Pro Techniques

Henry Hamilton Bennett's photographs have been collected and displayed in some of the most prestigious museums around the world, including the New York Museum of Modern Art, the Center for Creative Photography, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Library of Congress. His original photographs have found their way into many private collections.

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Hospitality photography focuses on hotels, resorts, and casinos but it’s not just about capturing luxury accommodations and lush exterior shots of surrounding vistas and scenery. It’s as much about highlighting comfort, relaxation, and fun. The pictures may include special dishes prepared by gourmet chefs, waiters serving tables, and guests enjoying the ambience and amenities. It’s a smorgasbord of images designed to appeal to a wide range of tastes, albeit presented with an air of sophistication to make any potential guest feel like a prince or princess upon arrival.

When it comes to long lenses and related gear, a new age has dawned. Wildlife, sports, and even landscape photographers can now enjoy the convenience of stabilized lenses to shoot handheld with longer lenses at slower shutter speeds. The result is sharper images overall, especially in low-light situations. Another advantage is that you can easily add extension tubes...

You can sharpen images with precise control in five easy steps, and once you master this technique, you'll never use the Unsharp Mask or Smart Sharpen again. Here's the illustrated tutorial and a couple end-result sample images.

For Jess Findlay, outdoor photography was a natural. Growing up in British Columbia (BC), Canada, surrounded by lush landscapes, enthralling wilderness, and birds of every feather, nature called to him every time he stepped outside, spurred on by family activities that included hiking, mountain biking, and birdwatching. As a young child, he would buy disposable cameras for family outings, and that only whet his appetite for the photographic arts. Before he knew it, he was thoroughly immersed. Nature and photography were on converging paths, meeting at a crossroads that would mark his future forever.

It sometimes seems that there are two kinds of photographers: those who bang their cameras and lenses around mercilessly, and those who baby them. The former see themselves as rough, tough, and macho; the latter are perpetually worried about the slightest risk of damage to their precious cameras.

Neither attitude makes a lot of sense. Yes, you need to be unlucky to damage a...

In the early days of the web, small images were the only practical way to keep pages loading fast on slow dial-up connections.