During the day cities can be mundane places, with commuters going about their business and trucks jamming streets making their deliveries. But at night cities can come alive with light and activities that speak to a different side of life, one where details fall in the shadows and edges are electrified. Night exposures create new challenges for photographers, ones where camera...

Telephoto lenses are great for bringing distant objects closer and giving you "tunnel vision" that isolates parts of your personal field of view. They also have an added benefit, a visual trick most commonly called the "stacking effect," where a series of subjects each distant from one another are brought in much closer visual contact. This compression of...

Our Picture This! assignment for this month was on Trick Lenses and how they help us to see in ways that our normal perception does not allow. Readers responded with images that used accessory lenses, as well as glass that distorts light in fascinating ways. Some used scanners to create imagery, while others “squeezed” light through pinhole apertures. While photography is mostly used...

Our Picture This! assignment for this month was Water's Edge. Interesting photographs often result from considering the edge, whether that be the edge of an idea, a territory, light and dark, or, our assignment, where land meets water. The potential for reflection, contrast, mirroring, and interplay of weather systems all come into play. Readers sent in pictures from...