Sunshine: My Favorite Light Source

By: Melinda Smith

I’m a minimalist gal when it comes to most things, and photography equipment is no exception. I know that some people love equipment and gear; the more the better. But when I think about lugging lights, reflectors, and flashes around, my creativity takes a nosedive. My favorite light source, hands down, is the sun. In the words of John Denver, sunshine on my shoulder makes me happy!
I’d love to share some dos (because who likes to be told what NOT to do?) to help you harness the power of the giant lamp in the sky. Hopefully you’ll gain a new appreciation for this natural light source, whether or not you hate lugging equipment around like I do.

The sun is unique

One thing I love about the sun is that it is never the same. Although having an unpredictable light source can be a big challenge, I love that every day, every shoot, every photo, is unique and special. I couldn’t recreate any given day’s exact lighting even if I wanted to. Some days everything works together like magic, and I call that a gift.

DO pay attention to how the light falls on your subject’s face

I see many amateur photographers take photos like the one above, with harsh light and shadows on the face. Most of the time they are paying more attention to a pretty background than the lighting. If the sunlight is very bright, such as midday, or early afternoon, this can be a big problem.
Sunlight is a beautiful light source, but you have to work with it, and position your subject in the correct place, since try as you might, you’re not going to be able to move the sun (unless you want to wait a couple of hours, and let it move itself).

DO try backlighting

This means that the sun is behind your subject, facing you. This method of using the sun is my absolute favorite, because it makes your subject just glow. There are a few things to keep in mind as you try backlighting:

• DO use backlighting at any time of day. You get different effects backlighting with the sun in different positions. It’s an effective tool to use even when the light is harsh, since it softens the light on your subject’s face, and helps them not to squint. It’s also an ideal tool to use when the sun is low, golden, and gorgeous.
• DO move yourself around. Slight differences in angles can make a big difference in the look you get. I like to have the sun behind and slightly to the side of my subject (as you can see in the photo above). If the sun is directly facing your camera, you may get flare in your lens that can totally wipe out your subject. You can get beautiful lens flare effects if you find a spot somewhere in between the two. Experiment to find exactly the look you are going for.

• DO use poles, trunks, bushes, or whatever is there to manipulate the light to your advantage. If the sun is positioned behind leafy trees, you can create beautiful soft bokeh. The trees filter the light a bit so it isn’t so harsh, and you get beautiful warm, soft, lighting. You can position yourself where the sun is partially behind a trunk or pole off to the side, which will cut some of the harshness and glare in your lens. The trunk doesn’t need to be in your photo, it’s just working as an assistant for you.
• DO pay attention to the clothes YOU are wearing. Try wearing light/white tops as the photographer, and avoid wearing bright colors. It may seem strange that it matters what the photographer is wearing, but when the sun is reflecting off your chest, it can cast colors onto your subject that you weren’t intending, and put odd colored highlights in their eyes.

• DO use your subjects and your own body to work with the sun. You can position yourself so the sun is directly behind your subject, so your subject filters the light a bit and cuts the glare in your lens. This can create a beautiful glow, or a starburst effect. Sometimes if there is just a little too much glare on my lens, I hold my hand off to the side of my lens (not in the photo) and achieve just the amount of sun flare that I want, without all the washed out glare.

DO experiment with the sun directly lighting your subject

There are lots of great advantages to this type of lighting, including the beautiful sky captured in the photo. When you backlight, your sky is usually washed out in order to have your subjects properly exposed. You can add a sky in post-processing, but when you shoot with the sun behind you, and toward your subjects, you can expose for both at the same time. A few more tips for front lighting using the sun:

• DO keep in mind that it is usually hard for people not to squint when they are looking into the sun. If it’s a particularly bright day, you may have to have your subjects looking away from the sun. Some people are extra sensitive to light, and you may not be able to use front lighting unless the sun is really low in the sky, almost ready to set. Squinting eyes aren’t very attractive, neither are watery eyes and scrunched up faces.

