Los Angeles Times Foreign Correspondent and Photographer Marcus Yam has won the prestigious Robert Capa Gold Medal Award for photography “requiring exceptional courage” with a series of thoughtfully curated visuals covering the first 30 days of war in Ukraine.

The award, named in honor of renowned Hungarian American war photographer Robert Capa, was presented on April 28 in New York City by the Overseas Press Club of America at its 84th annual awards dinner.

The competition’s judges called Yam’s work chronicling the early days of the war “an exceptional example of the power of photography to expand our collective conscience.”

“Yam’s reporting on the cruelty of war is carefully curated, displaying the expected terrors of human loss and mourning tempered with quiet moments of survival among people who carry on though their world is upended,” the judges noted.

“When I flew into Kharkiv four days before the war, I, like everyone else, hoped that the escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine would be resolved through diplomacy,” Yam said in his acceptance speech. “And when it did not, all that was left for us to do was stay alive, do the work and navigate an unknown fraught with risks, trauma and also humanity. A year later, the war seems endless. I only hope that our work illuminates the dignity of the suffering that so many have endured.”

Watch the awards presentation.

No matter how you slice it, there is no denying that photography is an expensive hobby. Cameras do not come cheap. Neither do lenses. Gear can genuinely liberate your creativity, enhance the experience of getting the shot, or just simplify your workflow. Still, more often than not, the latest and greatest will cost you a pretty penny. Obviously, you do not always need flagship products to make your images stand out. On the one hand, you have those who claim “gear does not matter,” which can be true but sometimes not true at all. On the other hand, you have those who believe “you get what you pay for,” which can also be accurate but not always. There are definitely ways to mitigate your expenses in photography so let’s discuss three easy ways to save money but also three corner-cutting habits that may hurt you more than you realize.

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Stop Paying for Features You do Not Need

Manufacturers are packing camera bodies with more technologies every six months, and these still serve as the perfect basis to justify the high price tag that comes with it. One of the easiest ways to save money in photography is simply by cutting through the noise and being honest about what you really need. Do you need 20 frames a second for wedding work? How likely are you to shoot 6400 ISO on your landscape outings?

As much as I love my R5, for my use cases, I haven’t seen any practical difference from the original R I still use on a daily basis. I need to print above 3 feet wide to see a material improvement in image quality, and yes, I get a little bit more cropping power in post-processing, but it does not go much further than that. I am yet to shoot a single minute of video on any of my camera bodies.

This is true for any manufacturer. What exactly are you getting from an X-T4 that the X-S10 cannot provide? Don’t go for the Z9 when the Z7 first-gen is already offering 1^st in-class resolution and dynamic range unless you need the extra speed for action and wildlife shooting.

Third-party is Nothing to be Feared

Twenty years ago, Sigma and Tamron were a cheap entry point for enthusiasts who could not afford the real thing. It was a decent offering, but you had to compromise with various aberrations and autofocus limitations, the typical story of “YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR” as performance was in line with the price. Fast forward to today and those are still much cheaper than the L series or G Master, but they rival and sometimes exceed the performance of the big guys. We even reached a point where Tamron and Sigma are producing lenses for some of the biggest names.

This is not limited to lenses. If you think about lighting, there are very few scenarios where any Godox user will miss Canon or Profoto expensive speedlights.

Go Easy on the Accessories.

Photography tends to be taught by experienced shooters who have developed habits in a previous era. Some of those habits are not necessary today.

One example is graduated filters. The dynamic range of modern sensors has gone a long way, and, in most situations, you can simply expose for the highlight and recover shadows in post with minimum noise. If your sensor might not handle this correctly, every manufacturer has a bracketing mode that will let you blend images in-camera or afterward.

The same can be said about a trigger remote. Between the built-in intervalometer and the 2/10 seconds delay, this is another expense you might want to avoid.

Having said that, there are shortcuts one might consider that will end up costing more in the long run. Even though tempting, those are not recommended ways to save money in photography.

Cheap Tripods are Useless.

The worst offenders in this category tends to be tripods. More specifically, cheap tripods. Those tend to lack the substance and sturdiness required to hold even a light mirrorless setup. Weak aluminum legs that shake with every breeze will hurt your photography more than anything else. Your long exposures will often be soft. You might even end up replacing a lens thinking it is not sharp enough when in fact, it is the micro jitters that are to blame.

Also, poor materials may often break or get rusty within a year or two, especially if you spend a lot of time around coastlines and salty water. You are bound to spend more money replacing them over a long period of time than if you went for a quality offering right away.

