• Queen Elizabeth II died on September 8, 2022 at the age of 96.
• Photographers Chris Jackson, Tim Rooke, and Samir Hussein shared their final photos of the Queen.
• Jackson took one of her last official portraits, and Hussein took a spontaneous image.

One year ago, Queen Elizabeth II’s 70-year reign came to a close when she died on September 8, 2022, at the age of 96.

Two royal photographers — Chris Jackson of Getty Images and Tim Rooke of Shutterstock — shared some of the last photos they took of the monarch.

Here are seven photos that provide a glimpse into the final months of her historic life.

Social media foodies, this is your time to shine. Yelp is hiring its first-ever official chief food photographer.

The platform is awarding one winning job candidate $10,000 to hop on a US tour and snap pics of the most delicious dishes from local restaurants across the country while sharing their favorite ones along their journey.

Before you ask, the answer is no—you won’t need to be a professional photographer to do the job! Yelp is looking for someone whose skills really shine through phone photography, which makes for the best social media posts. The chosen candidate will have to visit two restaurants a month and create two blog posts in addition to taking great pics and videos to post on Yelp’s social media account.

If you’re worried about not having the right skills, Yelp Trend Expert Tara Lewis shared some tips you might need to practice before applying with Thrillist. As Lewis points out, the lighting plays a huge deal in a pic, and you always want to choose natural light over artificial light when possible.

However, that doesn’t really matter unless your lenses are clean! “Before you get started, make sure to clean your camera lens for sharp, high quality photos,” she advises. “You don’t need any special tools for the job and a clean, lint-free cloth should do the trick.”

Before you head over to the next restaurant and start snapping pics, it’s important to take other people into consideration, too. “Always be mindful of your server and other customers before taking photos,” Lewis pointed out. “While your server would never want you to miss the most memorable moments in food presentation, first ensure that you’ve given them the attention, space and courtesy to serve without disruption.”

The requirements for the gig are simple. Applicants will be judged based on their love for local restaurants, their social media prowess, and the quality of their photography. If you wish to apply, you’ll have to submit one entry of up to 10 unique photos of food or restaurants that you have added to Yelp pages. Additionally, you’ll be required to submit a 30-60 second video where you explain why you’re the ideal qualified candidate for the role.

You have until October 7, 2023 to apply for the job, and you can do so right here. The winning candidate will be selected on or about October 31.

Ron Shuller’s Cincinnati Drone Services Offers Aerial Drone Photography

Ron Shuller

In the ever-evolving world of drone technology, aerial photography has become an integral part of both recreational and professional pursuits. While most consumer drones come equipped with integrated cameras, professionals often require specialized equipment to capture stunning, high-quality imagery. Sony recognized this need and answered the call with the remarkable Sony ILX-LR1 camera, designed to elevate drone photography to unprecedented heights.

Sony ILX-LR1 Camera: A Revolution in Drone Photography

At first glance, the Sony ILX-LR1 sets itself apart from conventional cameras. Unlike traditional models, it boasts a compact, lightweight body that eschews familiar features like a viewfinder, screen, or battery. This intentional design choice allows the camera to seamlessly integrate with a wide range of professional drones, giving photographers unparalleled creative freedom.

The Power of 61 Megapixels

The true star of the ILX-LR1 is its 61-megapixel full-frame back-illuminated Exmor R CMOS image sensor. This sensor is a technological marvel that guarantees exceptional image quality. Its back-illuminated design ensures outstanding low-light performance, while the vast pixel count delivers stunning detail and resolution. Whether you’re capturing sweeping landscapes or intricate details, this camera excels in every scenario.

Unmatched Versatility with E-Mount Lenses

One of the standout features of the Sony ILX-LR1 is its compatibility with a wide array of E-mount lenses. This compatibility opens up a world of creative opportunities for photographers. Whether you need a versatile zoom lens for capturing distant subjects or a prime lens for breathtaking portraits, the ILX-LR1 can accommodate your vision. This flexibility is essential for professionals who demand precision and adaptability in their work.

Streamlined Control and Connectivity

The ILX-LR1 camera features a single terminal capable of accepting power, exposure output, focus, and trigger commands. This streamlined connectivity ensures a hassle-free integration process with your drone. It simplifies the setup, allowing photographers to focus on capturing remarkable shots without the distraction of complex controls.