• DO use front lighting when you want a dark background. If you position your subject near the opening of a shed or garage, the background will fall into darkness, since you have your exposure set for the bright subject in the front.
• DO use front lighting for drama, and for high key photography, but be careful that you don’t lose too much dimension and end up with flat images.

DO use the sun for beautiful portraits

When the light is soft, either when it’s almost down, or with a few clouds over it, you can light your subject from the side to get dimension. You can get dramatic moody portraits, soft flattering portraits, fun happy portraits…the sky is the limit!

DO become a light watcher

I can’t talk to someone without noticing how the light falls on their face. I look at how shadows fall at different times of the day. I study the quality of the light constantly, and take photographs with my mind all day long. The more you know about how the sun works, and how you can work with the sun, the better your photos will get.

Lastly – just one little don’t

DON’T be discouraged if the sun is hiding behind clouds. If you’re lucky, they’re thin clouds, and you can still harness a bit of that magical sunny glow. If it’s overcast, just remember that you’re still using the sun as your light source, and be grateful for the ease of using the whole sky as a giant soft light. Don’t forget; in the words of Annie, the sun will come out tomorrow!

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DIY Photography Backlighting for Beginners

By: Ana Mireles

Have you ever noticed how the subject stands out in professional portraits? How about the beautiful contours of bottles and glass objects in advertising photography? Do you wonder how they do it? You can achieve these and many more effects with backlighting.
Keep reading to learn what it is and how to DIY your way into it.

Backlighting means that there is a source of light coming from behind your subject and pointing directly (or almost) at your camera. This can be used as the only light source or as a supplement, and it can create depth in the image.
For example, in the above photo, I used backlighting to highlight the feathers and clearly separate the subject from the background. This is often used in portrait photography to highlight the hair of the model.

1. Wider light sources

The sun can be an excellent source for backlighting even if you are indoors. Just by placing your subject in front of the window, you are already using this technique. Although, more often than not, it will need some form of manipulation. For example, if the view from the window is not the best backdrop for your subject or the sun is coming in too bright, you can add a diffuser.
A cheap and easy solution is to tape some oven paper, tracing paper or a thin white fabric to the window to soften the light.

The photo on the left doesn’t use a diffuser. The sun was so incredibly bright that I couldn’t blur the background with a shallow depth of field. The shadows were also very dark and distracting.
In the image on the right, I had a white, even background to showcase the subject, which also worked as a diffuser to soften the shadows.

This kind of lighting works well for transparent objects. However, you can always complement with another light, or you can put a reflective surface in front to bounce the light if your subject (or part of it) is opaque.
To show you how it looks, I used the same setting for this bottle but placed a hand mirror in front of it next to the camera.

Most locations are bound to have windows unless you find yourself inside a dark room or something with a specific use where daylight is not wanted. However, if you find yourself in one of these places, you can always use the screen of your computer or tablet. You can look for a nice booked photo, or just open a blank document to create a white background.

2. Narrow light sources

Narrow light sources such as small spotlights create a very bright center diffusing towards the edges, and it’s usually a hard light, so it creates strong shadows. To create this effect, you can use a lightbulb, a candle, a torch or even the LED light from your smartphone. Add a creative element into it, by putting some color in it, like this example:

To create the silhouette of this little coyote, I placed the figurine in front of the background, which in this case was a red semi-transparent folder.
Remember we are getting creative here. If you don’t have a folder like this, you can use other things as long as they are thin enough or transparent enough to let the light pass through.

After this, as backlighting technique dictates, I placed a smartphone which was my light source directly behind the red background pointing directly at the figurine and the camera. Also, I used clothes pins to hold everything in place and for standing them up.
Keep in mind that the closer you put the light, the smaller the light spot will be. So move the phone (torch or whatever you’re using) back and forward to achieve different results.

These DIY hacks don’t substitute professional lighting equipment. However, they certainly allow you to get some creative images, practice your photographic skills and keep your budget intact. And, the most important thing is to keep practicing.
Have fun and let us know any other tricks you come up with in the comments.

