Historical

There is a good reason that Ansel Adams' name has stood the test of time through the years. As one of the photographers in history who gets studied the most, Adams' work continues to be used as an example to photography classes and studies around the world. One of the reasons why he is still revered around the world is because of how carefully his images were crafted and how difficult they are to recreate. Digital and printed recreations of his images just don't quite have quite the depth and quality that his original prints do.

Each day we process hundreds of images from our sessions and turn them over to clients in a digital form or upload to companies for printing purposes. The history of how this digital upload started is quite interesting, coming into the light just after the recent passing of the Playboy creator himself, Hugh Hefner. He left behind a surprising contribution to photographers everywhere.

I’ve written before about the genius of Buster Keaton. Agent Zero on the landscape of cinematic laughter, his influences stretch far and wide. Even nearly 100 years after the high point of his career, you can still see references to “The Great Stone Face” in everything from the films of Wes Anderson to the action comedy of Jackie Chan. In a world without dialogue, Keaton embodied the still-true mantra of motion pictures: show don’t tell. Without the ability, or in his case, desire to draw laughs through witty dialogue, he instead used action, composition, and creativity to tickle our funny bones. The lessons that can be gleaned from watching the master at work are essential learning for any visual storyteller, and this video from Every Frame A Painting helps detail Keaton's approach.

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.

Whether you’ve thought about it or not, psychology plays a huge role in successful photography. Even when considering technical aspects of photography like composition, exposure, depth of field, etc., psychology is part of the “why” behind proper camera settings. It's no surprise then that color plays a big role in emotionally provocative photography, and Michael Carroll recently published his book, “Retrographic” to document a project in which already emotionally-charged photographs from history are colorized to evoke even more emotion.

Sir Winston Churchill once said: “Success consists of going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” I think that many photographers can relate to this quote from this famous historical figure. The British Prime Minister who led his country to victory during World War II was one of the few giants of the era along with U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. These historical personages are long gone, but Felix Rios, a London-based photographer, managed to go back in time to capture Churchill’s doppelganger for a photoshoot.

For the first announcement of its kind in the United States, Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina has declared October 2017 to be Photography Month. For those photographers who live in and are traveling to North Carolina during October, they will have even more reason to bring their cameras and take advantage of the festivals and photo-centric events while they are there.

My heart is heavy as I write this tonight, 20,000 acres of my ancestors ceded lands and the very fir trees they once lived beneath, are burning to the ground. Not only is the Columbia River Gorge some of the most beautiful land in Oregon venture in to and photograph, it holds a special place in my own heart. Did you notice the red moon across the country Monday night? Many of you likely took a photo of it like I did here in Louisville, Kentucky. It was breathtaking but today I was devastated to learn the moon was painted by the tragedy in my home lands and across the Northwest.

I know that the solar eclipse on Monday made you feel young again. Maybe it made you feel energetic, inquisitive, motivated to keep exploring. But by now those effects have surely started to wear off, and I have some bad news for you. You’re getting old. How do I know that? Because the hashtag just turned 10.

I still remember the first time I heard the word. Senior year of high school. Sitting lazily squeezed into a metallic desk-chair combination unwillingly decorated with the carvings of amateur graffiti artists from years past. The boisterous post-recess classroom went quiet as my favorite teacher, and apparently everyone’s favorite teacher, Mrs. Wallace entered the room. With an ever-present sense of flair, she strode to the chalkboard and wrote out eight letters in big bold type. P-A-R-A-D-I-G-M. I didn’t know what it meant. Heck, I didn’t even know how to pronounce it. But, in that moment, I was introduced to not only a new piece of vocabulary, but given a dynamic tool to develop as an artist, and as a person.

The 1960s represented a powerful awakening, shift, and revolution in American culture, with Hollywood being no stranger to those events. As the Hays Code's grasp on American cinema continued to erode, films that exploded into new territory emerged, with one standing at the forefront of the revolution.

150 years is a long time to lose anything. However, this portrait of the sixth president of the United States has reemerged and taken on a special status: it's the oldest known surviving photograph of a U.S. president.

In a world full of copycats and sequelitis, it isn’t always easy to be inspired. But every once in a while, mixed in among the sea of sameness, you will discover a true original. I am not the only person to be fascinated by the work of Russian Filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. His brief but spectacular canon of films, including the likes of “Ivan’s Childhood” (1962), “Andrei Rublev” (1966), “Solaris” (1972), “The Mirror” (1975) and “Stalker” (1979), stands among the most innovative cinematic careers in world history.