Elevate Your Drone Photography with Sony ILX-LR1

In conclusion, the Sony ILX-LR1 camera is a game-changer for professional drone photography. Its 61-megapixel sensor, compatibility with a wide range of E-mount lenses, and simplified connectivity make it an invaluable tool for photographers seeking to push the boundaries of their craft. With the ILX-LR1, Sony has once again demonstrated its commitment to innovation, ensuring that drone photography reaches new heights of quality and creativity.

Invest in the Sony ILX-LR1, and take your drone photography to the next level. Elevate your art, capture breathtaking moments, and stand out in a world where every frame counts. Sony’s ILX-LR1 is the camera you need to soar above the rest.

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Brussels, Belgium

An activist confronts the Ryanair CEO, Micheal O’Leary, after squashing a cream pie into his face as he was on his way to deliver a petition to the office of the EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, in Brussels, Belgium

Photograph: Olivier Hoslet/EPA

The French photographer Marie-Laure de Decker, who has died aged 75 of heart failure, was one of the first women to gatecrash the male-dominated world of photojournalism. As a young woman she endured being in front of the lens, as a model, to help her meet her goal: to be behind it. She had to fight to succeed, and said: “If you’re a woman you’re never taken seriously.” Yet she reported from the Vietnam war, the struggle for independence in Mozambique, riots in Chile and the oppression of apartheid in South Africa.

She did not photograph the horrors that she witnessed. Instead, she brought her compassionate eye to bear on the victims of conflict: the displaced elderly, combatants in quiet moments, women and children. She said: “I am proud not to show blood. I censor myself as soon as the shot is taken. I have moral principles.”

She had a deep love for Africa, having been born in the then French colony of Algeria. Arriving in Chad in 1975, she met the Toubou rebels fighting against the Chadian and French armies. She lived with them for two years in the heart of the Sahara, taking black and white portraits of the fighters posing proudly. “Colour is never as beautiful as in real life, so it’s in black and white that people’s souls show,” she said. De Decker walked and suffered with the Toubou and they respected her, embraced her and renamed her “Marie de l’or”: Mary of Gold.

The youngest of three sisters, Marie-Laure was born in the Algerian city of Bône (now Annaba), to French parents, Michel de Decker and Marie-Antoinette (nee Le Sourd). Michel was a war hero, having fought in the Spanish civil war and the second world war. Later he found work in the French colonies, including taking his family to spend a year in a remote village in Ivory Coast, where he searched for gold.

They moved to Paris, where Marie-Laure attended boarding school and spent her free time in the Louvre museum, the only place she was allowed to visit unaccompanied. School was not for her, and she dropped out at 15. She enrolled at Penninghen School of Art in 1963 and discovered freedom and photography. With piercing green eyes and a noble beauty, she reluctantly turned to modelling to earn money. At the cinema, she saw the Oscar-winning documentary The Anderson Platoon, about an American unit in the jungles of Vietnam, and was inspired.

After a brief flirtation with film-making, she chose photography. She admired the courage and storytelling of the photojournalist Gilles Caron of the young French photo agency, Gamma, and she resolved to join it.

Friends lent her Leica cameras, and she shot the May 68 Paris protests and took a series of portraits of her heroes, the forgotten men of surrealism. She tracked down Man Ray, Luis Buñuel and Marcel Duchamp and took her work to a magazine editor who told her: “Come back when they’re dead.”

Undeterred, she saved up her modelling fees and bought her own Leica and, in 1970, aged 23, a one-way ticket to Saigon. There she worked for the US magazine Newsweek for two years, travelling around the country on a motorbike with a Vietnamese friend, named “Twiggy” after the skinny British model.

On her return to Paris she was accepted into Gamma. De Decker was the agency’s sole female photographer and, when she arrived, one man asked if she was there to do the cleaning. She felt “very despised. I was surrounded by macho photographers who thought they were being clever.” But she was courageous and determined. She took portraits of politicians; most famously of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing watching himself win the 1974 election on television (he subsequently wooed her desperately, despite their ideological differences); and celebrities such as Charlotte Rampling and François Truffaut. She reported from Yemen and Bolivia and then, in 1975, she went to Chad.

