all of which focus on the museum’s Asian gallery collections. The collections are available for anyone to download and use for free for non-commercial use under a program they call Open F|S.

Captivating Historic Photographs of Native Americans From the Early Twentieth Century

It started in the year 1900 with a trip to Montana to photograph the ritual Sun Dance of the Blackfoot Tribe, and ended with photographer Edward Curtis having photographed 100 Native American tribes, producing 2,200 photographs that would come to comprise a 20 volume anthology called "The North American Indian," bankrolled by investor J.P. Morgan to the tune of $75,000. In the article written by Elisabeth Sherman for All That Is Interesting, you can see 33 of his most stunning portraits.