Just after lunchtime on July 28th, 1851, Julius Berkowski took the first accurate image of a total solar eclipse. As we prepare to shoot the eclipse on Monday, let's take a look at history behind this unique astrophotography.

Humidity, sunlight, water, and most of all, time, are just some of the culprits in the damage most printed photographs will endure. However these memories of loved ones do not need to be thrown away or thought to be unrepairable. A few layers in the digital world can bring it back for your clients.

The inauguration of Donald Trump meant the end of Pete Souza’s position as official White House photographer. Stepping into his shoes, Shealah Craighead has spoken for the first time about the experience of shadowing President Trump.

Telling a story with moving images has been evolving so much through the years. One of the most important milestones in this journey is the progress from monochromatic to color pictures.

Matthew Modine played the lead role of Pvt. Joker in Stanley Kubrick's iconic film about the Vietnam War. Modine used his personal Rolleiflex camera to capture behind-the-scenes images of the almost two years the film was in production. Now, he is auctioning 12 of those images off with a portion of the proceeds going to benefit the Purple Heart Foundation. The auction is timed to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the release of "Full Metal Jacket."

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.

Kendrick Lamar's newest music video, "ELEMENT," was released this week. The video is directed by Jonas Lindstroem and The Little Homies (aka Kendrick Lamar and Dave Free) and takes Photographer Gordon Parks' iconic imagery and breathes new life via video. I'm not sure how many of our readers listen to Kendrick Lamar, but you should. He's brilliant, in both lyric and music video direction.

Perhaps no single photo is more symbolic of America’s troubles during the Great Depression than Dorothea Lange’s “Migrant Mother.” Depicting an itinerant farm worker, Florence Owens Thompson, and five of her children apparently in the grips of despair on the side of the road, this single image came to surmise an entire era.

Are you doing enough to ensure that your story is shared beyond your years? Take a few extra steps to ensure that your family photos will be enjoyed by generations to come.

Libraries. Not a photographic subject I ever thought I’d be getting excited about. But one landscape photographer has released an undeniably beautiful series featuring some of the most structurally complex buildings from around the world.

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.

Memorial Day is a day set aside in remembrance of those members of the Armed Forces who have made the ultimate sacrifice. This Memorial Day, photographer Kate Woodman released a series called War Widow, that gives an intimate look at the life of those left behind. The series manages to honor the families of the fallen by approaching the pain, grief and loss they suffer with a raw, unflinching eye.

In this short documentary video from TIME, Dutch creative Erik Kessels explains his interest in amateur photography, including where it started and what he sees in it. What started as simply buying discarded family photo albums has now stirred an interest with the mortality of an image, where with the proliferation of sites like Flickr and Instagram, photographs now have a much shorter lifecycle. This culminates in a very interesting exhibition, featured at the end of the video.

The Canon EOS (Electro-Optical System) and the EF (Electro-Focus) lens mount have been the standard of Canon SLR and DSLR cameras since 1987. This neat video showcases 30 years of evolution in just 90 seconds.

If you want to be a photographer or filmmaker you need to know your art form's history, and how it came about. You need to know what has been done in the past that gives you the opportunity to hold these devices our hands today. What makes it so incredibly special is that within just over a hundred years we have seen the invention of the first motion picture camera and the progression in technology to what we have today. This video is a quick summary of how the technology came about. Edison and his assistant W.K.L. Dickson developed the way to display still images consecutively, creating the illusion of motion, a technology still used today.

Andrew Saladino, from The Royal Ocean Film Society, makes a serious point in his telling video essay. How were so many films lost, and who are the people working to bring movies back to life?

If you're old enough to remember VHS tapes, you remember video quality that was abysmal by today's standards. However, even in the late 80s and early 90s, manufacturers were working to bring HD tech to consumers, and this demo reel is a surreal example of such tech.

Movies exist to tell stories. Through writing, performance, sound, and photography, they share with us worlds and visions that help us interpret the real world outside of the theatre doors. So what are the best films made about our lives as photographers?

In this video, directors tell us how they define what it is to make a movie. They give advice to the viewer, the next generation of filmmakers. The filmmakers in the video are all masters of composition, rhythm, and flow of their movies. This also makes them great at evoking emotions because of it. But essentially, it's all about the story and not the medium. It's the same with photography. It's very hard to make a wrong decision when buying a camera today. With any camera brand you buy, you will get great image quality with beautiful color, quick auto-focus, and superb image stabilization. But can you tell a story with your mind and then use the camera as a tool to tell that story?