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Make money with Photo Jobs

Snap shots

If you'd like to show some of your photos on Youtube you can make a brief video like this one by using "Windows Movie Maker" software or just hire someone at Fiverr.com to make it for you. 

Which Size Lensball is Best for Crystal Ball Photography?

By: Simon Bond

The world is in your hands, well it can certainly seem that way when you do crystal ball photography. The crystal ball allows you to take refraction photos, which reveal the background scene within the ball. It’s a great technique, with which many people are having a lot of fun.
The photographic technique has now become so popular that photographers have re-branded the crystal ball as a lensball! So the question that’s often asked is which lensball size is the correct one to buy? Let’s take a look at the various options available when buying a crystal ball, and decide which is the best for you.

Which size of the lensball is the best? There are three here, an 80, a 120 and a 60mm ball.

Small Lensball

The small size lensball is anything less than 60mm, so all the way down to a marble. These balls are the easiest to pack and are considerably lighter than the other balls. So what are the strengths and weaknesses of this particular size?

Strengths

• Weight – These add almost no weight to your bag at all, and this also makes them easier to use for handheld photos.
• Size – Again owing to their small size they’ll be easier to pack, giving you more space for other items. The smaller size also allows you to place the ball in gaps where the larger balls won’t fit.
• Handheld – This size makes it easier to hold the ball between your finger and thumb, which becomes more difficult at larger sizes.

This position to rest the ball is only possible with a small lensball.

Weaknesses

• Weight – This is also a weakness. Once a heavy ball is in place it usually stays there. The problem comes on a windy day, where the wind can move a lighter ball much more easily.
• Focus and distortion – This lensball size will have a smaller sweet spot for focus, and a greater proportion of the ball will be distorted. Using a smaller aperture can help, as more of the ball will be focused.
• Lens required – You will need a macro lens when using a small lensball if you wish to fill the frame with the ball.

The small size is perfect to hold between your index finger and thumb.

Medium Lensball size

This refers to balls at 80mm in diameter. Many photographers see this as the ideal size for their refraction photography. There are a lot of good reasons why you should also use this size of lensball. Let’s break it down, as this is the crystal ball you’ll likely be using.

Strengths

• Weight – This is a little heavier, but still not noticeable. So it’s a nice thing to carry in your camera bag to add a bit more creativity to your work.
• Size – This is a decent size, though you might not fit this ball into a small space. The ball will fill a nice portion of your frame with a standard lens, using a macro is optional at this size.
• Focus and distortion – By this size, the sweet spot area of focus within the ball dominates the scene inside the ball, and distortions at the edge are much less noticeable.

Weaknesses

• Size – There are very few weaknesses in this size of a lensball. However, if you wish to take a photo where you frame just the edge of the ball this is more difficult. Likewise using the ball to eclipse a background object is also more difficult, as the ball is that much smaller.

The lensball is ideal for many kinds of creative takes on typical scenes. Here it’s used to
capture a road lined with cherry blossom trees.

Large Lensball

The large size refers to those balls that are 100mm or over in diameter. This size is not common amongst most photographers, though this is the size I cut my teeth on for crystal ball photography.
Even with the extra weight, this is often the preferred size for me personally, it just gives better quality images in my opinion. Whether this is the size for you will come down to if you want to carry the extra weight or not.

Strengths

• Optics – This size offers the best in optics, a larger proportion of the ball will be in sharp focus.
• Handheld – This is a much more natural size to fit in the palm of your hand or someone else’s palm. One classic crystal ball composition is that of a hand cupping the ball.
• Size – This makes it far easier to fill the frame with your ball, and even hide some background elements behind the ball.

A larger size ball will both fill the frame more easily and cover up the background
when it’s close to the camera.

