Happy New Year and welcome to 2010!
Before we look forward to 2010, it is nice to look back at the last. Here, we present our Top 10 Articles of 2009. These articles represent the ones that best embodies our goal to illustrate how to make great photographs rather than simply take a picture.
Click on the headline to go to the article and on the photo to see an enlarged image. Without further ado...
# 10 - Blog: Interview with Joanna B. Pinneo - Photographer
Read this wonderful interview with Joanna B. Pinneo and learn about her experiences as a world-class photojournalist and her transition to wedding photography. She talks about her favorite assignments and influences as well as provides insights for young photographers to breakthru and get noticed.
#9 - Lessons from the Scene: Top Five Food Photography Tips for Your Thanksgiving Holiday
Wriiten in time for our Thansgiving holiday and equally appropriate for your News Years dinner celebration. This article is full of tips on how to take mouthwatering food photographs. There are five major tips and tons of smaller ideas under each one. Follow these tips and your viewers will definitely say, "Boy, I am getting hungry!". Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/xybermatthew/ .
#8 - Gauntlet: Elegant Flashlighting
You really know that you are into photography when you look at a photograph and ask, "How did they do that?" This article explores the manipulation of light to make an unique creative lighting effect. Once again, food is the subject, but it is application to many kinds of photography.
#7 - Blog: What’s Your Lens’ Personality?
Photographers just love equipment, particularly lenses. This article - just in time for the start of Christmas shopping season - talked about three go-to lens in our bag. However, instead of specifications, we talked about the personality of each lens and how it shapes what we are trying to accomplish with it. Lens are much more than the sum of their focal lengths.
#6 - Gauntlet: The Universal Language
As photographers, we capture moments in time - moments that exist but for a fraction of a second. Without words, we must communicate a story to the viewer using body language and universal themes that resonate. This article further explores these concepts.
#5 - Scenes of Summer Contest Winners
During the summer, we ran a very successful contest, "Scenes of Summer". Entrants needed to submit a mini-portfolio of three photos that illustrated that specific theme. We were very surprised and pleased with the quality of the entries. The judging was very difficult and our top three places and five honorable mentions can be seen here.
#4 - Gauntlet: Waiting for Gold
Ahh, sports photography. If you think the competition is on the field of play, you should see what it is like between the sports photographers. It gets exponentially harder when the venue is the Beijing Olympics and you are photographing Michael Phelps and the US Mens OIympic Swim Team. Read about it here.
#3 - Gauntlet: Hunting for Al-Qaeda
Of course, at the Beijing Olympics, your career may be at risk, but, when you are embedded with troops in the early days of the war in Iraq, you have a little more at stake. Follow on with the story of Sherrlyn Borkgren who took some amazing photographs with the U.S. Assault Team of the 91st Combat Engineers. War coverage tests your photography skills with unique challenges and tests your will to get the decisive moment while maintaining your self-perservation.
#2 - Gauntlet: Being There and Being Ready
Sometimes the extraordinary shot requires planning and preparation. Sometimes that preparation is years in the making and requires the sacrifice of equipment in the process. Learn how photographer Kat Wade was able to capture some amazing underwater photographs of swimmers in the Ironman Triathlon and how this is only one in a set of incredible photographs taken under extreme conditions.
And Finally #1 - Gauntlet: Lost Boys of Kenya
Kristen Nicole Sayere works with international non-profits in Africa and delivers photographs that truly move the soul. They can emotionally engage the viewer into the lives of misfortunate individuals thousands of miles away on the other side of the planet. This article details one of her more lifechanging adventures in Kenya. Sometimes the process of making the photograph changes you forever.
