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This photographer is using video games to teach photo composition

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Game screenshots are common and popular on social media, and have been a thing ever since streamers started streaming. I’ve never been a big fan of calling “video game photography” photography (they’re still just screenshots), but they can still be a valuable teaching aid when it comes to things like composition and lighting (depending on the game).

And that’s exactly what Texas-based pro car photographer Mir-or-Image has been doing in his new series on YouTube. With as popular as in-game screenshots have become, many games now come with a “photo” mode that allows you to freeze the game and move the camera to get yourself that perfect competition. Mir has been utilising this feature to help teach other photographers.

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Learn these three photography skills and they will pay off forever

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Being a good photographer involves plenty of skills. Some of them are simple to learn, like your camera menu and settings. But the others involve lifelong learning and improving. In this video, Nigel Danson talks about three of these skills that every photographer should learn and develop with time. These are not only skills that, once learned, will serve you well forever. They also can be developed and expanded forever, and that’s what makes photography extra beautiful and rewarding.

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What are NFTs and can photographers really benefit from them?

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An NFT is a Non-Fungible Token. The token refers to a digital token or certificate that is stored on a secure distributed database referred to as the blockchain. NFTs are therefore unique digital assets that can be bought and sold, with every transaction being permanently recorded in the blockchain.

One way to think about NFTs is that they are like a certificate of authenticity that is permanently embedded into a database, along with any future transactions that transfer ownership. You can see who minted the NFT, who bought it and so on, in perpetuity. NFTs are a new technology, and we are only seeing a small portion of their likely future potential.

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Watch and learn how to photograph snowflakes at home

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With big chunks of the world seeing snow right now, and not being able to get out much, it’s a great time to learn how to photograph snowflakes! This video from Jens at Another Perspective walks us through the process, which you can do with even an entry-level camera. You will also need either a macro lens or some extension tubes, too. And a close-up filter like the Raynox DCR-250 shown in the video might help, too.

The trick to figuring out how much magnification you need, which you can do by understanding how big snowflakes are and the magnification factor of your lens and overall camera setup, which Jens explains how to do in the video – and one of the things I like about it. Jens actually goes through the problems and how to tackle them.

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Can you get the perfect score on this photography quiz?

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Being a photographer packs a whole lot of knowledge. You need to know your gear, composition, lighting, and a bunch of rules that you should follow (and then break). Not to mention photo editing programs, color theory, and some theory and history. But that’s why we love photography, right – there’s always something to learn and explore.

If you want to check your knowledge, we have a quiz for you. It lets you test yourself and see how much you know your theory, your cameras and lenses, your lighting, and even a little bit of history. So, take a look, test your knowledge, and most importantly: have fun!

BTW, the questions change each time you take the quiz, so you can take it multiple times.

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Rant: Stop asking dumb questions – that’s not what photography’s about

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Being a photographer is not something that you do, it’s something that you are.

I get emailed a lot by people about equipment, settings, photoshop editing and all manner of ‘technical stuff’. I also get asked a lot about what my top advice is for taking better pictures and the answer is not in a plugin or a shiny new camera…

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Five creative ways to use smoke bombs in your photo and video shoots

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Smoke bombs are an ever-popular addition to photo and video shoots. Whether you’re trying to create something spooky and creepy or simply trying to make a boring environment a little more interesting they can add a lot of visual impact into your shots.

In this video, Pye Jirsa at SLR Lounge shows us five creative ways we can use smoke bombs in our sessions. But as well as just the creative side of things, Pye also talks about the safety considerations and how we can use them to keep ourselves, our subjects and our environments injury-free.

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Is photography going cameraless? Shutterstock buys CG market Turbosquid for $75,000,000

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It’s been said for years that CG is coming to take away jobs from photographers and in some respects, that may be true. We know that companies like Ikea use almost exclusively CG imagery in their catalogues now instead of actual photographs of the products. But this is nothing new. Back in 2014, 75% of their “photography” was CG.

With many photographers around the world unable to work in 2020, though, CG imagery has seen a fairly solid uptick, which would probably go a large way to explaining why stock photography company, Shutterstock has purchased Turbosquid, the world’s largest 3D model marketplace, for a whopping $75,000,000.

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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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Watch: Video explains what lens diffraction is and why photographers should even care

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Diffraction is a topic that pops up regularly in photography and filmmaking. “Oh, you don’t want to stop your lens down all the way, you’ll get diffraction!”. But what is diffraction, how does it affect your shot, can anything be done about it and should you really even care?

Macro photography expert Don Komarechka has just put out a great video for DPReview TV going into quite some depth to explain the cause of diffraction – in a very easy-to-digest way with lots of practical demonstrations – and why it makes your images softer the more you stop down your aperture.

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