Articles from Andrew Strother

Here's something pretty cool.

I have a confession, one that honestly seems to be a little taboo in this photographic world of “professional versus hobbyist” that we seem to have created. My confession is this: I am a part-time photographer. But there’s a good chance you are too, and that’s okay. We’re okay. 

David Davis is one of the top photography writers ever. He has an astonishing talent for telling the story behind some of the most memorable sports photos of our time, including the shot of Brandi Chastain ripping off her jersey after scoring the winning goal at the 1999 Women's World Cup, of Kathrine Switzer running the Boston Marathon, and "the Photo That Took Surfing Worldwide".

Enough already. I feel like the past year has been a repeating loop of the song "Nookie," where "nookie" is replaced with "Instagram" and Fred Durst is replaced with people who are somehow more stupid than Fred Durst.

NASA recently released over 11,000 images from the Apollo space missions via the Project Apollo Archive on Flickr, and I have spent the past few days looking through them. Spoiler alert: They're awesome. 

Fuji has just announced a new addition to their popular Instax camera line with the release of the new Instax Mini 70, promising an increase in image quality and a brand new "Selfie" mode. 

The new model will offer three new colors, as well as improved image quality and a new "Selfie" mode according to Fujifilm's press release.

I love great camera deals. Lee loves great camera deals. Casey is a big 'ol Debbie Downer about camera deals, but he lives in Seattle so he's required to be a contrarian. For those of you who also love camera deals, today is a great day because those killer prices on new Nikon D810s and D750s are back! 

We've all seen it and we've all judged it. Maybe you've even used it. You know what I'm talking about, the dreaded "#nofilter." It's all over in Instagram, to the tune of 135,251,455 posts at the time I wrote this sentence (and that number jumped by 20k after checking it again just a few minutes later).

Los Angeles Angels team photographer Matt Brown gives us not one, but two behind-the-scenes videos that give the smallest of glimpses at what is involved in being the photographer for a Major League Baseball team. The first video was put out by Fox Sports West and has Brown narrating the process of putting together the annual team photo.

These days, if you don't own a GoPro, you're pretty much a person that doesn't own a GoPro. But if you ARE a person that owns a GoPro, then get ready to enjoy some sweet new features that will make creating and sharing your content even easier. 

You may remember filmmaker Scott Winn from his awesome "Fruit Ninja in Real Life" video from a few years back, or from last year's undeniably catchy "Stormtrooper Twerk." Well he's back with something he captions "the worst family BBQ ever." 

Maybe I'm just jaded, but GoPro videos of snowboarders, mountain bikers, parkour runners, and wing suit flying people (to name a few) have just started to get a little old for me.

In 2015, I can transmit photos to my wire service from the field using my phone, seconds after the images were shot. Back in the 80s however, it took a case of equipment weighing upwards of 80 pounds to get that job done. As the poet wrote: times they are a-changing. 

A set of over 300 never-before-released photos taken on September 11, 2001 has just been posted on the U.S. National Archives' Flickr page. These images take us right into the middle of meetings between President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and more.

Taylor Swift has come under a lot of fire in recent months regarding some of the restrictions and limitations in the contract photographers are required to sign when shooting her "1989 World Tour", but Mickey Osterreicher, the general counsel for the National Press Photographer’s Association, just announced via a statement to Poynters that the seven-time Grammy winner has agreed to re

Los Angeles photographer Johnny Vy was approached by NFL.com to photograph portraits of the league's incoming at the NFLPA Rookie Premiere; a four-day event where new rookies get to wear their uniforms for the first time, pose for trading card photos, and learn some of the ins and outs of the billion dollar business that is the National Football League.

You just can't be too careful these days, even if you're a professional photojournalist covering a major international sporting event. Multiple photographers shooting the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto are learning this the hard way as thieves seem to be targeting professionals and their gear. Plot twist: it is appears to be their fellow photographers carrying out the thefts. 

Nikon has just issued a service advisory for owners of the D750 DSLR, specifically those manufactured in October and November of 2014. The shutter in affected bodies has been shown to "not function normally," sometimes resulting in shading of a portion of images. Nikon will repair affected cameras free of charge, even those with expired warranties.

Canon just announced their latest Speedlite, the 430EXIII-RT. The update to the Canon 430EXII  will be released in September 2015 at an estimated retail price of $299.99. Also announced are new accessories that will be familiar to Nikon users, the SCF-E2 Color Filter, and the SBA-E2 Bounce Adapter. 

Some highlights of the third-generation flash include:

Instagram is a fantastic tool for photographers. It has almost single-handedly ushered in the age of the mobile photographer, and has served as a creative platform for millions of people who want to share their images with the world. Unfortunately, there has never really been an easy and intuitive way to get your non-mobile photos onto Instagram; until now. 

With a bit a of planning, patience, and a whole bunch of luck, Australian photographer Dylan O'Donnell managed to capture this great shot of the International Space Station crossing in front of the face of an almost-full moon. O'Donnell attempted to capture this image once before almost a year ago but, in his own words, "completely botched it".

First Lady Michelle Obama just announced via her Instagram that the longstanding ban on cameras and photos during public tours in the White House has been lifted. In addition to an official announcement on whitehouse.gov, Michelle Obama shared the video below with her over two million followers earlier today.

https://instagram.com/p/4l6aKJvZHj

In case you haven't had a chance to play with Adobe's new Dehaze tool, Photographer Bimal Ramdoyal, a redditor with the handle "manual_mode", shared this before and after image he shot during a blizzard that he then processed through the new tool in Photoshop (also available in Lightroom). The results, needless to say, are pretty impressive.