Photographing star trails can be challenging but also rewarding. If you’ve never tried it, these tips will help you get started. Choosing the Place and Time To make a striking photograph of the stars, there are a few requirements when it comes to choosing the right place and time. You must b

PREFACE: In 2000, as a millennium project, my good friend and noted landscape photographer Daryl Benson, and I joined forces and produced a book called “A Guide to Photographing the Canadian Landscape.”  In this tome we presented our favourite places to photograph across Canada, how

Introduction This tutorial has been transcribed from the SLR Lounge Lightroom 4 Workshop on DVD, a 14 hour Lightroom 4 A – Z guide with over 130 tutorials for mastering Lightroom from start to finish. The Digital download can be purchased from SLR Lounge while the physical copy is available th

One of my favourite things to do when I travel is to go on a quest to find a body of water that has a reflection of a landmark. Photographing a reflection creates a unique image of an often photographed subject by adding interest and depth to your photograph. The next time you travel add these to yo

A Guest Post by Rebecca Lily A trend commonly has two definitions. The first is a “fashion, style or vogue”. In photography, we see certain cyclical trends that are alike to the fashion industry, for example. What was stylish 25 years ago becomes chic again at some point, a retro revival

HDR is a bit of a buzz word in photography in the last while and there is much debate about it, whether it’s good or bad, appropriate or not, or even real photography or not.  Even right here on Digital Photography School, you can find articles for, and against, doing HDR.   I’

This is Part 3 of a 3-part series on creative color effects in Lightroom. In this article I will explain how to use the Tone Curve tool for creative color effects. Tokyo Street Scene Color Settings In Part 1 of this series I covered white balance. I discussed split toning in Part 2, as well as how t

Read earlier posts in this series at “Learning to See – For Beginners” and “Learning to See Part 2“. The Hues and Use of Colour, Part II Colour is a means of expressing light. – Henri Matisse In the first installment of the “Hues and Use of Colour” we

Understanding Lenses: Part I, and is the third in a series of lessons about camera lenses. Links to the others are at the bottom of the article. No lens is perfect. No matter how good the quality, there will be lens aberrations of one kind or another. It’s just that on a good quality lens the

Understanding Lenses: Part I, and is the third in a series of lessons about camera lenses. Links to the others are at the bottom of the article. If direct sunlight (or light from another source such as a street lamp) hits the front element of your lens, you will almost certainly get flare. There ar

HDR, or High Dynamic Range, photography has become something of a pariah in many photographic circles. Some photographers continue to use HDR to great effect; some continue to (according to some) heavily overuse it; and still others roundly criticize any and all who use HDR as individuals who are r

Click on the above image for a 1200 pixel wide version. I had a number of requests to explain how I shot and edited this image and I thought it might be helpful to the DPS audience at large to explain it here. When I first started in photography 20+ years ago, I was often baffled by the results som

A Guest Post by Adi Chiru Although I never focused exclusively on making money out of photography I am still affected by this idea that many people have that photography has become easy and photographers, in general, are not really needed anymore. It sounds stupid, I know, and, I probably shouldn&rs

A Guest Post by Alice Laidlaw No matter what their skill level, most photographers do everything they can to avoid cheesy, awkward and generic couples portraits. But there are a few creative elements to think about while you’re at the location and also when editing your images that will make t

A Guest Post by Alex Smith On the wonderful journey through the world of photography many of us have points where we stop to smell the roses for a bit. Maybe we change from shooting landscapes to portraits or delve into the miraculous details of the macro world. Either way, after a shoot we are inev

Discover The Value Of Your Own Mind For Better Composition in Photography Can you accurately picture your own face without looking in a mirror? How about remembering a loved one? Do photographs show us the same pictures we hold dearly in our mind? Can they even do so at all? These questions are rhe

A Guest Post by Jason Weddington (1/200 sec @ f/8 ISO 100, 5d mkIII, ef 100mm f/2) It’s possible to produce quality studio portraits without a purpose-built studio or expensive lighting equipment. I captured the above image using two hotshoe flashes, a medium-sized portable softbox, and a whi

HDR. Oh that word. A word that is either famous or infamous, taboo or revered depending on what circle you are a part of or stumble onto. HDR has been through a lot in the past few years no doubt and one thing I’ve noticed is that every photographer seems to go through nearly the exa

A Guest Post by Roger Overall You’ll have to trust me on this one. This photograph was taken on a kitchen floor. On a very wet winter’s day. After the sun had set. No really. Let me show you. The Challenge A friend of mine in London runs a catering business. She needed some publicity pi

Hands up guilty ones! Who here gets itchy feet after about 2 months and needs to travel? Worse still, do you need to have a holiday reserved as if you are trapped without this planned escape? My hand is most definitely reaching for the skies but I did just get back from Italy. I travel a lot. In th