Pro Techniques

As a newspaper photographer, you never know when you show up in the morning what you're going to be working on--sometimes it's an environmental portrait, other times a feature, or a documentary image that is posed," San Francisco-based Peter DaSilva says.

"Whatever it is, I need to produce a picture of quality every time I'm sent...

Filing the frame with the critter isn’t required for great wildlife photography. Reflecting on how I first slanted my wildlife photography in this direction, it has its roots in the first lens I had to shoot wildlife. I started with a Vivitar 400mm f/5.6 on an old Minolta that was soon replaced with a Nikon 400mm f/5.6 on an F2. That 400mm was my main lens for a long time and it taught me lessons about wildlife photography that I still depend on to this day.

Documentary photography captures the truth but it also tells a story. And that is exactly what Nina Berman has always aimed to do, and what she succeeds in doing, as the Brits say, so brilliantly. Her pictures evoke our emotions; they often shock; but they never fail to open our eyes to the world around us.

One of the most difficult obstacles to overcome for the aspiring studio photographer is the lack of a proper space to shoot. Spare bedrooms, garages, attics, and basements have all been transformed into makeshift studios, and most lack adequate space to...

He stands in about 3 feet of roiling surf, wetsuit jersey glistening from repeated dunkings. The sky above Oahu’s North Shore is deep blue. Undertow currents grasp his legs—eroding sand beneath his swim fins—as water rushes seaward to build the next huge wave. He holds his bulky waterproof camera housing tightly, faces west toward the setting sun and checks the long tether attached to his wrist. He turns his head to watch the wave rise ever higher—a towering blue-green monster that’s starting to curl, white spume blowing off its top. He braces himself as best he can against the forces raging around him, points the camera toward the golden Hawaiian sunset, and waits as tons of water begins to curl over him, forming a tube. At what he hopes is the right instant, he fires off several shots and prepares to be pounded and rag-dolled by the massive wave.

Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris, on view at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art through May 4, 2014, features nearly 100 photographs and marks the first American retrospective of this Parisian-born (1813-1879) member of photography’s very first generation. Marville’s photographs are remarkable as images and also provide invaluable documentation of the transformation of Paris from a medieval city to the world capital we know today. The show is highly recommended for photographers, students of history, and everyone who loves the “City of Light.”

There is no doubt that a well-crafted lith print is, to borrow an oft-used phrase from my father-in-law, "a thing of beauty is (therefore) a joy forever." The trick, for the experienced and occasional darkroom users alike, is the production of such a print. I have always had difficulty getting consistency with the production of my prints. Despite this frustration, my...