Category: Technique & Workflow

WATCH: Two-Time Pulitzer Prize Winner Essdras M. Suarez Shares What Makes a Great Photo - PhotoShelter Blog

In the photo industry, portfolio reviews are a great opportunity to receive objective feedback about your work. Oftentimes a mentor will offer to look through your photos and provide actionable advice about editing your images. For two-time Pulitzer Prize

We sat down with Essdras to walk through your anonymous photo submissions. In this virtual portfolio review, Essdras discusses the key elements of composition, what needs adjustment and why it’s important to give yourself the assignment you want somebody else to give you.

New Guide! The Photographer’s Guide to SEO - PhotoShelter Blog

Search engines are a vital source of traffic and bring much-needed exposure for photographers. And just like camera gear or photo tech, they’re always evolving. So how do you keep up with algorithms that are constantly getting smarter? What steps can you

Today, we’re thrilled to answer some of these questions and help improve your search performance with The Photographer’s Guide to SEO.

Shooting College Football on 35mm Film

I'm sitting in the end zone and Tennessee's quarterback is ready to throw for a touchdown against Missouri. There are only three frames left on my roll of

I’m sitting in the end zone and Tennessee’s quarterback is ready to throw for a touchdown against Missouri. There are only three frames left on my roll of film and I think to myself, “That’s more than enough.”

An Introduction to NAS for Photo & Video Production

Editorial Note: While we’re most notably known for our passion in gear, we also share the same passion in keeping your data safe. So in order to help our users develop a secure workflow for their data, we’ve teamed up with Backblaze on a series of article

Quick Tip: How to Keep Your Image Files Readable Far into the Future | PDNPulse

Steps for increasing the chances that machines and software of the future will be able to read your digital images files.

Computer and data specialists warn that digital information we are creating right now may not be readable by machines and software programs of the future. As we explained in our story called “Four Steps You Can Take to Avoid the ‘Digital Dark Age,’” digital data that’s so easy to access now—including the digital image files of photographers—is at risk of disappearing forever. Hard drives will hardly last a decade, let alone a lifetime. Flash memory may eek out a few more years but may not endure a generation (if that).

Corruption In Photography - by BP Miller - The Photo Brigade

Photographer BP Miller discusses the worst kind of corruption for photographers.

After polling our other photographers, I found out only about half of them shoot to two cards. So that got me thinking. I did an informal poll of some of my photojournalist buds. The answers went anywhere from “It slows down my shooting” to “I’ve never had a card corrupt, so why mess with it” to “who are you, and how did you get my number?”

3-2-1 Backup Best Practices using Cloud Archiving

Editorial Note: While we're most notably known for our passion in gear, we also share the same passion in keeping your data safe. So in order to help our users develop a secure workflow for their data, we've teamed up with Backblaze on a series of article

Whether you’re a hobbyist or a professional photographer or videographer, employing a 3-2-1 backup strategy for your valuable photos and videos is critical. A good backup strategy can protect you from accidental or incidental data loss and make sure your working or archived files are available when you need them.

The Moving Portrait: From Holograms to GIFs to Boomerang - PhotoShelter Blog

Although video dominates much of the media landscape, the simplicity of the photograph perseveres. Ironically, throughout much of the history of photography, photographers (along with editors, designers, and publishers) have continually explored limited m

The lack of a screen hasn’t prevented publishers from trying to simulate movement in print. Two major technologies have been utilized to create the moving portrait: holograms and lenticular printing.

Websites are shop windows, not vanity projects!

How to set up a personal photography website

Let’s first be clear about what your website is. In essence, your website is your shop window. Every time a visitor clicks on a tab within your menu, they are visiting different departments of your store. Using this retail metaphor may seem blatantly commercial to some of you reading this. If you feel that this is the case, may I suggest that you replace the shop with that of a gallery or bookshop? Whichever you choose to use, the metaphor remains the same: you want to lead visitors through a series of physical or digital spaces so they can find what they want to see as easily as possible. Minimal clicks help this progress, but so does accurate and appropriate signage that can be universally understood.

The WIRED Guide to Digital Security

In an age of nonstop breaches and hacks, here are ways to improve your online security based on your level of risk, from average user to NSA contractor.

IN AN AGE of nonstop breaches and hacks, getting a handle on your own digital security matters more than ever. But everyone has their own threat model—a set of concerns unique to themselves. The average smartphone user doesn’t need to know what a Faraday cage is; an NSA contractor probably already has a good grasp of security basics. (Or … do they?) In this guide, we’ve included a few ways to improve your online security posture based on those different levels of risk. These won’t prevent the next megabreach or banish ransomware from the earth. They’re not all-encompassing. But they’ll help get you in the mindset of the types of steps you should be taking based on your particular situation. And they’ll help ensure that the next time you read one of those paralyzing headlines, it doesn’t apply to you.

Trump's Official Portrait and the Language of Lighting

Nine months after taking office, the White House has finally released official portraits of both President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

As a photographer and veteran involved in policy work, I am interested in both the messaging and methodology of Trump’s two official portraits. As a baseline I will compare Trump’s two portraits against a more standard portrait seen with Vice President Pence’s and Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy’s portrait.

Innovative solution providers tackle the ever-growing headaches of photo management and storage - Kaptur

Consumers have no idea which of their photos are stored where, for how long, at what resolution, and what would happen if their house was indeed destroyed, or their phone stolen.

It’s a given: we are all overwhelmed by the sheer number of photos we take, or that are being shared with us. With some of these, it’s no big deal if you accidentally missed viewing them, or if you can’t locate them again after you’ve first enjoyed them. With others, it does matter: According to our recent survey, 58% of photos on average are considered to be “long life” keepers.

20,000 slides returned from Sports Illustrated – Mangin Photography Archive

Next up I had to find a place to scan my stuff. I knew prices had come down since I last had slides scanned, but of course I don’t trust just anyone with my originals and I don’t want to send my stuff out of the country. Luckily through my friends at PhotoShelter I found the fabulous Julie Morris, who is the president of FotoBridge in New Jersey. These people would be an ideal place for me and many other friends to work with if they did a good job. I called Julie and immediately knew that she “got it” and understood the industry and what people like me needed. She told me they had scanned 250,000 slides for NHL Images, scanned 40,000 slides and negatives for the Kansas City Chiefs, and 25,000 slides and negatives for the Minnesota Vikings, to name just a few of their big sports clients. I told her I needed pro scans at 4,000 DPI to give me 50 megabyte TIFF files and she told me they would cost under a dollar apiece. I could not believe it! I decided to give them a try and see what happened. Two weeks later and I could not be happier with the scans I got back from FotoBridge.

Photo storage 4.0 – it's deduplication, stupid! - Kaptur

When deciding what to do with all their smartphone photos, consumers decide with their heart more than their wallet. Although, with the right features...

Today, I’d like to share the findings that relate to how and why consumers store their smartphone photos on cloud services or home storage devices, as well as what features they most value in photo organizing apps or services.