By BENGT NYMAN A case of megalomania or a proper challenge? I am definitely a fan of DxO as a source for scientific, photographic test and performance data for camera image sensors and lenses — as published on DxOMark. I much prefer to have this data under my belt when deciding on a new purchase. […]
By LORENZO MOSCIA It has been seven years since I last visited Cuba. Again it was an intense journey. I managed to “escape” and rediscover street photography which I left behind in the past years. My equipment was the trusted Ricoh GR and a Canon 6D with the 50mm F1.2. The Canon was difficult to […]
Leica Akademie announced Destinations in Focus, a first of its kind collaboration with Exclusive Resorts, “combining the inspirational and educational experience of a Leica Akademie workshop with five-star luxury.” In case you can afford it, the programs are kept small with only a handful attendees. In case you can’t attend, Forbes shares some tips from […]
Currently traveling. Bear with me, apologies for not updating THEME too often these days. Vienna next, slowly filling up storage space… and, well, the occasional bottle of red…
Sometimes he wishes to work in an office and be back home at 5 p.m. But you want to work National Geographic and the likes or not? Then that’s what it takes to be a landscape photographer. Don’t fear the elements, tough environments and exhausting schedules. True landscape photography is tough and exhausting. Otherwise you […]
Like it or hate it — few photographers are indifferent to flash or speedlites, how camera companies nowadays call these awkward units producing artificial lights. Especially in this day and age of sheer unlimited ISO reach the importance of the flash is no longer what it once was. But who wants to refute the benefits […]
By DIERK TOPP Painting with light, what’s this? It’s illuminating an object with a pocket or any other lamp moved around the object during exposure. “Painting” the light on the object is not a well-known technique. Many years ago I happened to discover the work of photographer Emil Schildt. Schildt, a true master of “light […]
By MITCHELL KANASHKEVICH, EYEVOYAGE Can a camera change the way you make photos? Until recently I never thought that I’d even consider such a question. I’ve always said that gear is not very important, the result is what matters. I still feel the same about the importance of the result, but, I’ve come to realise […]
Great work, as always, by THEME’s regular contributor Lorenzo Moscia who travels the world with two cameras and two lenses. Lorenzo witnessed Brazil’s fatal FIFA World Cup blow against Germany in Rio de Janeiro’s biggest favela. Going down 1-7… Gods were humiliated in a nation where the seleção should have promised pride, joy and momentary […]
“Everyone of us has at least one or two great photographs in them.” Says David Griffin, former photo director for National Geographic. But, to make a living from photography, “you have to have more than one or two great photographs in you. You’ve got to be able to make them all the time.” It’s another […]
Esther Honig‘s idea was as simple as brilliant. Not that she’s an outstandingly beautiful women, she’s certainly good looking — but as the ideal of beauty depends on the beholder and his or her cultural background: how would Honig’s “ideal” appearance look like if she’d live in another culture? So she sent a portrait photo […]
Inspiring stuff by National Geographic photographer Cory Richards. Feel like your photography is stuck and want to bring it to the next level? Well leave your comfort zone. That’s what Richards is telling us in this video “tribute to discomfort.” A school dropout and for the most part homeless, photography became the language to translate […]
Blesseth the curfew… Never had to kill more time at an airport than when checking in for a plane departing hours after the 10 p.m. Thai curfew kicks in. What better than just, well, look around. Same old Df / Distagon 28/2 combo. Now that third photo could have more easily been shot with a […]
Told you so, love the Df and 28mm Distagon — all shots @ ISO 12,800 in the Bangkok of martial law and curfew (BTW, am traveling much these days, please rely on the Rumors and News Feeds for updates of THEME): (all straight out of camera)
Singapore photographer Aram Pan does it again: he has just returned form a photography trip to North Korea. Right, you remember his first trip to the terra incognita in October 2014. Aram was once again given official approval by the North Korean state government to conduct photography within the reclusive state. Although he was escorted […]
Steve McCurry‘s magnificient Afghanistan work needs no further words. Explore the rugged beauty of Afghanistan through the lens of Magnum photographer Steve McCurry. Watch him talk about his mostly older work that hasn’t lost any of its magic: CNN has an additional Steve McCurry Afghanistan gallery.