Weaknesses

• Weight – The obvious weakness here is weight. Those not used to carrying a heavy camera bag should avoid this crystal ball size. The weight is equivalent to an extra lens in your camera bag. It comes down to whether you want an extra lens or the larger crystal ball in your bag.
• Size – While optics are better when photographing this size, the larger size is not so good for storage. This will take up a large space in your bag.

This particular way of holding the crystal ball is one of the classics. It’s not so natural looking 

with a smaller sized ball.

Safety

The crystal ball is a really great photographic tool to play with, though there are some safety issues you need to be aware of. You will also find that staff in the airport may consider the crystal ball a lethal weapon! This means you will have to put it in your checked luggage, hand luggage is not an option.
So what are these safety concerns then?

• Fire hazard – Keep the crystal ball stored somewhere out of the sun. The glass will act in the same way a magnifying glass does, and while this will usually only result in smoke it can lead to a fire as well. Oh not to mention, it can burn your hand when you are holding it as well!
• Gravity – Due to its spherical nature the ball is liable to roll. If it rolls off the edge of a tall building it can cause damage to whatever it hits. Take care with the ball in such situations.

Having a small crystal ball with me enabled me to fit it in the gap of this fence.

Conclusion

Asking which size if crystal ball you should buy is a little like asking which is the best tripod. Everyone knows the sturdiest tripod is best, but that it’s impractical to carry around for the whole day.
The same is true of the crystal ball, the 80mm medium sized ball then is probably the best choice. There is certainly a case for the smaller or larger size of balls though, so if you decide to get a second ball how about a different size?

Using more than one ball at a time can also be fun!

As mentioned in this article, the 80mm is both not too heavy, yet doesn’t sacrifice the image within the ball making this a good size.
Have you bought a crystal ball, or are you thinking of doing so? We’d love to see your comments, and images – please share below.

Simon Bond is a specialist in creative photography techniques and is well known for his work with a crystal ball. His work has featured in national newspapers and magazines including National Geographic Traveler. With over 8 years of experience in crystal ball photography Simon is the leading figure in this field, get some great tips by downloading his free e-book! Do you want to learn more about crystal ball photography? He has a video course just for you! Use this code to get 20% off: DPS20.

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How to Use a Photography Ring Light in Unconventional Ways

By: John McIntire

With a ton of options on the market, adding a ring light to your kit has never been cheaper.

Continuous photography ring lights seem to be everywhere nowadays. There are dozens of offerings from dozens of companies that you can choose from, and they are popular with photographers, make-up artists, and videographers. The main use of a ring light is on-axis lighting for an even, somewhat flat exposure.
However, what do you do if you don’t like that effect or the distinctive ring-shaped catchlight for that matter? Because these lights are continuous, and because of their size, they have more uses than ring flashes of the past. If you don’t like the straight-on effect, you don’t have to use a ring light in that way.

In normal use, you would place the light directly in front of your subject and shoot through
the aperture of the light.

This article demonstrates six uses of a continuous ring light that isn’t their intended use. It will also (hopefully) show you that these relatively cheap and effective lights are useful to have for any photographer in the studio.

Normal use

While not to the taste of many photographers, ring lights can be used to create bold and
vibrant images.

If you’re unfamiliar, a ring light is a circular, ring-shaped light with a large aperture designed to be placed directly in front of a subject. You then take your images by positioning your camera through the aperture of the ring.
Traditional ring flashes had the light attached to the camera. This front (on-axis) lighting provides an evenly lit image. This is one of those things that you either love or hate, but photographers who love it tend to really love it.

Versatility

With the continuous versions of these lights, you have a wealth of options with how to use a ring light. Because the light is always on, you can position it anywhere you want. With a lot of the options on the market, this gives you a high-powered, lightweight and versatile continuous light for around $100.

Because of the brightness of a continuous ring light, your subject’s pupils will be constricted,
allowing you to see more of the color in their eyes.

Here’s a bonus if you’ve never used continuous lights before. Because the output is constant, your portrait subject’s pupils get constricted. This means you will see more of the color of their eyes in your photos.

