Picture This

While the Picture This! topic this month, "Spring Has Sprung," might seem seasonally inappropriate, the assignment was made during the height of the season so we'd get fresh, new images and not have readers sorting through their files from last year. The result was a profusion of amazing images ranging from florals to landscapes to a good deal of wildlife...

The power of suggestion is very strong in forming our perceptions. Think alligator, for example, even in a big northern city, and soon you might begin to see forms and objects that bring that reptile to mind. Our Picture This! assignment this month was just that--seeing the forms of letters of the alphabet in everyday objects and scenes. Readers responded with images that...

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...

Telephoto lenses are great for bringing distant objects closer and giving you "tunnel vision" that isolates parts of your personal field of view. They also have an added benefit, a visual trick most commonly called the "stacking effect," where a series of subjects each distant from one another are brought in much closer visual contact. This compression of...

Our Picture This! assignment this month was “Trees,” and readers responded with an amazing variety of those marvelous life forms from all points of the globe. It’s clear that trees remain a fascinating subject for photographers in their form, the way they catch light, and in how they adapt to the often harsh and many times beautiful places in which they exist. The photographs...

Picture This! - Our Next Assignment

Color In Black And White
There's something about a monochrome scene made on color film...

Our Picture This! assignment for this month was Water's Edge. Interesting photographs often result from considering the edge, whether that be the edge of an idea, a territory, light and dark, or, our assignment, where land meets water. The potential for reflection, contrast, mirroring, and interplay of weather systems all come into play. Readers sent in pictures from...