This captivating portrait was created with UV Strip lights and careful exposure setting consideration – as the task of balancing ambient light with UV light is not the easiest.

Titled Neon Dream, photographer Marcus Morgan created the image with a Sony A7R III and a Sony FE 50mm F1.2 GM lens (at 1/160sec, f/2, ISO800). 

1. Intensive colors

The UV shots captivate with the significant contrast between the dark background and prominent colors. “We minimized the number of colors in the image to keep it coherent, and not lose the face of the model,” Marcus says. 

To focus on the UV colors, technical requirements must be taken into account. “The challenge was to balance the ambient light with UV light so the ISO did not get too high and add noise. However, the UV still looks bright enough,” he explains. This creates a harmonious overall picture that does not distract the viewer with interference.

2. Optical illusion

“The blurred nails almost look like light sources at first glance,” Marcus says. This is the first impression, because the defocusing has turned the nails into blurred points of light, a sophisticated effect that has created an optical illusion. 

The viewer engages with the photograph and questions the technical procedures used. Marcus creates this feeling by cleverly staging the model’s hands so that they do not cover the face and are integrated at the edges of the image. In post-processing, he brought out the colours of the nails to emphasise contrast and heighten perception.

3. Contrasting textures 

The combination of out-of-focus and sharp picture elements draws the viewer’s attention to the central point of the photograph – the model’s face. This is extremely important when the image contains such strong contrasts. Essential elements are emphasised and complementary ones reduced, with the interaction creating a unique mood.

“I love having bokeh in my shots as I like the sense of depth and mystery that it adds to this shot,” says Marcus. To enhance this effect, Marcus boosted the shadows around the face area in post-processing so that it didn’t lose any detail.

4. Strong pose

A model’s pose can make or break the picture, so Marcus focused on clearly communicating his ideas to the model. He was aiming for a calm pose that didn’t appear forced, even though it has been staged. In this way, the pose enriches the image and underlines the atmosphere. 

UV light also has its own peculiarities that need to be considered to avoid spoiling the effect. “Shooting with the model’s eyes closed is vital, as UV light makes the whites of the eyes purple and the irises black. This would be distracting,” he explains. 

Marcus Morgan

Portrait and fashion photographer Marcus Morgan is based around Bristol, UK. He initially started out concentrating on landscape and architectural photography before shifting his focus to portraiture six years ago.

“I like the variables that working with a model and a makeup artist bring to a shoot. Together, we can make adjustments that suit their personality better.”

Have you ever wanted to shoot a photograph? Like, literally shoot one, as if you were shooting a rifle? Well now you can, thanks to the StockCam — a modified gunstock designed to work as a camera brace! Yes, really.

From IndieGoGo:

Stockcam is a revolutionary camera bracket designed and manufactured by a team of talented professionals who are passionate about photography. Our team comprises experienced engineers, designers, and product developers who have extensive knowledge in both shooting and camera technology.

The StockCam seems to be aimed at wildlife photographers — I guess the idea is you can combine your love of hunting with your love of capturing intimate moments of animal life on film?

More details, courtesy of TechnaBob:

The StockCam features a gun trigger (operated via remote cable plugin) to activate a camera’s shutter, as well as a “safety” to prevent shooting when you don’t mean to, which can be switched between locked, focus (photo shooting), and fast (video shooting). That’s a nice touch. I mean, if you’re going to make a rifle stock camera rig, you might as well go all the way.

The stock has two rails for attaching the camera and any accessories you may want to use, while its shoulder butt helps prevent fatigue while shooting. Although I can’t recommend using this anywhere but in the great outdoors and away from the public because I will yell, “He has a missile launcher!” if I ever see anybody with one.

If that’s the sort of thing you’re interested in, you can pre-order one on IndieGoGo starting at $160.

StockCam: Unqie Stablizer for Wildlife Photography [IndieGoGo]

StockCam Rifle Stock Camera Rig: Ready to Shoot [Jonathan Berisford / Technabob]

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In recent years, the art of photography has become more of a household concept thanks to advancements in technology. Simply pulling out your phone and snapping a photo is easily done. However, some may long for a bygone era when a camera like the Polaroid was developed, revolutionizing the art of instant photography for the future. In the archives of the Vigo County History Center, a Polaroid Model 20 “Swinger” sits waiting for its use. This type of camera was produced between 1965 and 1970 by Edwin Land.

