Picture This

Our Picture This! assignment this month was festivals and parades, and we asked readers to submit images from gathering spots and events where people dress up, fly in hot air balloons, and generally experience things that are quite out of the ordinary. We received images from festivals all around the country that delved into all sorts of cultures and holidays, all of which...

During the day cities can be mundane places, with commuters going about their business and trucks jamming streets making their deliveries. But at night cities can come alive with light and activities that speak to a different side of life, one where details fall in the shadows and edges are electrified. Night exposures create new challenges for photographers, ones where camera...

Our Picture This! assignment for this month was "From Above," images made from a vantage point looking down onto a scene. Many times our best pictures come from making the effort to scale heights that allow us to consider the subject from a different point of view, one not ordinarily seen. Readers climbed stairs, looked over the railing of bridges or out windows...

We're seeing red. We received so many great entries for this month's Picture This! assignment that we have red images everywhere--on our desks and picture wall. Clearly red holds a great deal of attraction for photographers, and we received lots of images of nature, painted buildings and signs, uniforms, fire engines, cars, birds, and more. Honing down to our...

Our Picture This! assignment for this month was Keep It Steady--Tripods Only, the idea being that even with modern marvels such as Vibration Reduction lenses there are some shots that can only be made with the help of a steadying tripod. Readers responded with images made at shutter speeds beyond any hand holdable range that depicted motion in ways impossible to see with...

Our Picture This! assignment this month was Secret Beauty, out of the way places you love to photograph. The idea was that there are special places you have come to know that spark something deep in your photographic soul, places that only "locals" might know. It could also be places that you had come upon in your travels when you took a turn off the beaten track.

Saturated Color
Our Picture This! assignment for this month was Saturated Color. While the world is certainly colorful enough, our interpretation of it can be enhanced through the judicious use of additional vividness in the camera through saturation settings and/or, in the case of film, with a high-saturation color slide film such as Fujifilm's...