Whether en masse or standing nobly on their own, trees play a huge environmental and emotional role in all of our lives. The tree, in many parts of the world, is our seasonal barometer. If we are lucky enough to have a tree in our garden, we will know its character and personality and enjo

Growing up in New Jersey, photographer Ben Canales didn’t have a lot of stars to look at. Now, however, he spends many nights out in the cold with his camera pointed towards the horizon, capturing the heavens and the land below them. He shared with us some crucial tips for getting

Oliver Wasow has been working with constructed photographic images for over 20 years in both analog and digital mediums. His manipulated landscape photography has been shown in the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the National Gallery in Washington D.C. in addition to a number of nat

The winners of the 2021 International Landscape Photographer of the Year (ILPOTY) competition have been announced. And there are some incredible photos among the top 238 shots (we’ll explain the number in a second) so let’s dive in.  About the competition The ILPOTY is in its ei

In March 2020, when COVID-19 led to worldwide lockdowns, Michael Kenna had a full calendar of trips and exhibits planned for the months to come. Instead, he found himself stuck at home with nowhere to go. Rather than taking new photos, he went back into his archive to look with fresh eyes

To celebrate Earth Day 2022, we’re revisiting some of our favorite environmental stories and interviews from the PopPhoto archives. Nature is full of interesting and beautiful things. But creating a pristine nature photograph requires a lot more planning and preparation than d

Shooting a photo in front of a clean white background seems like it should be the easiest thing in the world. Then, you actually try it. There are odd shadows everywhere and the background refuses to look even. Then, you blow out the background and get odd fringes on your subject. Or, the

Stephen Carroll, a freelance photographer from Reston, Virginia, specializes in artwork for book covers, with more than 400 (mostly novels) to his credit. They’re not just any book covers, though. His genius lies in creating film noir-like scenes, complete with desperate lovers, soaked T

If you shoot with flashes, then a grid can be a super handy tool for putting your light exactly where you want it in the frame. If you’re a fan of DIY photo sites or The Strobist, then you know that making a grid can be achieved with some simple and extremely cheap materials. This

Portrait photographers live and die by their ability to produce a soft light. Whether created using a softbox, diffuser, umbrella, or window, soft is by far the most common flavor of studio lighting. But it doesn’t have to be. Says Felix Sanchez, a Houston-based portrait and food s

[NOTE: The trailer above is for a Rated R movie with some intense violence.] There are lots of photographers out there who consider themselves “natural light shooters,” referring to the fact that they don’t use flash or other external light sources when making photogra

PAINTERLY For the L.A.-based photographic duo of Cory Johnson and Neil Kremer (kremerjohnson.com) the decision for how to light a location portrait is often a two-part equation. First, they step back and study the light that’s already in t

Germany is famous for precision engineering, so it should come as no surprise to discover photographic projects there that are unusually intricate. “Broken Circle,” below, was created by Heinz-Jörg Wurzbacher and Garry Krätz of Koblenz, Germany, a dynamic duo of paint-with-li

Typically, the first light-shaping tool a learning photographer reaches for is the umbrella. The next logical step is a softbox because it typically offers more directional light and, as a result, more control. While soft boxes are useful and effective in their normal configurations, you

Many of us like to think of photography as an art, separating it as much as possible from the underlying technical elements that actually make all of this stuff work. Of all the complex science that goes into photography, the inverse square law of light is one that’s most often misunders

Photography is all about light. If you’ve got a beautiful golden sunset glow, almost any photo you take will look better than the same scene shot in the harsh midday glare. Most of the times though, the difference between good, flattering light, and finding your subjects’ face covered in

Wildlife drives can get you surprisingly close to scenes like Jon McRay’s image of two foxes fighting in Bombay Hook NWR. Photographed with a Nikon D300 and 80–400mm f/4.5–5.6 VR Nikkor lens; 1/800 sec at f/7.1, ISO 500. It may be the easiest way of getting close to nature: taking a wildl

Ingo Arndt, 42, a wildlife specialist and contributing photographer to the German edition of Geo magazine, spends more than half the year on the road, photographing animals everywhere from Alaska to Antarctica and beyond. He took a few hours recently to share insights with Senior Editor Pe

There is almost no end to possible pattern subjects in nature: a patch of wildflowers, textured or weathered wood, the details of a bird’s feathers, bubbles in ice, or shapes carved in a beach by a retreating tide. They can be found in the smallest of subjects or in the grandest sweep of t

Not so long ago a puff of white smoke from a steam locomotive was a commonplace sight. Sadly, the days of the local whistle stop are long past, but myriad well preserved, antique trains keep railroad history chugging along. An excursion on one of these is a terrific way to step back in tra