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If you’ve spent any time in New York City, or attended the city’s annual PhotoPlus Expo (coming up next week), there’s a good chance you’ve come across a dapper gentleman shooting instant photos with a 1940’s Speed Graphic camera. In the charming video below, you’ll get an inspirational look at Louis Mendes, one of our favorite photography icons.

In this episode of the Last Frame, Joe Edelman demonstrates how to capture some great fashion photos without a lot of expensive gear. As he explains in the video below, all you need is a single strobe, a 50mm lens, and a couple “gobos” or light modifiers you can easily make yourself.

The Raw vs. JPEG debate seems to be a neverending one. Some photographers say that shooting JPEGs simplifies their workflow and lets them spend more time behind the camera and less time behind the computer.  Raw shooters, on the other hand, insist their approach utilizes unprocessed “digital negatives” straight out of the camera—thereby giving them maximum control and uncompromising results.

The Short Film Showcase features exceptional videos selected by the editors at National Geographic, and this intriguing clip provides a vision of a post-apocalyptic world from miniature diorama artists Lori Nix and Kathleen Gerber (Nix + Gerber).

For decades, soft light has been the bee’s knees for portrait photography. It’s flattering, pleasant to look at, and undistracting.

Combat photography is, to say the least, one of the more challenging assignments anyone can accept. But if you’re both a photographer and a British Army soldier, let’s just say you have your hands full.

I’ve shot thousands of pictures with hundreds of great lenses over the past 40+ years, but these seven have a special place in my heart. That’s because they capture beautiful images that have “the look”—an elusive quality that may be a combination of excellent detail and sharpness plus a natural roundness in their rendition. It’s not bokeh exactly—that refers to smooth transitions and shape retention in the out-of-focus areas of the image—although these lenses all have gorgeous bokeh as well.