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The Dark Room photo project mixes life-size models with 1:6 scale DIY props

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I was listening to my favourite band Sentenced and their album “The Cold White Light”. While listening I started thinking “Should I make images from the songs in my favourite album?”. Well, that was the original plan in February 2020. Now ideas have gone on their way and I have over forty sketches in my sketchbook. I have picked some pieces from other bands too like Queen, Metallica, Mötorhead, Stam1na…

When ideas started to circulate I ended up pretty quickly in the idea that all the images would have the same environment. Some kind of room or a cell with a dark and depressing feel. It was clear from the beginning that images would also have some surreal and dreamlike elements. It is a collection of images of what a dark mind might look like from the inside.

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Check out this toy photographer’s guide to buying action figures

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Toy photography, particularly of humanesque action figures has become a pretty popular topic over the last year or so. With much of the world still in lockdown and the opportunity to photograph real people still but a dream for many of us, they’re the only subjects we can really rely on. But many of us haven’t owned toys or action figures since we were a kid. So, where does one start?

In this video, toy photographer Jared Middleton walks us through his guide to buying action figures that you might want to photograph. Of course, you can photograph whatever you want, but if you want to create some sense of realism and drama, it helps to know what to look for.

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This guy chops up Leica M6 and other cameras to turn them into weird exploded art pieces

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The artwork of Fabien Oefner is going to hit people on this site in one of several ways… The first will be “Wow! That’s freaking awesome!”. The second will be [Insert Ryan Reynolds “But why?” GIF here]. The third will be screams of blasphemy with lots of tears. If there’s another response I’ve not thought of, let me know in the comments.

Once you see Oefner’s work on Instagram, you’ll quickly understand why the potentially polarising reactions. He likes to take things apart, but not in the traditional sense. He doesn’t dismantle them. He casts them in resin and then slices them up. like slivers of an MRI. Then, he sets them in their new permanent form.

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Seven essential life skills I learned from photography

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Along with writing, photography is one of the hobbies that’s been in my life for the longest time. It’s a comprehensive skill on its own, having me learn about composition, light, color theory, and much more. But it has also taught me other skills, those that I can apply in my daily life. So, I bring you seven essential life skills that I learned from photography. I’ve mastered some of them, and I’m still learning the others. But all of them have improved both me as a human and the quality of my life.

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This is why you’re failing as a photographer – But here’s how to fix it

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Even if we’re not told, nobody likes to have the realisation or go through the experience of failing at something. Many of us go through things in life that we’re failing at without even realising it because we just don’t understand what we’re doing wrong and how we could do things differently.

It can be even worse when somebody else points out that we’re failing, as photographer Justin Mott does in this video. But he does offer some fantastic advice on how you can stop continuing to fail and get yourself on the right track to a successful future as a photographer.

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Similarities between photography and cooking food

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There are many similarities between cooking food and photography.

I trained as a chef in a cookery school in France for five years and graduated aged 19 and cook more today than ever before, in fact my food is a lot tastier than my photography. Food is as important in my life as photography is. It’s all about the joy it brings me and others I cook for.

We use photographs as memory aids, they have the power to take us back to any given time in our lives.

Food’s the same. One bite of something I’ve not had for 30 years and transported back to my childhood.

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Check out these unique camera angle ideas to step up your composition

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Composition is a wonderful thing. There are so many ways to compose your shot effectively, and there are all kinds of “rules” out there as to what makes for a good or bad composition. Often you get people spouting off these rules as “the only way to compose a shot!” but they are of course, speaking complete nonsense. There are many ways to frame a shot depending on the story you want to tell, whether it’s with stills or video.

Zach Ramelan leans more towards the video side of composition in this one, offering up a number of unique camera angles, compositions and techniques that aren’t very common. At least, not effectively. But they can be very effective and a great way to tell a story and provide extra narrative and subtext to the shot.

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Underwater photographer makes flowers look like watercolor paintings

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Canadian photographer Barbara Cole turns ordinary into extraordinary using only water, her camera, and imagination. You already met her through her beautiful underwater portraits. In her latest series Appearances, she took flowers and gave them a whole new look, turning them into watercolor-like images.

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Here’s when and why you should quit photography

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Photography as a business is hard work. Really hard work. Ask any successful photographer and they’ll tell you. Even if it looks like they have an easy life now, they’ll tell you they had years of struggle to get where they’re at and they’re still probably doing more work than you, even after attaining a measure of success. If you’re a hobbyist, you can probably ignore this post.

Running a photography business (or any kind of business at all, really) isn’t for everybody, that’s for sure. But when and why should you call it a day and find a “real job”? That’s the question commercial photographer Scott Choucino attempts to answer in this question as he talks about some of his history in photography and how he approaches the work.

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I turned a 610mm World War II spy lens into a 10ft long large format macro camera

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You didn’t ask to learn about bellows extension factors but we’re going to cover it with the most absurd camera that you may ever see!

Built from over two sheets of plywood, scraps of 2x6s, old drywall screws, and the cheapest 610mm lens that I could find on eBay, literally every expense was spared. I would be surprised if I spent more than $200 out of pocket to create this 10′ behemoth.

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