Photo How To

A unique way to create complex geometric, multicolored designs is to attach tiny Christmas tree lights to a bicycle wheel and spin it in a dark room or outside at night. I found 7 ft of Christmas lights powered by 3 AA batteries online for about $12, and that was just enough to cover the entire circumference of the front wheel of my son’s medium sized bike. I took the wheel off the bike with a simple crescent wrench and used black electrician’s tape to affix the lights and the wires onto the rim, figure A.

Pets are beloved members of the family and increasing numbers of pet parents (as well as shelters and rescue organizations) want good quality portraits of these funny, furry “kids." Brooklyn-based photographer Brooke Jacobs is answering that call by creating beautiful portraits that expertly capture the unique personality of her client’s pets.

Need to shoot a camera for eBay, Thingamajig for your employer’s website or pastry for the bake sale? You can get slick, professional-looking results with minimal headache and a very tiny investment using mostly recycled stuff. 

Editor’s Note: Food photographer Lou Manna has spent over 30 years creating images of all things edible. We recently asked Manna to share some of his wisdom with Shutterbug’s readers he provided us with the following helpful tips for how to shoot the best food photos. You can see more of Manna’s work on his website, or read his thoughts on food photography and see more images at his blog.

For centuries, scientists have labored to understand the nature of light. Some ancient Greeks believed that light was emitted from the eyeball the same way a bat sends out an echolocation chirp which allows him to determine his precise position in physical space. Understandably, there were problems with that hypothesis. Other theories followed. Those who embraced the wave theory were right—mostly. Light behaves like a wave up to a certain point. Similarly, those who professed the particle theory were also correct—partly.

Free lenses. That’s right. They’re everywhere. And that’s not just my cabin fever yapping. 

There are many kinds of white light. At first this statement seems like it doesn’t make sense, but if you look closely at a typical light bulb in your living room (the old kind, not the new florescent type of bulbs) and compare it with, say, a daylight florescent fixture, the light bulb is much more yellow than the florescent light. Similarly, if you compare sunrise and sunset lighting to the light from an overcast sky at noon, the lighting from low angled sunlight is very yellow—it looks golden, in fact—and the cloudy sky produces a white light that is more bluish.