Inspiration

In 1984, during the height of the Soviet-Afghan war, American photojournalist Steve McCurry took what is considered by many to be the most famous photo in the world. The photo, entitled Afghan Girl, depicts a then-12-year-old girl, identified in 2002 as Sharbat Gula, while she and her family were living in Nasir Bagh, an Afghan refugee camp in the Pakistani city of Peshawar.

As someone who earns a living from digital media and keeping plugged into the photographic and videographic industries, it’s only natural that I spend a lot of time cruising around on the information superhighway and frequently interacting with people all over the world on the subject of cameras and the field writ large.

When I was a freshman in high school, I signed up for a film photography class thinking it would be a good excuse to spend a good part of the school week and some homework time getting to goof around with a camera.

When I was in college at the University of Minnesota, one of my senior-year classes at the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication involved putting together a website using Wix, to hopefully allow us to showcase some of the things we had worked on during our academic careers and set us up for a (hopefully) easier time finding work afterward.

Back in the day, 35mm film was called “miniature” format; its itty bitty negatives were considered only good for snapshots and maybe street photography (sorry, Leica shooter Henri Cartier-Bresson). Serious photography—landscape, portraiture, documentary, commercial—was dominated by medium format film, a platform that produced images with fine detail and luscious tonality, even when blown up to make billboard-size prints.

When Machi Yoshida visited an aquarium and saw orcas when she was a five-year-old child, the Japanese photographer instantly knew what she wanted to do with her life.

I don’t know about you, but even though I’ve been photographing for almost fifteen years now, sometimes I feel stuck when deciding which editing direction to take with some of my images.

The Mobile Photography Awards (MPA) announced the winners of its 13th annual competition Wednesday, giving out thousands of dollars in cash prizes.

My Exmouth eclipse expedition could be a case study on the 'sunk cost fallacy' or proof that even blind persistence can pay off. Either way, it is a saga.

Dune: Part II was recently released in theaters, garnering positive reviews from movie-goers and reviewers alike. Over at Kolari, we were hyped to see infrared photography used in one of its most visually stunning movie sequences in recent memory.

Twenty years ago, I was just starting to make some headway as a film-shooting stock photographer. It was a fun time, but the digital age soon dawned. I shot JPEGs on maybe my first day out with a digital camera, and then I was onto RAW.

At a recent electronic music performance, the English duo Rob Brown and Sean Booth, who perform as Autechre, plunged Sydney’s City Recital Hall into darkness.

The early days of photography were built on monochromatic imagery. Many of the greats who created what we now know as the art of photography worked primarily with black-and-white film.

In my dream I’m standing on the rim of a deep, verdant canyon. Far below, a river glinting crimson and gold in the setting sun snakes toward jagged mountains dusted with snow. My camera’s viewfinder perfectly frames this epic vista in the wilds of northern New Mexico.

A fascinating short documentary about a photographer who shoots the Golden Gate Bridge every single day has been published by The San Francisco Standard.