Photo How To

COOPH (The Cooperative of Photography) recently partnered with photographer Ray Demski to create a video that highlights 14 smart and practical travel photo tips and tricks. The video, which is embedded below, was shot in beautiful Venice, Italy and features tips to make your photo adventure much easier, safer and more fun.

This is one of my favorite topics: photographers doing good works by donating photography services to charities and other nonprofit organizations. In this column, I’ll look at how to make a living while making a difference. For starters, donating your photography to a good cause will help you develop business skills. It will also give you access to people and places for portfolio development and allow you to meet an amazing network of new friends. Organizations you can donate your photography to range from local to global and cover a variety of issues from healthcare and education to shelter animals. Sincere thanks to our contributors for their work: Luke Copping, Tim Courtney, Cathy Greenblat, and Isaac Howard (websites at end of column).

I saw you in the high school gym last night, clicking away with your DSLR and long telephoto zoom. You weren’t obnoxious like the lady behind you who kept firing her point-and-shoot—with flash—from fifty feet away, or the couple who held their cell phones high above their heads (they were either shooting video, playing 3D Candy Crush or signaling their alien Mother Ship, I couldn’t tell which). But I felt sorry for you, because I could tell that your photos would turn out crappy. 

You don’t need three magic wishes to make your Mac or PC more digital photography-friendly. Here are five ways anyone can upgrade their computer to improve the speed and efficiency of Photoshop, expand storage space for all those Raw image files, add room for unlimited back-ups of your photo archive and make the whole shebang more secure—without touching a screwdriver.

When the rain stopped, Shawn Clover was on the pedestrian bridge over the street at the Embarcadero Center in San Francisco, waiting for someone interesting to come by. He ended up photographing 14 interesting people, one frame for each. This is the image he chose to post to Flickr.

A unique way to create complex geometric, multicolored designs is to attach tiny Christmas tree lights to a bicycle wheel and spin it in a dark room or outside at night. I found 7 ft of Christmas lights powered by 3 AA batteries online for about $12, and that was just enough to cover the entire circumference of the front wheel of my son’s medium sized bike. I took the wheel off the bike with a simple crescent wrench and used black electrician’s tape to affix the lights and the wires onto the rim, figure A.

Pets are beloved members of the family and increasing numbers of pet parents (as well as shelters and rescue organizations) want good quality portraits of these funny, furry “kids." Brooklyn-based photographer Brooke Jacobs is answering that call by creating beautiful portraits that expertly capture the unique personality of her client’s pets.