Pro Techniques

Changing lenses on a digital SLR subjects the interior to invasion by dust and other airborne particles. While we can avoid the problem with prudent handling, eventually we'll have to face the facts: dust will get on the sensor. The imaging sensor, whether CCD or CMOS, is a dust magnet. As soon as the camera is turned on the sensor becomes electrostatically charged. Any...

It's impossible to be a serious digital photographer without learning at least a little bit about computers. Some people take to computer technology like kids take to dirt, but many never get beyond e-mail and Photoshop. Don't get me wrong--that's not bad--but when the need to upgrade arises, the folks who are short on computer skills sometimes think...

"None of my sample albums have family formal shots. I intentionally leave them out because they're not what I specialize in."

"A lot of it comes down to your client's expectations before the wedding," Mike Colon says of his relationship to the bride and groom. "You have to talk about what they're really expecting, what...

In the early 1980s, when he was just starting out as a commercial and advertising photographer, Rob Atkins took a few trips to the Southwest. "I went to photograph the great natural wonders," Rob says, "like the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley." But as he traveled to those and other destinations, something else caught his eye. "So often, out in the...

Imagine living on a beautiful island: Look to your left and see the sun rise in the morning; look to your right and see it set each night.

The secret nuances of color on the horizon where the sky meets the sea and the sea meets the shore have drawn photographer Alison Shaw to Martha's Vineyard off the coast of New England, where she has lived and photographed for...

My first macro lens was the popular Nikon 60mm Micro-Nikkor. Good move, I thought, as the 60mm focal length could double as an all-purpose lens for a variety of assignments. Trouble is, when I started to get into more and more 1:1 (life-size) work, I only had 21/2" of working space between the front of the lens and my subject. The 105mm was next, sharp as a tack but again...

As I look over my favorite photographs taken through the years, a common theme intertwines many of them together: serendipity has played a major role in creating those images. Given this, I decided I wanted to be lucky more often (as luck has it, this is actually possible). Recently I read an article about the science behind luck and how luck is not random, but rather something we...