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Create your own photograph lighting with flashes and strobes. Learn about portable flash units for your camera in this free instructional video for beginning photographers.

A basic guide to camera exposure.

Citizenside: is there a future for citizen photojournalism? Posted by Emma Heald on February 18, 2009 at 10:20 AM Following Getty Images' decision to close its citizen journalism arm Scoopt, the venture's founder Kyle MacRae explained in an interview why "the dedicated cit-j agency model isn't the way forward." His reasoning was that even though many members of the public may well be on a breaking news scene with a camera, it is extremely unlikely that they will be a member of a citizen photojournalism organisation. But has Citizenside, a small, young company based in Paris, found a solution? The Editors Weblog spoke to co-founder Matthieu Stefani and editor-in-chief Aurélien Viers about Citizenside's work and the way they see the future of citizen photojournalism.

posted by Nelly Akhmetova

Following Getty Images' decision to close its citizen journalism arm Scoopt, the venture's founder Kyle MacRae explained in an interview why "the dedicated cit-j agency model isn't the way forward." His reasoning was that even though many members of the public may well be on a breaking news scene with a camera, it is extremely unlikely that they will be a member of a citizen photojournalism organisation.

What I guess goes through my mind when I'm taking a picture is I'm thinking wordlessly about how all these elements relate to each other and I'm thinking again wordlessly about finding a balance that I look for a point that seems central to the picture and when I find that point that tells me where to stand and where exactly to aim the camera. - Stephen Shore

"Those of us who purchased an iPad or who have read reviews know that it does not include a camera, but for professional photographers and serious shutterbugs it's what the iPad can do for your photography that counts. Even before I purchased the iPad, I knew the device would automatically replace my laptop as my photo portfolio. So here are some ways I'm thinking we photographers can use the iPad."

Shooting Pictures in Public Places Is Legal Popular Mechanics, of all publications, offers a rational guide to when and where it's legal to take photographs and video. It's a timely topic, in light of BP's attempts to get local law enforcement agencies to scare away photojournalists, and video shooters who have had their equipment confiscated by cops who didn't want cameras pointing at them. (See our recent blog post on this topic: "Journalists vs. Law Enforcement.") University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds' (pictured) conclusion serves as the title of his essay: "Taking Photos in Public Places Is Not a Crime."

In the vanguard of the Marines, the press corps had already stormed Somailia. Now we will see more of the famailiar pictures of grotesque human degradation, with foreign angels of mercy ministering to starving children, juxtaposed with images of trigger-happy teen-age looters. Such pictures prompted President Bush's military adventure-now they will justify it. The camera can't lie, we are told. But anyone who has watched a Western film crew in an African famine will know just how much effort it takes to compose the "right" image. Photogenic starving children are hard to find, even in Somalia. Somali doctors and nurses have expressed shock at the conduct of film crews in hospitals. They rush through crowded corridors, leaping over stretchers, dashing to film the agony before it passes. They hold bedside vigils to record the moment of death. When the Italian actress Sophia Loren visited Somalia, the paparazzi trampled on children as they scrambled to film her feeding a little girl-three times. This is disaster pornography.

Have you ever seen one of those photos where there's a starving child with distended belly, looking forlornly up at a camera, asking you to save them? On the TV news, in magazines, and occasionally on advertising for charities. Playing on our fears and sympathy, they try to push a giant button on our forehead labeled "GUILT." These images make me angry. They make me angry because that's just not what extreme poverty is really about. Yes, it's real - people really do live in such challenging circumstances, but when it's the only image we see, it sends all the wrong messages. It's poverty porn - gratuitous and explicit images that strip away people's identity and personality, making them out to be little more than meat. It makes out that people in extreme poverty aren't willing or able to do things for themselves. It makes out that people in extreme poverty are victims, that they need us to save them. And, without really even thinking about it, it reinforces the idea that people in extreme poverty are somehow less than us - less valuable, less capable, less intelligent … and less human.

"Courts have long ruled that the First Amendment protects the right of citizens to take photographs in public places. Even after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, law enforcement agencies have reiterated that right in official policies. But in practice, those rules don't always filter down to police officers and security guards who continue to restrict photographers, often citing authority they don't have. Almost nine years after the terrorist attacks, which ratcheted up security at government properties and transportation hubs, anyone photographing federal buildings, bridges, trains or airports runs the risk of being seen as a potential terrorist. (Can an entire downtown be declared a no-photo zone?) Reliable statistics on detentions and arrests of photographers are hard to come by, but photographers, their advocates and even police agree that confrontations still occur frequently. Photographers had run-ins with police before the 2001 attacks, but constitutional lawyers say the combination of heightened security concerns and the spread of digital cameras has made such incidents more common. "

This a guest post by Ken Jarecke, a world-renowned photojournalist and founding member of Contact Press Images, an illustrious photo agency based in New York. Please also visit and read his blog, Mostly True. The past few years it's been hard for me to pick up a camera. We all know that the industry, at least the editorial side of it, has been at an all time low. Sure, I've worked to put a good face on it, like in this piece on the New York Times Lens blog, but more often than not, my desire to make wonderful images has been absent. My heart has just not been there.

Long before the first public announcements of photographic processes in 1839, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, a scientifically-minded gentleman living on his country estate near Chalon-sur-Saône, France, began experimenting with photography. Fascinated with the craze for the newly-invented art of lithography which swept over France in 1813, he began his initial experiments by 1816. Unable to draw well, Niépce first placed engravings, made transparent, onto engraving stones or glass plates coated with a light-sensitive varnish of his own composition. These experiments, together with his application of the then-popular optical instrument, the camera obscura, would eventually lead him to the invention of the new medium.

