In this day and age, most of us share our photos online on various platforms. Most of us use Instagram, some can’t get over Flickr (yup, that would be me), and we have and all sorts of online portfolios. Somewhere along the way, the number of views, comments, and likes became one of the measures of our success. But do we really need to have our work seen to be considered great photographers?...
Photos and videos of the recent partial solar eclipse are starting to come in, leaving me incredibly inspired. Photographer Zev Hoover made a series of photos that made my jaw drop the moment I saw them. He captured a sequence of a bird flyby in front of the solar eclipse, adding a dash of abstraction to this amazing scene. I spoke with Zev a bit about how he took them, and he kindly shared some details and of course – the photos – with DIYP....
Photographer Alex Stemplewski has got under fire before, when he interrupted a photo shoot so he could take photos. But his latest project sparked quite an outrage among photographers: he was accused of exploiting Black Lives Matter movement for self-promotion. With 8.4 million followers on TikTok, Stemplewski is quite a star on this platform (yes, “TikTok star” is a thing and I am old). His bio reads “I make strangers famous” and from what I know, he approaches strangers and takes their portraits....
As more and more of our clients are becoming familiar with being in front of the camera (Thanks, Facebook!), people today tend to present themselves the way they want the world to see them, rather than as the people they actually are. In this video, photographer Sean Tucker talks about the difference between simply taking somebody’s picture, and making a portrait, as well as some tips on how to get it....
The White House have released new official portraits for both President Trump and Vice President Pence. Pence’s actually looks pretty good, but Trump’s? Not so much. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it just looks like a smartphone grab shot with ambient room light. The portraits were shot by two different photographers. Shealah Craighead and D. Myles Cullen photographed Trump and Pence, respectively. The newly released Trump portrait does offer a more friendly pose and expression than the last one, but the bad lighting and messy background really lets it down....