While not the first Polaroid camera to be produced, it was groundbreaking predominantly for its simplicity. Weighing only 21 ounces, the camera had many features that had been seen in few before it. After focusing the viewfinder on your target, the twirl of a red knob and click of a button finalized a new memory. A grayscale photo was swiftly printed out within 15 seconds of the shutter. Customers also appreciated the easy transport using the thin black strap attached to the corner that initially bestowed the name “swinger.” This convenient usage made the model very popular among the younger generation, much like the popularity of modern-day cell phones.

Apart from the effortlessness of the design, the Swinger was also one of the most affordable instant cameras on the market. Compared to the previous Polaroid model, the newer cost approximately $70 less. The Model 20 Swinger was also partly named for its low price, set at only $19.95. If you have any interest in seeing this Swinger camera, it can be viewed at the Vigo County History Center, along with other antique camera models.

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This excellent video presents an engrossing journey through the life and career of Rodney Smith, a renowned fashion photographer with a remarkable story. Smith’s journey into photography was shaped by a desire to distance himself from his upbringing in a fashion-centric family and a difficult relationship with his CEO father. Despite this, his career intriguingly circled back to the fashion industry, where he ultimately made his mark.

Coming to you from Tatiana Hopper, this insightful video takes a look at the life and career of Rodney Smith. Raised in Manhattan, Smith’s initial path diverged from photography. He studied theology at Yale University, intertwining his theological studies with photography. This unique combination of interests led him to Jerusalem on a fellowship, where he produced his first book, “In the Land of Light.” This early experience highlighted the importance of body language in photography and the camera’s influence on subjects and their environment. This insight would become pivotal in Smith’s approach to capturing images.

Smith’s philosophy on photography was shaped by his preference for shooting on film and using available light. He preferred to work “like a painter,” appreciating how light reveals the scene. This approach is evident in his work, where the interplay of light and subject creates a narrative depth. His tool of choice was a Leica M4, emphasizing the importance of simplicity and efficiency in his workflow.

Despite his initial resistance to the fashion world, Smith’s career eventually embraced it. His elegant and efficient style made him a sought-after name in fashion photography from 1993 until his passing in 2016. Smith’s fashion photography is characterized by its grace, simplicity, and a timeless quality that transcends specific eras, reminiscent of the surrealistic elements found in René Magritte’s paintings.

The video also delves into Smith’s later years, where he embraced color photography. This shift was motivated by technological advancements that allowed better control and rendering of color, leading to captivating assignments like Barbara Barry’s campaign.

The narrative highlights how Smith’s work is not just about capturing images but about creating memorable, lasting impressions. The video is a tribute to Smith’s legacy, encouraging viewers to appreciate photography’s power to connect and interact with the world, leaving a lasting impact on the viewer. Be sure to give it a watch above. 

I’ve just been looking at my photos from a recent trip to the Grand Canyon and I’m thoroughly unimpressed. Why do photographs of beautiful scenery never do it justice? Alex Robinson, Suffolk

Send new questions to nq@theguardian.com.

Readers reply

You can take a great landscape photograph if you know how to compose the image. Most people just point the camera at what they are gazing at and press the button. Painters don’t just paint what is in front if them; they compose a picture. The answer is composition. Toomuchrose

It’s most likely the camera you are capturing the scene with. I recommend you try using a Grand Canon. Photofitter

Beautiful scenery gives me (and maybe you) a tremendous sense of light, space, colour and freedom, a feeling that life is worth living, that I’m on top of the world (specially if I’m on a hilltop), of harmony and wellbeing and balance, if only for a moment. And I have a sense of movement and being in nature, too. That’s a lot to ask of a photograph, especially if it only manages a limited range of colour and brightness, is taken near midday, with none of the golden tones of sunrise or sunset, and has a limited depth of focus. A photo compresses space and depth and panorama into a flat rectangle. What’s remarkable is that photos can impress and be beautiful, given all the constraints. But they can, just like paintings. LetsJustLookAtThis

Photography really struggles to capture the sheer scale of geographical features such as the Grand Canyon. Possessing the skill to take breathtaking photographs is the reason professional photographers still exist, especially when everyone on the planet owns a phone with a camera and believes they’re a photographer! Even with a wide-angle lens on a DSLR, or the widest view on a phone camera, you can’t begin to fit the entire scene into the frame, so you have to decide which small section to photograph. Some photographers use extreme ultra-wide-angle lenses or join together multiple photos, physically or digitally, to create a panorama of the entire scene, but unless the final prints are huge, the effect is generally disappointing.

