Archive for Interview

How to hand-colour your photos

I recently had a conversation with Bob Keefer - a talented photographer who has decided to hang on to some traditional techniques in a world which is accelerating at full speed toward better, faster, stronger... His party trick is impressive: Take a black-and-white photograph, and colour them. By hand. Creating gorgeous, real-yet-unreal photo-based art which redefines how you'll think about photography and digital retouching? Obviously, I had to catch up with Bob to see what, how - and perhaps, most importantly - why...

Read all of How to hand-colour your photos (12 comments so far)

7 weird and wonderful photo collections

You know what the best thing is about photography? It's not capturing slices of the world for all eternity, freezing your fingers off trying to get that perfect landscape portrait for which you have to get up at 3am and walk two hours to the top of a mountain, or even the hours and hours of discussions you'll have with fellow photographers over whether Canon or Nikon wears the crown of bestest camera of all time ever. To me, one of the most fascinating things about photos is that there are absolutely no rules. There are two hard limits on photography: Your fantasy, and the laws of physics - beyond that, you're free to do whatever you want to do. We can't do much about the laws of physics (although, with the recent spate of ISO 100,000 cameras, both Canon and Nikon are giving it their best shot), but there are lots of interesting ways you can try to give your creativity a boost.

Read all of 7 weird and wonderful photo collections (10 comments so far)

Get a photo critique!

I have been doing Photo Critiques on this blog in the past, but it's starting to dawn on me that perhaps a blog isn't quite the right way of doing these, so instead I'd like to start doing them on Flickr. If you would like me to critique your photographs, here's how to get on the list...

Read all of Get a photo critique! (147 comments so far)

The man behind the blog.

The other day, I received an e-mail Stephan D, one of my readers, with a load of questions about me and my photography career. I occasionally get questions about who I am and why I run Photocritic, so I figured that I might just do a post about the man behind the blog, as it were. What photographer(s) inspires you to create images? There are a lot of photographers out there who really do it for me. I'm particularly fond of Philip of Lithium Picnic fame, and Ilyssa (isky on dA) also has a beautiful portfolio of photos. I love collecting my fave photos on Flickr (as you can see in the side-bar of this post). To be honest, I take inspiration from lots of different photographers. The 'best of' or 'most popular' images on Flickr and DeviantArt are always a good place to star the flow of creative juices. Of course, Earthshots is also a great starting point...

Read all of The man behind the blog. (9 comments so far)

Taking fantastic photos with an iPhone

Back when I was doing my Top 100 amazing iPhone photographs, a few photographers' names kept returning again and again - one of them was the amazing Sion Fullana, whose Flickr photography stream is full of absolutely fantastic street photography; mostly in New York, all taken by iPhone. After gawping at his photos in incomprehension, I just had to ask him if I could interview him about his technique, and see if I could get some tricks of the trade out of him - luckily, Sion was happy to oblige. So, if you have an iPhone and want to learn how to put its camera to good use, or if you just want to find out how you can take incredibly moving photographs even with inferior equipment, you're in for a proper treat...

Read all of Taking fantastic photos with an iPhone (22 comments so far)

Painting with light

You've probably seen the effect of camera blur (moving your camera, giving a fuzzy, streaky effect), zoom blur (by zooming during an exposure, I have a modest example here), and motion blur (something moving on camera). But what do you reckon would happen if your scene isn't moving, your camera is firmly locked down on a tripod, but your light-source moves? Well, if you can imagine such a thing, you've just imagined the bright art of painting with light. I've spoken to my good friend Brent Pearson who is 'a bit good' at this light painting malarkey, in the same way that Pele is a bit handy with a Football, and Antonio Lucio Vivaldi knew a thing or two about chord progressions.

Read all of Painting with light (16 comments so far)

Peter Yang: A Powerhouse of Portraits

A regular contributor to Rolling Stone, Wired, and ESPN Magazine, young photographer Peter Yang emerged out of the Austin journalism world and hit the ground running full-force with his masterfully lit, intimate portraits of political figures, actors, rock stars and cowboys. Peter chats with PICTURE in his cozy Brooklyn workspace about his roundabout path towards editorial success, and shares some tips on the dos and don’ts of photography.

Read all of Peter Yang: A Powerhouse of Portraits (no comments yet)

From blog to awesome blog

A couple of weeks ago, we did a guide on how to set up your own photo blog (and, of course, how to make Google love your photography site from a few months back). What struck me, however, is that while having a photo blog is a good start - what should you do to take it from a merely funky collection of photos to a fantastic, highly successful blog? I decided to have a chat to my friend John Cassimatis, who runs a very popular, very successful, and a near-award-winning blog over at johncassimatis.com...

Read all of From blog to awesome blog (5 comments so far)

Beyond puppies and rainbows

A few weeks ago, I had an e-mail from a reader, who was eager to show off some of her photographs. I was intrigued by her Flickr nickname, and as it turns out, the lady has some pretty exciting ideas about what a photograph should be. If you're looking for puppies, rainbows and 'moose in sunset' type clichés, you're in the wrong place - but for that very reason, Lisa caught my attention. I asked her if she wouldn't please let me interview her, to find out what you can do as a photographer to break the mould, and develop a unique photography style. Luckily, she was happy to help...

Read all of Beyond puppies and rainbows (3 comments so far)

Photographic treasure-hunt

Combine a good old-fashioned team-based treasure hunt with a photography competition, and you've got a recipe for success, right? Well, that's what I thought too, when I signed up to attend Shoot London, an event based out of the Tate gallery, organised by Shoot Experience, a company who organises these kind of events for public and corporate events. Sadly, it turns out that I'll probably give future Shoot Experience events a miss - to find out why, I spoke to another participant of the event...

Read all of Photographic treasure-hunt (2 comments so far)