Avoid Cheap Filters

Finding the right filter can be a difficult task as even within the same brand, quality can be inconsistent. Filters will also behave differently with every lens as coating and optics can vary. A screw-on filter can add vignetting to a wide-angle lens when it is outstanding on a telephoto zoom. Uneven polarization and color cast are also some of the recurrent issues with poor quality filters. We would recommend buying from a reputable source with a decent return policy.

Get the Right Bag for You

Whether it is a sling for a quick outing in the city or a backpack for a week-long hike in the mountains, carrying and protecting your gear is of tremendous value. An uncomfortable bag will have you tired much sooner, especially if your kit is on the heavier side. It can be the difference between staying out longer to get the shot or cutting the session short.

Poor padding or separations can expose your lenses to rub against one another and get markings that will decrease their resale value. Worst, you can get scratches on the back screen of your camera if not stored properly. There is no perfect bag for every single scenario but take your time to find the best possible fit for you; it will pay dividends in the long run.

To mark Princess Charlotte’s eighth birthday on 2 May, the Prince and Princess of Wales have shared a new photograph of the young royal. Taken by Kate in Windsor over this bank holiday weekend, the image shows a beaming Charlotte wearing a white floral dress as she relaxes in a wicker chair.

The Waleses have a tradition of releasing previously unseen portraits on special occasions, often taken by Kate, who is known for her love of photography. For Prince George’s ninth birthday last July, the couple shared a photograph of their eldest child on the beach, during the family’s summer holiday in the UK. Meanwhile, for Prince Louis’s fifth birthday last month, the royals posted a sweet snap of Prince Louis being pushed in a wheelbarrow by his mother, this time taken by photographer Millie Pilkington.

It’s a busy few weeks for the family, with the Prince and Princess of Wales celebrating their 12th wedding anniversary on 29 April. The couple shared an informal photograph of themselves on bicycles to mark the occasion, with Kate wearing a white broderie anglaise blouse with jeans, and Prince William also off-duty in denim.

The Waleses will be seen in public again at the coronation of King Charles on 6 May at Westminster Abbey. During the ceremony, Prince George will be one of his grandfather’s four pages of honour, which will see him carrying the monarch’s robes. Expect plenty more photographs for the history books next weekend.

For many of us, there’s few things that evoke emotions quite like architecture. A beautifully captured interior can make you wish you lived in a space, inspire you to renovate your own home, redecorate, or even buy another.

Today, Shannon McGrath’s work is a staple in some of our most prestigious home interior design and architectural magazines; with Belle, Vogue, and House and Garden all carrying her imagery of some of the world’s most beautiful interiors.

The foundations

Shannon says she discovered her interest in photography when Earl Carter, the renowned architecture photographer from Melbourne, was photographing her mother’s home.

At the time, she was studying Fine Arts, majoring in ceramics with a focus on architectural subjects. Intrigued that it was possible to have a career in photographing beautiful homes, she decided to do a course at RMIT TAFE.

“I went from not even knowing how to put on an SLR lens in my first class, to finishing the course, to shooting for the Herald Sun display section, and being asked back to teach at the very course that I completed!” she laughs. 

Following this, she completed a two-year apprenticeship with her mentor, Trevor Mein, another noted Melbourne architectural photographer. Eventually, he took her aside and told her she was ready to go out on her own.

Later, some twelve years into her photography career, she went on to complete a Master’s in Fine Arts.

“I started mostly as an architectural photographer, but over time I was booked more and more for interior shoots,” she explains.

“I guess I found an affinity with internal spaces, and the reason they make you feel as they do.”

A day in the life

An interior shoot will typically begin with a phone call from the client, followed by a reconnaissance visit to get a measure of the place, its scale, features, and furniture arrangement. Sometimes Shannon says she will take ‘happy snaps’ to help visualise the final images for a stylist, in the way that an artist does a preparatory drawing before beginning a painting.

“Each project is different, and I approach each one very differently,” she says.

“On a shoot it’s me with my assistant, and mostly I direct the shoot. This is because I want to get the most out of the day for my client. They trust me, but I also welcome the collaborative situation.”

In fact, Shannon believes, the best interior shoots are when there’s co-operation between the designer, the stylist, and the client.

“Often you are in the client’s house, and you must tread lightly or somehow manipulate the image to get what the designer needs without offence to the client,” she says.

And then there’s the weather and how it influences light.

“The weather will determine how I approach a project,” explains Shannon.

