Outdoor Photography How To

Anyone who has walked the streets with a camera (or a smartphone) has witnessed scenes of everyday life that seem too good to pass up for a photograph. But how often do you stop and actually capture them? That’s the trick to great street photography: you’ve got to be ready and you need to have no fear of shooting candid images of people on the street, most times without their permission. But there’s another type of street shooting that can be a little less stressful and that’s urban landscape photography. For this assignment, we asked you to think of your town or city as an urbanized Grand Canyon and to look for unique angles and great lighting to capture the architecture and setting.

Tony Sweet says that smartphone photography “isn’t officially part of the show” at his photography workshops, but the subject does come up with increasing frequency. “They’ll do their big camera work first,” Sweet says of the students, “then they’ll pull out the phones and shoot a few things, discuss among themselves, and ask me some questions.”

Over the past few years drones have rapidly evolved from high-tech novelties with limited appeal, to serious tools for photographers looking for a means of capturing high-quality aerial scenes that were previously only possible when shooting from an airplane. If you need any evidence, you need look no further than the stunning images below.

Cuban-born photographer Abelardo Morell has been making and using walk-in camera obscuras for the past 15 years with the goal of capturing the outside world in interesting and unique ways. His latest effort is essentially a giant pinhole camera that collapses and folds up like any large tent. Morrell took the above image of the Old Faithful geyser at Yellowstone National Park.

The September 25, 2016, issue of The New York Times Magazine was titled "The Voyages" Issue, and it featured an impressive collection of images. In the introduction to the issue, the writer Gideon Lewis-Kraus talks about the idea of the image as document or experience: this is what a place looks like as opposed to this is what it feels like to be there. He notes the cliché of “the traveler so busy with documentation that he misses out on some phantom called the ‘experience itself.’”

James Zwadlo is a London-based photographer/graphic designer/director who combines his unique vision to create an unexpected point of view with his infrared photography

The Huangshan Mountains (also known as the Yellow Mountains) in eastern China are famous for their steep ridges; dreamy cloud formations that swirl around the peaks; and incredible, breathtaking views. They draw millions of Chinese visitors each year, but relatively few foreigners. One “foreigner” who made the trek recently was photographer Bill Sisson who traveled there last July and captured this spectacular shot.