Options

Below are five examples of ways you can use a continuous ring light to great effect without ever using it as a ring light.

1. As a normal light

Placed at a 45-degree angle and angled downwards, these ring lights work well as normal
light source.

Despite its circular shape, ring lights are great when used as a normal light. Raise the light and angle it towards your subject to distort the effect the shape of the light has, and you can use it as a small softbox. You’re not limited to how you can light your subject this way, but I’ve found that all of the basic lighting patterns work well.

You are not limited to the shape of the ring. Use flags to block off portions of the light to shape
it however you want.

If you have more than one ring light, you can use them together to create just about any two-light setup that you can imagine. If the ones you have have an adjustable output, managing your key to fill ratios should be pretty easy.

2. As a prop

Having your subject pose with the light itself can create some interesting and fun portraits.
It can also help to lighten the mood during a session.

If you have an LED ring light, they don’t get very hot. Feel free to have your subject pose with the light itself for some very different images. The results will vary with ring lights of different sizes, and you have to worry about the plug and the cables, but it’s still a fun technique. Though you probably won’t use it very often thanks to its tendency towards uplighting.

3. As ambient fill

Modern ring lights are getting quite powerful and it is more than possible to use them as
fill lighting in conjunction with studio flash.

You can mix any continuous light with studio flashes for some interesting effects. By using a strobe as your key light, you can then bring a ring light in for some gentle fill.

A couple of things that you will want to keep in mind is that your strobes are probably way more powerful than your ring light, so set the power accordingly. Also, you will probably want to have a ring light with an adjustable color temperature if you are going to be mixing light sources.
You could also reverse this and use the ring light as key and flash as fill. As before, make sure the power on your strobes goes down that far before committing to this.

4. As a compositional device

Putting the light behind your subject creates an interesting tool for composition. Also, it may
just be me, but I love that rim light that it is producing.

In its normal use, I am a fan of creating a composition with the actual ring light framing the subject. I just like it for whatever reason. However, you are not limited to that. You can place the ring light anywhere in your frame for some cool effects. Try placing one behind your subject for a halo effect, or placing one at an angle just inside your frame for a curved band of light running through the composition.

5. Dragging the shutter

When you’re mixing a ring light with studio flash, it opens the door to some interesting
techniques like dragging the shutter. Here, flash is acting as fill and the shutter speed is set
to 1/15th of a second.

This is similar to using the ring light as ambient fill, but if you use your strobe normally, you can expose for the high-powered strobe and the low-powered ring light by dragging the shutter.

This technique is not for everyone, but it can produce some interesting results.

A little warning: if you’re a technically-minded photographer, you’re probably going to hate this technique, as the results tend to be a little soft. However, it can be used for some striking results. If you do like it, you still have to be careful with controlling the movement of your camera.

You do have to manage any movement in your camera while using this technique. If in doubt,
use a tripod.

Because the power output on your flash is not in any way controlled by shutter speed, you can set your shutter speed as slow as you need to make this work. However, you may want to use a tripod for really slow shutter speeds. This technique can provide some cool effects in its own right, but no two attempts are going to be the same.

That’s it

There you have it. That’s six ways that you can use a continuous ring light without ever having to use it as a ring light. Considering how cheap these things are, they are a very useful tool for any photographer who wants to get into off-camera lighting but for some reason is put off by flash.
Do you have other ways that you use a ring light? Please share with us in the comments below.

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Tips on How to Capture Affection in Your Photographs

By: Hannele Luhtasela-el Showk

All you need is love – and the know-how to capture affection in your photos.

One of the big challenges in portrait photography is capturing the elusive aspects of life: feelings, smells, and experiences. It’s difficult because a photograph is limited to two dimensions and a single point in time. It only captures what we can see, but we often want it to do more than that.
To make a good photograph, we want to be able to share a sensation or an experience. Fortunately for us, it’s not completely impossible.
One of the great things about humans is that we have a pretty amazing imagination. We can feel the texture of fur just by seeing a photo of it, we can almost smell the sea when we see an evocative picture of it. The challenge is to take a photograph that’s good enough to make the viewer feel what you want them to.

