Pro Techniques

There are plenty of reasons to eschew perfect sharpness. A classic application was to suppress lines and wrinkles, or just for a light, airy mood: as Tallulah Bankhead once said, “They used to photograph Shirley Temple through gauze. They should photograph me through linoleum.” Another reason is to create the sense of something half-remembered, imperfectly limned in the picture as in...

For all practical purposes, you can narrow your film scanning options down to four choices. There are three types of scanners: drum, flat-bed, and dedicated film scanner. The fourth alternative is to have your film scanned by a professional lab.

When I began this project—what has since evolved into something much more than I originally imagined—it was a hobby.

We have all had the experience of looking at old photographs that transport us back to a different age, whether it is 20 years ago, or 120. It can be very tempting to try to recreate a vintage look, whether for a particular emotional effect or simply because we can. But what are the actual differences, and how can we recreate them?

There are at least 10 answers or groups of answers...

Pinhole photography, long popular in Japan and China, has caught on with a vengeance here in the US.

Shooting professionally since the 1970s, San Diego-based Marshall Harrington (www.marshallharrington.com) has employed various processes and techniques, film and digital, that give him a competitive edge. In my book, Location Lighting Solutions (Amphoto), Harrington described his work as “visual semiotics,” explaining...

If you are relatively new to photography and have only digital cameras along with newer digital-oriented versions of major accessories, everything you have should be compatible and work properly together. But if you have been actively involved with photography for many years through the film-based era, you undoubtedly have older accessories designed for use with film cameras that you would also...