Pro Techniques

They call him the picture taker, a humble phrase for a man whose every image is a small miracle. His name is Ken Elkins, retired chief photographer for The Anniston Star in rural Alabama. His new book, appropriately titled Picture Taker (published by The University of Alabama Press), transports us from life as we know it to a world most of us will never encounter.

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How do you translate an idea into an image? Or convert words into a photograph? How can a picture create a sense of fear and is this fear something we are born with? Perfect pitch... How might you define this phenomenon with your camera? Or hypergraphia, the compulsive need to write?

These were among the puzzles that confronted Cary Wolinsky for his story on...

Changing lenses on a digital SLR subjects the interior to invasion by dust and other airborne particles. While we can avoid the problem with prudent handling, eventually we'll have to face the facts: dust will get on the sensor. The imaging sensor, whether CCD or CMOS, is a dust magnet. As soon as the camera is turned on the sensor becomes electrostatically charged. Any...

"Photographers may believe in certain pictures, but they have to have the educated eye of the picture editor."

"We're actually looking at film," David Doubilet says. He's at the offices of National Geographic magazine, going over the take from a recent two-month assignment in the South Pacific. The job was shot with both film and...

"None of my sample albums have family formal shots. I intentionally leave them out because they're not what I specialize in."

"A lot of it comes down to your client's expectations before the wedding," Mike Colon says of his relationship to the bride and groom. "You have to talk about what they're really expecting, what...

My first macro lens was the popular Nikon 60mm Micro-Nikkor. Good move, I thought, as the 60mm focal length could double as an all-purpose lens for a variety of assignments. Trouble is, when I started to get into more and more 1:1 (life-size) work, I only had 21/2" of working space between the front of the lens and my subject. The 105mm was next, sharp as a tack but again...

Imagine living on a beautiful island: Look to your left and see the sun rise in the morning; look to your right and see it set each night.

The secret nuances of color on the horizon where the sky meets the sea and the sea meets the shore have drawn photographer Alison Shaw to Martha's Vineyard off the coast of New England, where she has lived and photographed for...