Choosing a viewpoint well in advance and a time of day with dramatic light can make a huge difference. Go for early mornings or evenings, when the shadows are longer and colours glow; avoid harsh, direct midday sun. Take a look at how the great photographers such as Ansel Adams or artists such as David Hockney approached the Grand Canyon for a bit of inspiration and food for thought. James1000

Ansel Adams certainly did justice to landscape photography, mainly by using cameras with large- or medium-format sensors (film or plate negatives) and lenses with long focal lengths, often tiltable to correct for foreshortening of tall, distant objects. All these features are minimised in modern cameras, although correction to a degree by in-camera AI is possible. Of course, he also printed in black and white. Modern professional landscape photographers either use versions of the older technology, or have learned to use processing tools such as Photoshop to modify their images. You have to decide what your image is for, and whether adapting your kit or technique is going to be worth it … daibeaver

Neither photographs nor paintings do a scene justice. The smells, the sounds, the breezes, the changing of the light and the effect of the viewer’s movements are all included in the appreciation of the scene. That said, a good landscape picture can evoke memories of a visit and with it recall the emotional effect on the viewer. It can also be an artistic expression in its own right, conveying the visual components in a manner that invokes an emotional response entirely without context. RollyW

Photography is a skill and an art form. Most of us are not skilled artists, as is evident from our holiday snaps. We wouldn’t expect to match the artistry of a Michelin chef or an old master portrait painter, who have built on their talent with years of study. Why do we all expect to be able to take fantastic photographs? Randomusername222

I’ve done a fair amount of photography in the south-west of the US and the Grand Canyon is notoriously challenging because it is so vast. Your eye manages – or think it manages – a sense of perspective and therefore awe (although once in a while you’ll see a plane flying down in the canyon and suddenly realise that your own perspective is bewildered by the size, too).

The three tips for taking pictures in the GC are: go for golden hour – all my best pictures of it are taken at sunset or sunrise; there are some phenomenal light effects; make sure you get some images of specific features or lines of sight, rather than the canyon as the whole (which almost never captures what you’re seeing); and, if you can, get something in it that gives a sense of perspective. This is also really hard with the Grand Canyon, because people on the other rim will be completely invisible. I also always buy some postcards as a backup. Use what photos you did take to remind you of the feeling, and enjoy having seen a wonder, like Everest, that can’t be captured on film. You’ve been there!

“Dimension means nothing to the senses, and all we are left with is a troubled sense of immensity.” (Clarence Dutton on seeing the Grand Canyon.) Thomas1178

A camera, however expensive or sophisticated, is an incredibly simple device compared with the human brain. Our eyes can take in an incredible amount of information in 3D; that allows the brain to build up a complex picture that a camera with a shutter operating at, for example, 1/200th of a second can’t possible do. It’s impossible to capture in a single picture what our eyes are seeing over a period of time. ChrisGC

A good view is rarely a good photograph. I think a photographer’s best art lies in finding and isolating something that others miss. PascalsFire

Because all the best viewpoints are blocked by hordes of narcissists taking selfies. ShrinkProof

A full moon sitting perfectly symmetrically between the ancient spires of King’s College Chapel was Martin Bond’s last daily photo of Cambridge – 13 years after he started a creative project that has been viewed all over the world.

Bond, whose posts on social media under “A Cambridge Diary” have attracted a following of 100,000 people, set out in 2010 to celebrate Cambridge’s everyday moments by taking an atmospheric portrait shot of the city every single day of the year.

Born and bred in the city, he wanted to portray a different side than the one most tourists see – while trying to rekindle the love local people feel for their home town.

On Tuesday, Bond shared his 5,000th consecutive daily picture and announced that it would be the last one after extending the project from one year to 13.

“I feel a bit sad – I’m going to miss doing it. And I’m worried I might spend the day in bed now,” he said, having not been able to leave the city for more than one night since the project began. “The power of capturing everyday moments reminds us that we’re human. There’s a connectedness that we sometimes take for granted or are not aware of. All I’m really doing is just tuning in to those little personal moments and interactions that happen thousands of times over, in every street, because they chime with me and I think they will chime with others.”

