Pro Techniques

Mobile, Alabama-based photographer Laura Cantrell says, “Mothers trust me to capture and preserve the magic in childhood.” Her photography business in Mobile was inherited from her father who sent his 17-year-old daughter on her first assignment to photograph a train wreck with a 4x5 Speed Graphic. By assisting her dad at weddings and shooting portraits she learned lighting, posing, and how to please clients.

If life is a series of experiences, then travel/documentary photographer Robert Leon is indeed living a very full and interesting one. As a young boy, Leon was mesmerized by the world depicted in his parents' National Geographic and LIFE magazines. "I would dream of going to these places and was fascinated by the different cultures," he says. Eventually, after...

Vincent van Gogh once said, “Stars are the souls of dead poets, but to become a star you have to die.” Vivian Maier (1926 - 2009) was an amateur photographer who had no desire to share her work with anyone during her life, and kept a treasure trove of over 100,000 prints, negatives, and films in five storage lockers in Chicago. By several twists of fate, they ended up in the hands of a few collectors who recognized their unique quality, and are now shown in books, documentaries, museums, and galleries throughout the world.

The idea for Phil Pantano’s photographic series, “The American Worker,” walked into his office at a local steel mill in Lackawanna, New York, where Pantano holds a day job as a computer analyst. The man who came through the door was Jay “Elvis” Borzillieri, a fourth-generation steelworker whose father died in the mill. It doesn’t matter to the story what Elvis stopped in for that day, but when Pantano looked into his face a flash went off in his mind.

I love fancy photography equipment as much as the next guy, but there are times when I like to put away all of the expensive cameras, lighting gear, and softboxes and try and shoot with some basic gear.

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For years we've been asking professional photographers a variation of the same question: what does it take to be a pro? We may ask, "What's the secret of your success?" (as if it were a secret); or, simply, "What is it that...

It's an old antique store--okay, you can call it a junk shop--by the side of the road in Delaware, and photographer Tony Sweet drives by a lot on his way to the coast from his home in Baltimore. And it's a great place to take pictures simply because it...