“Coming from an architect’s perspective, the client may want shards of light emphasising the architectural components, or from an interior designer’s perspective, soft light to let the design pieces speak.”

When it comes to interiors, the use of light also makes a huge difference to the end result. In many ways Shannon’s work is a study in how the skilful use of ambient light draws out subtleties of shade and tone in a scene.

“You’d be surprised what you can capture with long exposures,” she explains. “When I’m there the whole day, I can see what’s happening with the light to make a calculation about when there will be the light in an area.”

“I never use flash, but occasionally, I use tungsten lighting. I have a little trick where I sometimes expose as much available light as I possibly can, and then I might just give it a little ‘flick’, and that will just give me enough light that’s not too orange or warm that I can balance out with the available light.”

Unlike film, digital makes it easier to manage a mixture of light sources because the auto white balance generally will neutralise most issues within an image, she adds.

Ideal conditions are often in bad weather.

“Some of my best shoots happen when it has been storming outside.”

“I think it gives a beautiful soft ambient vibe, and I don’t like dealing with the hard contrasts of sunlight.  It just highlights the richness in the materials, the fabrics, and all the colours just come through. For external architecture work, yes, you pack up and you go home, but for interiors, bad weather can be ideal.”

A story to every space

To capture the personality and atmosphere of an interior, Shannon says she tries to judge the values and ideas the designer had in mind in creating the interior.

“There is a story to every space,” she says.

“Every residential house shoot on a large scale is an interesting challenge because every interior is unique, with its own values.”

“You also need to decide the important aspects, as usually you cannot shoot everything, and so you need to map what’s important and make sure you get that covered in the time you have.”

“If I find a certain colour or object is pulling my eye, and that is not meant to be the focus of the image, then I’ll take it out, or if I want that to be the focus, then I’ll make sure to frame around it.”

With a chuckle, she says, “I’m a millimetre shifter. I will move a chair a little bit left, a little bit right, a little left. Sometimes I’ll get a couch carried out. I am very hands on!”

The further that you can get back from a large object, the more natural it will appear.

“If I’m dealing with beds, couches, big chairs, and things of that size, I always look for a sense of space, and I put on a longer lens rather than shoot wide. Also, I never allow my camera to be at a high viewpoint because I find that approach more suitable for real estate shots.”

“The only time I will look up,” she explains, “is if I want to point up to an architectural detail on a tall building. All my lenses are shift. I learned on large format four by five-inch cameras, so I do a lot of shift photography, moving and straightening converging lines. I shoot mostly with shift to keep everything straight.”

The evolution of style

Shannon says she directs her shoots intuitively.

“I just let it happen,” she reflects, “without much thought or rather the thought is there, but it’s so much second nature that I’m not conscious of it. I’m into the beauty of the project, and some might say that I shoot in a realistic way without too much trickery in post. I’m not a fan of that.”

“Even today I’m looking to advance my eye, always looking for ways to improve, small things like height of camera, shooting elevation, and shooting opposite to the sun or with the sun.”

The gear

Shannon’s basic kit all fits into one medium-sized Bowens case, and contains a camera and approximately six lenses, a large black collapsible pop up for reflections in art works, and a computer.

“There are two main reasons my gear is limited. The lighting is ambient and available, so there is no need for a lighting kit, and the second is weight,” she explains.

“I don’t like my kit to be heavy and cumbersome, as I don’t like arriving at someone’s house with too much gear. It needs to be easy and simple.”

Today, Shannon is in the enviable position of being able to outsource her post-production to a team who understands her aesthetic.

“They have been working with me for many years,” she says. “I look for people who understand tone, colour, and light, and have a good understanding of shape, and a good understanding of photography.”

All the same, she has never been big on image manipulation.

“I like things to be as natural as they can be, with no trickery. The most important aspect is to get the colours and tones right.” Shannon uses Capture One as her digital editing software program of choice. The process is simple.

“I shoot, create a contact selection sheet which then goes to the client. They select from this, then the files are handled. I check them, and then send them to the client for approval, and it’s away.” 

Forever learning

Shannon believes the key to her success is her desire to never stop learning.

“When I look back at my images from the beginning to where I have come to today, I have learned so much about light and style and I’m forever evolving,” she reflects.

“I think I’ve always had that kind of brain where I’ve been very interested in the technical side of things, and how technique can create an outcome that has emotional impact.

Each time you shoot you will see something different – embrace this.” ❂

You can see more of Shannon’s work here.