He initially focused his camera lens entirely on “real people living real lives” in Cambridge to encourage his followers to notice the beauty in scenes they might otherwise pass by.

He said: “For about a year, I deliberately avoided taking pictures of the colleges. But after a while, I realised that actually I couldn’t ignore the architecture, because it is pretty phenomenal.

“So I thought, as well as trying to show people from outside the city that there is another beautiful side to Cambridge, I should try to show the people who live here that there is a more secret and perhaps different way of looking at the buildings they are so used to. And that might rekindle their love affair of where they live.”

Bond’s work is highly regarded across Cambridge’s often rigid “town and gown” divide, with locals who discover they were featured in a daily portrait telling him it is “a badge of honour”.

One of his all-time favourite shots is from March 2020 – on the first day of lockdown – when he captured the late head porter of the university’s Peterhouse college, Gerald Meade, watering daffodils. “For me, it was so reassuring. It was a classic British ‘keep calm and carry on’ moment – a sense that, even in this madness, some things will be maintained and somehow, it’s going to be alright,” Bond said.

The portrait, he added, was proudly displayed during Meade’s funeral service – and is now hanging in the college porter’s lodge.

This month, Bond published his first photographic book, Town and Gown, with 365 images chosen from the first seven years of his diary, and he is planning to sift through the estimated 25,000 photos he has taken since 2010 to curate two others. “There are some which, at the time, I thought didn’t make the grade. But now I look at them again and think: that’s a much better picture than the one I chose for that day.”

But, he said, there was one portrait he had never taken during his “very personal” project: a selfie.

He added: “Of course, every picture is, in some way, about me, because I’m framing it. I’ve seen something that has struck a chord with me and I’m framing it at the exclusion of everything else.

“I can’t think of anywhere better to live.”

Back in July, photographer Steve Haining and model Ciara Antoski broke the Guinness World Record for the deepest underwater photoshoot. At 32 feet underwater, it was a mind-boggling feet. Now, the pair have outdone themselves with an even more daring stunt. Haining and his team went back to the waters of Tobermory, Ontario—Canada’s shipwreck capital—and held a portrait shoot at nearly 100 feet.

This achievement was once again awarded the Guinness World Record. “The photoshoot took place at the bow of the Niagara II Shipwreck, which sits at a depth of 30 meters (98 feet),” they write. “The entire attempt underwater including cleanup, equipment removal and safety stop lasted just over 30 minutes, while photoshoot itself was 16 minutes long.”

Having earned worldwide attention from their original attempt, which took place during the pandemic as a tongue-in-cheek response to the closure of pools, they set out to try again. This time they wanted to go deeper with the help of an extra boost. After Fujifilm hired Haining as their underwater DOP, the company asked him and his team what they were up to. “We explained that we were planning on going back to Tobermory one day to do another photo shoot,” Haining told DIY Photography. “We wanted to continue the series. Fujifilm asked us the details and how deep we would go the next time. We picked a number 100 feet (30 meters)… 100 feet, can we do it? The response we got from the Fuji team was amazing, and we knew right then that we had to do it again sooner rather than later. We had our eyes set on a shipwreck that’s at exactly 100 feet.”

But with a deeper setting came new technical challenges. Haining previously relied on AquaTech’s underwater housing for his camera, which are only rated for 30 feet. Despite this limitation, he wanted to test out the gear. Lighting company Nanlite also caught wind of the project and provided Haining with lights for the shoot. These were also only rated at 32 feet, but the company was curious if they would still work, or if they would survive the deep climb at all.

In the end, Haining and his team, which include Mareesha Klups and Mario Medarevic, made the most of what they could acquire. They spent several weeks warming up prior to the date of the shoot. And while the summer lighting certainly helped fight the loss of yellows and oranges at such depths, they went with a bright red dress for Antoski, which cuts a dramatic picture over the rusty tones of the Niagara shipwreck and the chilly blue of the water.

You can see more pictures from this breathtaking photoshoot, below. To stay up to date with Haining, follow him on Instagram.

See more images of Steve Haining’s Guinness World Record for the deepest underwater photoshoot.

Watch the behind the scenes for this photoshoot in the video below:

Steve Haining: Website | YouTube | Instagram

My Modern Met granted permission to feature photos by Steve Haining.

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