In what could be some of the most expensive personal photos of all time, over 200 photos from Andy Warhol's three-day trip to China in 1982 will go on auction this April, with an expectation of receiving over $1 million.

It's been 9 years since Australian photographer Alexander Khimushin left home to travel the world, and he's since been to over 80 countries. While many travelers prefer short-term sightseeing tours, Khimushin is a firm believer that off the beaten path is the only way of traveling. Meeting indigenous people all over the world was the most inspiring part of his journey. This realization led to a personal project called, "The World in Faces," which he started around three years ago.

The year was 1990. The Hubble Space Telescope had just been launched, Microsoft released Windows 3.0, and Sinéad O'Connor wanted you to know that "Nothing Compares 2 U." In addition, Adobe released Photoshop 1.0, starting the revolution.

Film has had a great resurgence in the industry. Whether it's because of the hipster hype or due to people wanting the special color and feeling that film brings is unknown to me. On January 5, 2017 Kodak made it known that they were bringing back a classic, the EKTACHROME Film stock.

Kim Kardashian West needed to bare her booty in an attempt to "break the internet" for Paper Magazine, but move over Kim, the Queen has just side stepped your attempts in grand fashion. Beyoncé's birth announcement photo, published yesterday, has captured more than 8 million likes on Instagram as of this writing, making it the most liked photo to ever grace the social media platform.

Antony Armstrong-Jones, more commonly known as Lord Snowdon after he married Princess Margaret, the younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II, passed away peacefully on Friday at his home in London. He was 86. Snowdon was one of UK's most famous and most respected photographers for more than 50 years. He was already an established fashion photographer when he married into royalty, but after that he became somewhat designated as the official photographer of the royal family.

Visual and special effects have a long history; they've been around since the dawn of filmmaking. Here are some great examples from silent films where the techniques used behind the scenes are still relevant today.

This year, Nikon is gearing up to celebrate its 100th anniversary. July 25 is the date that marks a century since three leading optical manufacturers merged to form the company we now know as Nikon in Tokyo, Japan. Check out this freshly released video that is leading Nikon's proceedings.

Hungarian photographer, Robert Capa is regarded as being one the greatest combat and adventure photographers in history. That’s no small remark, considering the immense amount of danger involved and the technological limitations that were present during the time he created his body of work.

Motivated by a passion for Civil War era photography, photographer Willis Bretz spent nearly two years researching battles and individuals specific to the United States Civil War in order to create a set of portraits that pay homage to those created by war photographers more than 150 years ago.

Time recently announced that it had named Donald Trump its Person of the Year. That's unsurprising when you remember that the title goes to the person who "for better or for worse... has done the most to influence the events of the year." However, the cover photo is peculiar in several ways — enough so to raise the question of if it is an intentional reference to one of history's most evil and infamous figures. The Internet seems to be split on if that's the case.

The race to conquer new frontiers of innovation is not a new event, but it is well known. What can be learnt from history about these types of competitions, however, is that it is not always to the winner go the spoils; the lightbulb and telephone are infamous examples, but the moving picture can be added to that list.

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."

Earlier this week, the largest moon of almost 70 years could be seen around the world. This "supermoon," as it is being hailed, occurred after it appeared 222,000 miles from Earth — to put it into perspective, that's some 30,000 miles closer than the most distant point it ever pops up. According to NASA, that caused it to appear 14% bigger and 30% brighter than what we’re used to. Naturally, photographers everywhere were out in full force trying to grab the best photo. But one image in particular is garnering attention after making NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Much can change in 40 years. Just ask photographer Camilo Jose Vergara, who has spent the last four decades documenting the evolution – and often disintegration – of some of the most impoverished neighborhoods in America.

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...

Most people never think about what lies behind the small window twinkling with bright light above them at the cinema. Even fewer have had the opportunity to see the projection booth where are all the magic happens. Now that almost all major chain Cinemas have converted fully to digital, most people will never get that chance. K. William McMillan's video gives a glimpse into that world through the eyes of Projectionist Michael Roussete.

Famed landscape photographer Ansel Adams' Arca-Swiss 4x5 camera that he personally owned and used from 1964 to 1968 will go up for auction at the end of this month via Heritage Auctions in New York. Bidding will open at a staring price of $35,000 on October 27th, so if you have some extra change lying around, you can bid on this one-of-a-kind piece of photographic history.