Photography News

Big news comes out of Instagram this week as they open their advertising API to the masses of potential clients around the world. The third-party partners are now plugging their information and creative campaigns into the API making this weekend the most ads I have seen in years. Though the quality of the imagery doesn't seem to stray too far away from what I am used to seeing its interesting to see where this goes for Instagram, I believe it could be the next big advertising company.

The day has finally come, a camera the will automatically edit video for you. The Graava has five different sensors: a camera, microphone, accelerometer, GPS, and a heart rate monitor. It will detect objects entering the frame, your change of speed, changes in sound frequencies, and will even monitor your heart rate to detect excitement. These sensors help the camera determine which moments are interesting and which moments are boring. That way it know which parts to keep and which parts to delete.

If you hadn't heard of it before, the Stand Out! Photographic Forums is a huge photography industry event (taking place in New York City, Toronto, and Los Angeles) loaded with affordable workshops taught by some of the biggest and most successful names in the industry. You can learn directly from legends like Mark Seliger, Pratik Naik, and Michael Muller. Phase One was even nice enough to ask me to come and teach classes on digital teching and shoot pre-production. You should read below to learn more about all of the classes and offerings.

New York City Photographer, Walter Chang, has returned home after a trip many photographers would be jealous of. He traveled around the world, to 60 different countries, for three years, creating his photography and film project, "We Call This Home."

Do you want your sensor to shift in-body to create a higher-resolution image? Want 4.5-stop image stabilization built into the body so we can benefit from its use with any lens? Want to be able to decide for every shot exactly what level of anti-aliasing you want in order to balance moiré and sharpness? It’s all possible with the new 24-megapixel, APS-C Pentax K-3 II. And, it'll likely be possible in their rumored full-frame camera. Pentax is great, but why aren’t we seeing the “bigger” brands pony up with groundbreaking features?

If you’d asked me this question last week, I would have said no. What a difference a few days makes. Ruslan Pelykh, a New York City-based videographer and photographer, is creating outstanding video with a Leica D Lux 6, a 10 megapixel, $600 point and shoot. This post is a kick up the butt for anyone hanging on for a piece of gear as being the reason they can’t create with what they have. Welcome to creating more, with less.

Last year, I reviewed the Profoto B1 Strobe, and named it the best strobe on the market today. Phottix is looking to take that crown with their newly released Indra500 TTL, a 500w/s studio strobe with an optional battery pack. What puts it ahead of the competition? How about TTL built in, as well as High Speed Sync.

B&H has launched what is easily the most comprehensive platform for understanding Canon glass that we have ever seen: the Canon Lens Experience. Backed by 15 powerhouse photographers including Gregory Heisler, Jeremy Cowart, Jim Wark and Randy Kerr, the new platform lets you get a very in-depth look at lenses, what they do and what images taken with them look like.

A few days ago Frank Doorhof posted a great interview with headshot photographer extraordinaire, Peter Hurley. In the video Frank asks Peter what his thought process is while coaching the people that he's shooting and what photographers should do if they're wanting to get into headshot photography. Peter gives some great insight and advice on headshots and on how to to approach the people you're shooting to capture the perfect expression.

Fstoppers contributor, Retouching Academy founder and good friend of mine Julia Kuzmenko receives a lot of random messages to her Facebook. Most of them are along the lines of "I love your work," but sometimes they are more direct than that. Recently she was sent a request for a retouch of a photo from someone she didn't know, and she let loose the Retouching Academy for a fun session of Photoshop Fail.

In the beginning the idea for the show "31 Women in Art Photography" was a direct response to the increasing male domination in the New York art scene. I quickly thought back to every major gallery and museum I'd ever been to in NYC and realized that it is true, there are more works of art by males rather than females. Why is that? What's the difference between a photograph produced by a male than one by a female?