Photographer Kenneth Jarecke has written up an interesting article on how Internet culture is hindering the development of people who want to get better at photography:

There’s nothing wrong with not being any good at photography. Everybody started out bad and none of us does all aspects of it well. But it’s a crying shame to want to be good at it, to spend time and money trying to be good at it, and not getting any better.

This isn’t like teaching a child to read. Positive reinforcement is your enemy. Your Facebook friends, your Twitter followers… hate you. Instead of taking ten seconds to say. “This doesn’t work. You need to do better”. They readily push that “like” button, because it’s easy and they hope to get the same from you, but also because they’re cowards.

His advice? “Seek out great photography. Devour it, and be suspicious of any undue praise.”

Chances Are, You Suck (via A Photo Editor)

Image credit: 310/365: Photo-tastic Sunday… by Derek E-Jay

Destin of Smarter Every Day made this helpful video in which he and his daughter explain the basics of light painting and digital camera sensors using “super simple speak”.

Here’s your interesting photo fact of the day: did you know that sepia toning (when B&W photos are given that distinctive warm tone) is named after the Common Cuttlefish? The scientific name of the species is Sepia officinalis, and the ink produced by the cuttlefish was used for sepia toning when the technique first emerged in the 1880s.

Sepia is a dark brown-grey color, named after the rich brown pigment derived from the ink sac of the common cuttlefish Sepia. The word sepia is the Latinized form of the Greek σηπία, sēpía, cuttlefish. [#]

Nowadays, sepia ink is generally replaced with other dyes or pigments that produce the same hue.

Photographic print toning (via Reddit)

Kai of DigitalRev shares some tips — both serious and humorous — on the art of street photography.

(via ISO 1200)

Here’s a short and sweet video in which Chicago-based food photographer Stephen Hamilton shares some tips on how to take photographs of food using your smartphone. One tip is to use a white napkin as a makeshift reflector to fill in some of the shadows in the shot.

(via Doobybrain)

Reading a camera’s user manual is a great way to become familiar with all of its features and functions, but what if you don’t have the patience to sit down and chew through it? Here’s a strange but useful trick for making sure you read the manual thoroughly: put it in the bathroom. By placing it in a place where you’re desperate for things to read, you’ll slowly work your way through it and understand your camera more without having to take a chunk out of your busy day!

(via Reddit via Lifehacker)

Image credit: Magazines by theseanster93

Light painting master Dennis Calvert (whose work we featured back in October) created this interesting time-lapse making of video showing how he created one of his epic photographs, titled “Thermodynamic Engineering“.

Here’s the resulting photograph:

The light sources used were a Canon 430EX Mark II strapped to his back and electric glow sticks. Calvert has also published a tutorial on how he created this photograph here.

Man on Fire [Dennis Calvert]

You probably already know that it’s not a good idea to include your expensive camera gear with check in luggage, but what if you have no choice? If you must, then putting your gear inside a hard-sided “spinner” suitcase with four wheels is your best bet. The Huffington Post has published an interesting interview with an anonymous baggage handler, who gives the following advice:

Hard-sided suitcases will get less damage, but also look for well-designed handles that are attached with rivets and some sort of protection around the wheels. Speaking of wheels, the best bags to get are the “spinners” with four wheels on the bottom. We like these because we don’t have to throw them when loading. We just roll them down the belly of the plane so your bag and its contents will suffer much less damage.

The handler reveals that bags are commonly subjected to all kinds of abuse due to the strict schedules the handlers must abide by.

Confessions of An Airline Baggage ‘Thrower’ (via Lifehacker)

Image credit: airplane by shyb

Here’s an informative lesson on shutter sync by photographer Matthew Gore, who writes,

I made this video to provide a quick explanation of how focal-plane shutters work on SLR cameras, and why it’s important when using a flash.

We shared a similar tutorial back in February.

(via ISO 1200)

Here’s a Photoshop tutorial by Twin Cities Photography Group teaching how you can use Photoshop’s High Pass Filter to soften the skin on a portrait subject without losing the skin’s texture.