Photo Tampering Throughout History\n\nPhotography lost its innocence many years ago. In as early as the 1860s, photographs were already being manipulated, only a few decades after Niepce created the first photograph in 1814. With the advent of high-resolution digital cameras, powerful personal computers and sophisticated photo-editing software, the manipulation of digital images is becoming more common. Here, I have collected some examples of tampering throughout history.\n\nTo help contend with the implications of this tampering, we have developed a series of tools for detecting traces of tampering in digital images (contact me at Ma'at Consulting for more information about our services).

PSA is a worldwide interactive organization for anyone interested in photography, be they casual, serious amateurs or professional photographers. Individual, Camera Club, Chapter and Council members are offered a wide variety of activities: a monthly magazine, photo and digital competitions, study groups via mail and the internet, how-to programs, an annual conference and a raft of other activities and services. The Photographic Society of America was founded in 1934 to "Promote the Arts and Sciences of Photography and to further public education therein". There are members in all 50 states as well as 60 other countries of the world. PSA Headquarters are located in Oklahoma City, OK.

Digital Photography Resources Some years ago, professional-caliber digital cameras began to match, and then to exceed, the capabilities of standard film for many commercial applications. Today, digital photography has taken a firm hold on the market. Both technical and business problems remain to be solved, however, and this page offers some resources to help you find good solutions. There still are, and may always be, certain market niches where silver-halide film reigns supreme. But for most photographers, as for most publishers and advertisers, the technical challenge is no longer to make digital photography work, but rather to get the most productivity and pizzazz from the medium. The business challenge is to forge a new, industry-wide consensus on cost recovery and financial best practices.

Bruce Gilden (born 1946) is a noted street photographer, known for his work in New York City. While studying sociology at Penn State, he saw Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blowup in 1968. Due to the film's influence, he purchased his first camera as a result, and began taking night classes in photography at the School of Visual Arts of New York. He routinely uses his camera's flash, alerting his subjects to his presence, unlike most street photographers. Fascinated with normal people on the street and the idea of visual spontaneity, Gilden turned to a career in photography.[1] A member of Magnum Photos, he shot images of Japan's Yakuza mobsters, the homeless, prostitutes, and members of bike gangs between 1995 and 2000. According to Gilden, he was fascinated by the duality and double lives of the individuals he photographed.[2] Gilden is also the subject of Misery Loves Company: The Life and Death of Bruce Gilden, a documentary produced in 2007.[3]

Through the Lens of Time: Images of African Americans from the Cook Collection is a digital collection of over 250 images of African Americans dating from the nineteenth and early twentieth century, selected from the George and Huestis Cook Photograph Collection at the Valentine Richmond History Center. The digitally scanned images on this site are of prints from glass plate negatives or film negatives taken by George S. Cook (1819-1902) and Huestes P. Cook (1868-1951), primarily in the Richmond and Central Virginia area. The Cook Collection consists of over 10,000 negatives taken from the 1860s to the 1930s in Virginia and the Carolinas. The lens of a camera can both reflect and refract reality, and it is important to understand that a photograph, like any work of art, can tell us as much about the photographer as the photographed. These photographs of African Americans provide an interesting combination of examples of African American life and the white photographers' perceptions of that life, often at least tinged by stereotypes. While some photographs more obviously represent one or the other, it is an interesting exercise to attempt to determine which photographs were taken in a completely spontaneous manner and which ones were posed or staged by the Cooks. These photographs of African American life in turn-of-the-century Central Virginia are valuable both as conveyers of unique historical information and as examples of the nascent art of photography. Their preservation by the Valentine Richmond History Center and their digitization by VCU allows everyone from historical researchers to school children to access and learn from this fine and rare resource.

Jessica Dimmock dove headlong freakin' into it. There she was, in 2004, all innocent and walkin' around, playing with her fancy new digital camera, still a student... then a chance meeting with the jail bound coke dealer, the door in the floor opened and into the rabbit hole she went. Into the darkness, into the-land-of-broken-childhood-dreams, into the pain, into the dead end, into the heroin-is-god parallel universe. The 9th Floor was waiting for her... and in she jumped. The apartment in NYC, 4 W. 22nd St, the place of the pain, the upside down world of the empty shell living… dead folks walking... it would become a second home of sorts for Jessica. There she was, in the fray. This was amazing for a photographer, right? Insane to have this opportunity of chance, a chance that would turn into a VIP pass to document the drug fueled descent, to document the decay, to have free reign in the world of dashed dreams... to make it, with open arms, to be accepted into this world of the barely living... amazing, wasn't it? Well, I guess that all depends on the way that you look at it… doesn't it. Let's hold our thoughts on that for a bit and let's get back to our story.

Bruce Gilden walks up and down streets, lingers at corners, and waits for his unsuspecting subjects. Then, with camera in one hand and flash in the other, he swoops in for the shot and passersby are caught in his frame. EGG catches up with Bruce Gilden at work and in action in New York City, his home turf.

Defending the Barricade On Feb. 1, 2006, Associated Press photographer Oded Balilty was in the West Bank settlement of Amona when a violent confrontation broke out between Jewish settlers and Israeli security forces. The troops were attempting to enforce a government order to tear down nine houses built on private Palestinian land after Israel's Supreme Court rejected a final appeal by the settlers. Balilty, camera ready, stood about 3 meters from the end of the barricade. Crowds lined up on a wall overlooking the holed-up settlers, while Israeli troops in riot gear advanced. "Nili, a young settler ... was standing 15 meters away, biting her fingernails, when she saw them coming and ran toward the barricade," Balilty said. Said Nili: "I felt a stranger pushing me to defend the barricade. It was God who gave me the courage." Moments after Balilty took the photograph that won him the Pulitzer Prize, Nili was beaten by club-wielding police.