I’ll have a copyright on this one! Seriously, modern cameras offer all kinds of bracketing for exposure, ISO, white balance — even aperture they give us for varying depths of field. How about automated focus bracketing, anyone?! I mean any camera these days should be able to communicate with the lens to bracket focusing steps […]
He needs no introduction: Brandon Stanton, the high school dropout behind the photo blog Humans of New York and the #1 New York Times bestselling book of the same name. No way he’s the world’s best photographer or journalist, he says, even though with meanwhile 10,000 people photographed he achieved quite a feat in a […]
Say what you want, despite huge advancements in technology and an abundant choice of photographic gear and possibilities, despite so many more choices the human being to this day remains photography’s most fascinating and rewarding subject/object. Here are a few suggestions on how to improve your portrait photography. Right, you’re a purist and use camera […]
By RUSSELL Outside of sports and animal photography, either there is something dynamic happening in your photos. In which case nobody in the world cares whether your image is more than four perfect megapixels (though they do care about overall contrast, clarity, color balance, saturation and low noise). After all, in a dynamic scene, your […]
The often ignored histogram can be one of the most useful tools in digital photography to achieve perfect, balanced exposure. It’s also one of the least understood tools. The standard histogram plots the brightness (or luminosity) of every pixel in the picture and is measured on a 256-step scale, that’s the number of permutations available […]
By PHAISAL GULADEE Have you ever faced a situation in which your camera can’t possibly cope with the amount of dynamic range in a specific scene and all you can do is exposing for either the shadows or the highlights or average out the exposure but you still do not get the picture you want […]
It’s purists vs. pragmatists — is it possible to shoot something “correctly” in the camera without post-processing? Not a friend of post-processing, I prefer to rely on the camera’s processing — which in itself is already a form of post-processing. Now here’s a telling Adorama video on the necessity of post-production. The camera, however, can […]
Photography is so cheap these days (apart from gear…). A terabyte of storage space costs next to nothing and stores 209,715 (!) 5MB photo files, that’s a generous size for quality Web publishing. So why worry? Prints, however, are a whole different story. Be it TIFFs or bloated up JPEGs converted from RAW, one would […]
Congrats John Stanmeyer! The American photographer who lives in Hong Kong has won the World Press Photo of the Year 2013 award with a moonlit image of African migrants in Djibouti holding their mobile phones to the sky, seeking a better signal. I had the pleasure to work with John back in East Timor’s bloody […]
A kid, alone, abandoned, at a Bangkok protest camp. Nikon Df with Nikkor 50mm F1.8G Special Edition; cropped, unprocessed, straight out of camera JPEG. +++ Random pic? Email me a photo you like, a photo with a special story behind it or a photo you want to share with others for any reason. Write a […]
Thailand’s in the headlines. No one knows whether Bangkok will engulf in another wave of violence and bloodshed. The protesters are decent people with good intentions, even though they applaud to some fascist hate tirades from the stages. I’m not about to go into the democracy debate. But the bustling city has come to a […]
Had a lovely encounter in the park the other day: heard from far away a violin playing. Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major. It was a girl, Chinese, enjoying playing her violin all by herself in the clear morning light and fresh air. At first hesitant, she smilingly let me observe — and photograph her playing. […]
By RUSSELL My take on the image’s specialness, was that its improbable gumdrop perfection was reached almost purely by subtraction, by noticing and excluding, rather than by adding. No decorations or lighting or models or special retouching or the photographer’s personality or wishes were injected into the scene. The subject was going about her day […]
In case you haven’t seen it yet, Ansel Adams — A Documentary Film (2002) by PBS on the life of Ansel Adams is as good as it gets. Watch it. Take your time for this 83-minute documentary. But what I want to draw your attention to is the part starting at the 1:06:07 timemark — […]
