Whether you're just starting out or have been honing your craft for years, the practice of photography is a continuous journey filled with discovery, growth, and boundless opportunities for self-expression. You are stepping into a world where creativity knows no bounds, and each time you press the shutter, you capture a moment frozen in time. This you already know, but has there ever been a time that you looked back to see where you started, and then suddenly realized how far you have actually come with your photography and appreciated the journey so far?

The Canon EOS R3 is already the company's most advanced camera at the moment, and thanks to a new firmware upgrade, it just became more capable.

Slowly but surely, I find myself shooting more film. It’s getting to the point where my digital cameras are almost strictly for video. They may offer better resolution and more versatility, but there’s a look to film and a fascination with the cameras that pull me to it. The one man that took me into the bottomless hole in my wallet that is film photography is Mat Marrash, a coworker and an avid large format photographer. It's some of the most gorgeous landscape photos of the Ohio Valley I've seen. A few weeks ago, Mat, myself, and the good folks at Rooted Content traveled to Hocking Hills, where Steve and Kyle from Rooted created this short of Mat’s work.

For the past month, the Fstoppers team has been working with Clay Cook filming a new original tutorial on Editorial Photography. While we were filming, we used some of our time with Clay to offer feedback to a variety of images submitted by the Fstoppers community. We chose 20 images to critique. Check out our selections below and add your thoughts and ratings to the comments below. If you want to learn more about the new tutorial with Clay Cook, be sure to signup below to receive more information and an early bird discount.

Among the biggest complaints about the Sony α7 line is the lack of glass available for the new FE mount. So far they've done a good job producing two semi-fast standard primes (a 35mm f/2.0 and a 55mm f/1.8), and two slow-ish pro-zooms (a 24-70 f/4.0 and a 70-200 f/4.0). Yesterday, Sony Japan released a teaser image for a 16-35mm FE lens. The 16-35mm would round out the "Holy Trinity" of FE lenses, making the α7 line an even more appealing option to people who rely on those focal-lengths — though it would be nice to see them make some f/2.8 zooms, too.

Is getting criticism necessarily a bad thing? How does it affect who you are as an artist?

In my never ending quest to state the obvious things that we all tend to forget, today I will talk about another simple truth. To get what you want, you first have to know what you want.

I recently funded the printing of my first book via Kickstarter. It was the wonderful culmination of a year of hard work on the project itself and almost six months of preparation and promotion for the funding campaign. In the end, it was funded well beyond my goal. The whole process of creating, funding, and then realizing the project was quite surreal. I am still pinching myself from time to time as I pack the books ready for shipping to my backers and the recipients of the project. I wrote a while back about changing your mindset, knuckling down, and just doing things. Today, I'd like to talk a little about another thing that makes work happen: the word "yes."

Have you ever wanted to give your models that wind swept look. This 56 second quick tip from our friend Benjamin Von Wong can save you from having to lug around a heavy and often expensive fan. So simple, most of us over look it and here is all you need.

Also be sure to check out Ben's latest project "Von Wong Does Europe".

When it comes to being creative and personal photography, how do you approach your shoots? Do you prepare a well-researched mood board and vehemently stick to it, or do you let your creative juices flow and see where the shoot takes you? Is there a right way?

Aaron Eveland, the videographer of the wedding duo in Hawaii known as Makai Creative, set out to recreate the classic look of The Endless Summer movie poster – gigantic sunsets behind surfers on the beach – and that he did with the help of a Canon 800mm f/5.6 lens, a 2x Extender, and a lot of trial and error. It’s all worth it as you can see in his short film, Sunchasers.