Olympus was once the doyen of the photographic industry, with the OM range beloved for its svelte lines and high-quality manufacturing. Revitalized by mirrorless in the digital era through its collaboration with Panasonic, their OM-D range is iconic. So, why were they bought by the private equity fund Japan Industrial Partners — specialists in restructuring — and what are the portents for the future?

There is a ton of advice on what gear to buy and what gear not to buy as a photographer. It is written from a billion different standpoints, each one with a slightly different take. I didn’t feel any of those articles resonated with me, so here is one that I hope will resonate with you regardless of the genre or niche you’re going for.

In Part 1 of our Dramatic Beauty Portrait Tutorial, we looked at the lighting setup, gear breakdown, and shooting of our dramatic beauty shoot. In Part 2 of the tutorial we will now look at two different ways of exporting and preparing your image for retouching. The first method involves creating versions in Lightroom and exporting directly to Photoshop. The other method utilizes Adobe Camera Raw and the ability to make variations within Photoshop. I will also discuss the overall goal of our pre-edit stage.

Tired of booking the same types of shoots? There’s an easy answer: stop posting them. Instead, only post the type of work you want to get hired to do. Coupling strategic use of Instagram with a strong portfolio of the types of shoots you actually want to book is the best way to increase getting the work you want!

Natalie Lennard, the British photographer popularly known as Miss Aniela, is well known for her stunningly surreal fashion work. Her new personal project, however, is leading her in an entirely different direction; showcasing childbirth through world history, celebrating the power of women who give birth on their own terms. The fictional narrative series draws inspiration from figureheads of birth philosophy, such as Michel Odent and Dr. Grantly Dick-Read, to shine new light on how we view childbirth.

UPDATE 2: Huffington Post has edited their original article. They now state that the Instagram app deal will close later this year, not the whole app.

In case you were as baffled when you heard that Facebook purchased Instagram for $1 Billion, you weren't alone. But news today shows the reason. Facebook has announced their next product: Facebook Camera.

Recently, I have been experimenting with creating a sort of more intense style of headshot for certain clients who are interested in a more surreal, vibrant, look to their headshot as opposed to the more traditional headshot which is designed to to more closely emulate realistic lighting. The heavy cross-light look uses powerful lights that are positioned perpendicular to your the main light to create a strong highlight to the side of the face while living a distinctive shadow down the subject's cheek. Heavy cross-lighting can do a great job of building a sense of three dimensionality without sacrificing the soft, flattering, feel of a traditional headshot.

We may be pro at all things photographic, but is it enough for us to succeed as photographers in this day and age? What are the other components for the winning formula?

Get your smartphones out! Brace yourself for some Snapcodes! For Part Two of our Snapchat series, we've compiled a list of photographers and creatives that you should be following!

Many photographers start their careers by learning natural lighting techniques. Once these skills are established, complacency can set in and the photographer might choose not to stretch themselves to learn more advanced lighting skills. When photographers do this, they leave a significant amount of value on the table.

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.

There are endless articles and videos discussing the pros and cons of shooting in raw versus shooting in JPEG. I’ve long been a proponent of raw for the editing capabilities, but what's more important than file sizes and editing? Longevity.

Let’s be honest, there are a lot of advantages to using speed lights. They are light, portable and they run on batteries. Speed light modifiers that accompany them are also usually quite light and portable as well. But speed lights do have their draw backs and they can be a real pain to use when you encounter issues, such as a painfully slow recycle time between flashes and a lot less power then you need on a bright sunny day. If you have a love hate relationship with speed lights then this article might just have a solution for you.