Every year when autumn arrives and the woodlands start to transform, I find myself turning my attention away from the sweeping landscapes and down to the forest floor. The change feels fitting — literally and figuratively — because photographing fungi is all about paying attention to the smallest details. It’s a slower, more deliberate process, where every small adjustment matters.
There's always that one unremarkable place near where you live. A street corner you pass without thinking. A park bench under a tree. An alley behind a strip mall. You've walked by it hundreds of times and never once thought to photograph it. The first time you do, the image will probably be forgettable. The tenth time will change how you see everything.
These days, everyone’s chasing algorithms like it’s The Hunger Games, posting reels with audio that sounds like a toaster crying in reverse. And why? So a robot can “boost your engagement”? It’s a waste of time (because it is). So let’s get something out of the way.
Some photographers will use brackets to optimize flash placement. Some will leave it on the hot shoe and forget about it. At times, I will even have an assistant hand-hold a strobe close to the lens—but what if you’re not able to do that? How can you still get a flash look that’s direct and punchy, yet cleaner by having the light higher than the lens?
In the first article, we explored five cameras that had the right vision but arrived at the wrong time, from Sony's Mavica prototype to the Contax N Digital. These machines predicted the future of photography but couldn't convince the market they were right.
Even a successful career isn’t always champagne and roses. But the lessons one learns on the downslope can often be just as important, if not more so, than the rewards gained at the top.
You can read every photography tutorial ever written, watch hundreds of hours of YouTube videos, and memorize the exposure triangle until you dream about it. But nothing will teach you to see like a photographer faster than putting different glass on your camera and forcing yourself to work within its constraints. The problem is that most beginners approach lens buying all wrong.
A reliable flashlight is a must-have in any camera bag. The Wuben X4 tries something different, with its unique rectangular design, powerful main beam, and versatile side light. It promises to be a versatile light, but does the pursuit of doing everything compromise its performance?
Since the earliest days of film photography, we’ve been locked into aspect ratios defined by the film itself, whether that’s 3:2 from the standard 35mm film, 4:5 from the 4x5 large format film, or even 1:1 from the 6x6 medium format film that carved out its own niche result.
Your primary camera body fails during a paid shoot. Maybe the shutter mechanism seizes, the sensor starts showing hot pixels, or the battery door won't close properly. In that moment, your backup camera becomes the difference between delivering the work you promised and refunding thousands of dollars while explaining to a disappointed client why you couldn't finish the job.
This is my 20-year journey from corporate life to full-time photography, sharing practical strategies for creators who dream of turning their passion into their profession. This article provides the roadmap I followed for transitioning from employee to creative entrepreneur.
Last Tuesday, your Instagram Reels were getting 5,000 views each. This Tuesday, you're lucky to break 300. Nothing changed in your content quality, posting schedule, or hashtag strategy. Instagram just decided your work wasn't worth showing anymore. If you're a photographer trying to build an audience in 2025, this frustration probably feels familiar.
Perfect weather and golden hour are training wheels. Real growth happens when you're forced to shoot in harsh midday sun, overcast gloom, freezing rain, or extreme heat: conditions that expose every weakness in your technical knowledge and creative problem-solving.
Here are five podcasts you should be listening to right now. Hit play, grab your coffee, and get inspired. When I am walking or driving, I’ve got five that I always snare in my podcast catcher. You’ll love them no matter what kind of photography you do.
No photographer wants to hear that their expensive camera has a fundamental flaw. But some of the most catastrophic product failures in camera history, whether formal recalls or de facto recalls that forced official corrections, led to industry-wide improvements that benefit every photographer today. These weren't just embarrassing product failures.
Today I'd like to share a story of why more isn't always more.
Every time I load a memory card into my camera, I think about the satisfying mechanical click of loading a fresh roll of film. Modern digital cameras are technological marvels, packed with computational photography, eye-tracking autofocus, and in-body stabilization that would seem like science fiction to photographers of the 1990s.
There’s something magical about photographing weddings or engagements in a national park. Depending on which of the 60+ national parks you find yourself in, the unique views from this one-of-a-kind “office for the day” might include famous peaks or endless dunes—and always wide-open skies.
The history of photography is littered with brilliant ideas that arrived too early. These were cameras that promised to revolutionize the industry but were met with skepticism, confusion, or outright rejection. These weren't failures of engineering. They were failures of timing.
This is the story of an impossible photograph—an image that demanded an absurd amount of luck, unwavering perseverance, and a few very specific pieces of gear to pull off.
So you’ve got a camera, lenses, lights, and a spare space to turn into a studio—perhaps a garage, basement, or garden room. Now what? Having previously run commercial studio premises, and now lucky enough to have my own creative space at home, in this article I share the essential non-photographic items that keep you focused on creating.
Your camera can connect to Wi-Fi. It can pair with Bluetooth. It can talk to your phone, your computer, and your cloud storage through various cables, dongles, and apps that work half the time. But here's what it can't do natively: connect directly to cellular networks the way your phone, your tablet, your smartwatch, and even your car already can.
Move over compact point-and-shoots. There’s a new in-demand camera on the scene — and it’s so small it fits in the palm of your hand. The hype surrounding the Kodak Charmera is real. Pre-orders have sold out not once, not twice, but three times in the last month.
The photography community is in the midst of an existential crisis. Open any photography forum, Facebook group, or Reddit thread, and you'll find photographers convinced that artificial intelligence is about to obliterate their careers. Meanwhile, others dismiss these concerns entirely, insisting that "real photography" will always matter.
I set out to photograph and light paint a collapsing market in Desert Center, California. Here’s how I pulled it off. I'll take you behind the scenes of my desert ghost town night photography safari.