In this article, I want to share some tips that can help you capture one of those elusive things – affection. I hope you enjoy the ride!

What is affection?

If done right, affection is easier to explain with a picture than in writing – a picture is worth a thousand words and all that. Let me give it a try, though.
Affection is an expression of love and trust, a kind of comfortable tenderness, a warm and confident gaze that doesn’t need to be returned. It’s strength in selflessness and is a very private experience.

Like most other feelings, but perhaps even more so, affection is really hard to fake. It’s often found in the small gestures and mannerisms that have been built over time.
And that’s why it’s so challenging to capture, especially in people you don’t know well.

Why try to capture affection?

So you may be thinking, if it’s so difficult, why bother? What’s the point of struggling to capture something that exists in so many more dimensions than a photograph and that is such an intimate feeling?
First of all, the challenge is a good way to develop as a photographer and a human. It gives you the chance to try to capture something essential, positive, that which will one day be the greatest of memories.

Knowing how to photograph affection is a great way to offer family and friends, as well as customers, amazing images that show something real and beautiful.

How to capture affection

Capturing affection may be a bit difficult, but it’s definitely not impossible. If you’re a professional photographer, one of the challenges is that your models may not know you well enough to be comfortable around you.
Nervousness and discomfort don’t go well with displaying affection. Since you won’t have the time to get to know everyone you’re hired to photograph, you need to find other ways to inspire confidence in your models.

Even knowing someone well doesn’t mean that it’s easy to capture affection. Shyness or awkwardness may sometimes make it even harder to photograph the affection among your friends and family.
One way to get what you want is to catch a special moment without being noticed. This works well at a wedding shoot, a family gathering, or even when doing street photography. The important thing to think about here is consent and whether it’s a situation where it’s okay to take such a photograph.

Proper preparation

If you’ve been asked to photograph a couple, or a parent and a child, preparation is important. With just a little bit of effort put into creating a connection and making your models feel comfortable you can go a long way.
Sometimes moving to a place with fewer distractions might help. Other times being surrounded by others is the right thing. You have to read the situation and make the best of it.

Part of preparation is building trust. You can start way before the shoot by getting in touch with your customers and making them confident that you know what you’re doing.
Show them that you can be trusted to capture beautiful memories for them and that you’re there to support them in the quite unusual situation that a photo shoot presents.

And as always, practice makes perfect. You can learn to find and capture special moments by looking in places where you wouldn’t expect to find them. Photography is so much more than just pushing a button. It’s learning to see the world in a different way, learning to understand what you see, and learning to capture it.

How do you make sure you capture genuine feelings in your photos? Do you have any tips on how to capture affection or a photo that you’d like to share?
I’d love to get your suggestions and see your photos in the comments below!

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Your Photographic Legacy: Realizing Your Power as a Photo Maker

By: Adam Welch

I’ve struggled with how to approach the topic at hand and I remain unsure even as I type. How can I begin to talk about such far echoing ideas? I already know that you and I share a common thread: photography.

I’ll further assume that if you’re reading this, you are a person who makes photographs regularly. Perhaps that’s the perfect way to start; by knowing that you’re a camera person, just like me.
Being that we’re the same, I hope you understand the scope of what it means to “be a photographer” in an age when cameras are everywhere. Do you understand the power you hold in your hands? It’s the magnitude of this power that we will discuss.
With any luck, these simple truths about our craft will be nothing new. If anything, hopefully, these ideas will be a gentle reminder of the role you play in the photographic legacy.
On the other hand, if you have forgotten these facts or if you’ve never thought about them before, today is an especially important day for you.

Respect for the work…respect for yourself

It’s oddly paradoxical that photography can be so incredibly personal yet at the same time so impersonal. This is especially true of digital photography when often times the work we produce remains essentially intangible and often untouchable.
Where other creators physically intersect with their craft by either drawing, painting, sculpting or carving, we stand alone in a shared uniqueness. We use a machine to bring our expressions to life. We cannot touch what we capture with any sense of immediacy, and yet photography has become one of the most effective methods for bridging what we see with what we feel.

As photographers, we must grasp the sheer weirdness and complexity of what we do at a basic level. Our work is part science, part soul, part philosophy and as such should be respected for the beautiful oddball of the visual arts that it truly is.
Furthermore, you should have immense respect for yourself and your fellow practitioners of photography. Not through any sense of superiority but rather a feeling of camaraderie.
We compete on occasion, sure. We envy or criticize each other at times. With the internet being the internet, it’s quite easy to pick apart the work of others instead of building it up. We’re only human. Still, the fact remains that we will advance more by positive attitudes and tasteful critique than through thoughtless criticism and negativity.
I can assure you that we’re all in this madness together.

Photography is the servant of history

Imagine for a minute a couple of historic images in your mind. Ali standing over Frazier. That child running from a napalm strike in Vietnam. The aftermath at Kent State. A lone man staring down a tank in Beijing. Einstein sticking his tongue out for the camera.
All these moments, for better or worse, are solidified in history through photographs. Photography carries monumental weight for bringing awareness to the beauty and horrors present in the human condition.
Arguably, photography is the greatest asset for documenting history that the world has ever known.

Every photograph is made by a man or woman who was present at the exact moment these events took place. For better or worse, the presence of a camera has been the catalyst for social, political and environmental change for nearly two centuries.
Where would we be without the photographs which move us to action and change the way we think about the world?
Photographers can strike fire anywhere with a single photograph.
Possessing the ability to potentially impact the entire course of civilization by what we do should fill us with a measure of pride, wonderment and ultimately a sense of apprehension. Think about that the next time you go out with your camera.
You can make a difference through your photography at any time and in any place.

You represent every photographer

If you bear with me, I find it’s necessary to share a quick story about a woodworker friend of mine; a story, which as it turns out, became the reason for me penning this article.
A few weeks ago I witnessed a rather nasty situation play out on social media between my friend and another woodworker. Without injecting my own opinion, it was obvious that the attitude shown towards my friend was met with universal disapproval by most of the commenters.
I was fascinated (and comforted) by the fact that what seemed to trouble people the most was the blatant disrespect which was being exhibited by one craftsperson to another.
My mind immediately jumped to the manner we as photographers conduct ourselves, both on and offline, and how that conduct impacts the public perception of photographers.

As cameras become more and more available to the masses, it’s important to comprehend that we are all practitioners of an art form that dates back to the early 19th century. That’s quite the legacy. What I mean by this is that the way we interact with our subjects and our environment while we practice our craft can be just as important as the photographs we produce.
I have witnessed photographers moving “flying stones” at Racetrack Playa in Death Valley just so their shots couldn’t be replicated. On countless occasions, I’ve watched as cars backed up behind a person who parked in the highway to make photos of bears.
Perhaps most alarming of all, I have observed shockingly pretentious attitudes exhibited by professional photographers upon those deemed “beneath” their perceived level of skill.

Be courteous and respectful to others, especially fellow photographers. Always be willing to pass on what knowledge you have about the craft. Keep in mind that we are stewards of our art and tend its flame for many generations of photo makers to come.
Never fall victim to the kind of indifferent behavior that would belittle the legacy of photography.

Final thoughts….

So, what’s the endgame here?
The keyword is “realization.”
Realize that the role photography plays in the world cannot be overstated, and your part in that story is just as important.

The way we approach photography is very much a reflection of how we approach life and each share similar outcomes.
Be mindful that you always remember the impact of the photos you make and how far the manner by which you make those photos truly reaches. Photographs carry a unique duality which occupies a cloudy space among other art forms.
Our cameras have the power to make, record and even change history, but without you, a camera is just a camera.

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Remember the power you have as a photographer and wield it accordingly.