While staying with the Toubou rebels, she and a fellow photographer, Raymond Depardon, were instrumental in securing the release of a French hostage, the archaeologist Françoise Claustre, and the women remained friends. De Decker also spent time with the Wodaabe tribe, nomadic cattle herders in the south of the country, “people who love each other, who have nothing to do with our world. They produce what they need and use only what they can master. It’s the total opposite of us.” Although she had 50 rolls of film seized by the French army – the return of which she sought unsuccessfully – a book of her work, Pour Le Tchad, was published in 1978.

In 1980, following work in Mozambique, Russia and Tibet, she left Gamma. Her early enthusiasm for the agency had gone, and she wanted to be independent: “I want to photograph only the ones I love.”

In Paris, she had met Teo Saavedra, a Chilean revolutionary, and their son, Pablo, was born in 1983. Later that year, the couple travelled to Santiago: Teo organised attacks with the armed resistance, De Decker documented unrest during the 10th anniversary of Pinochet’s coup.

She shot fashion for Glamour and Harpers & Queen magazines and took memorable portraits of Serge Gainsbourg and Catherine Deneuve. De Decker visited South Africa in 1985, and would return there regularly, recording the struggles of ordinary people living under the brutal yoke of apartheid.

In 1986, now separated from Teo, she met the criminal defence lawyer Thierry Lévy, and they had a son, Balthazar, the following year. Together they published a book, Garçons et Filles, in 1987, her portraits from around the world accompanied by his text, and she continued to work, shooting for clients including Yves Saint Laurent. Then, in 1993, she travelled to Bosnia to cover the civil war. It was a mistake. She later said: “Since Bosnia, there’s a side of my job I can’t stand. Bosnia was too sad, too hard. It killed me.”

She retreated to Rabastens, on the river Tarn, a place she knew and loved from childhood. Until 2007, when her health was affected after a car accident in Chad, she took her boys to visit the Wodaabe people every year. She wanted to record the tribe’s culture and celebrate their lives: “They are people I admire, and I have decided to photograph each and every face.”

In 2001, the first major exhibition of her work, Vivre Pour Voir, opened at MEP (the Maison Européenne de la Photographie) in Paris, with another show at the Visa Pour l’image festival in Perpignan in 2006. When Gamma folded in 2009, De Decker became embroiled in legal battles to try and have her material and copyright restored to her. The cases were long and arduous, and left a bitter taste.

In 2013, her outstanding work depicting the realities of war was acknowledged with the Albert Kahn International Planet prize.

Levy died in 2017. De Decker is survived by her sons.

Sep 07, 2023 03:38 PM IST

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As the bride shared about her situation with netizens, she also asked people if she is being selfish about it.

A bride was left questioning herself if she was being selfish after her maid of honour wanted to get her photoshoot done right before the wedding. She took to Reddit to share about the incident and asked for people’s opinions.

The post was shared on Reddit by user ‘NoSoulHereKikiMora.’ She wrote, “My sister, who is the maid of honour, recently asked me if she can ‘borrow’ my wedding photographer for her pregnancy photo shoot, which would be right before my wedding after she has her hair and makeup done by the professional paid by me.” (Also Read: Bride demands refund after groom’s affair with wedding photographer)

She further added that the maid of honour is willing to pay for the photoshoot. But the bride doesn’t want “her to have pictures in the same style, in the same place, on the same day, and with the same makeup and hair” as her wedding pictures.

She lastly asked people if she was wrong in her thinking.

Take a look at the post shared by the Redditor here:

WIBTA for not letting my sister ask my wedding photographer for her pregnancy photo shoot on the same day as my wedding?
by u/NoSoulHereKikiMora in AmItheAsshole

This post was shared one day ago. Since being posted, it has received close to 4,000 upvotes. Many even took to the comments section of the post to share their thoughts on the situation between the bride and the maid of honour.

Here’s what people are saying about it:

An individual wrote, “Would there even be time? Usually, the photographer is taking pictures even as people start to get ready.”

A second added, “Sister shouldn’t be trying to take advantage of the photographer that way. The photographer was booked for a wedding only, and it’s extremely disrespectful to the professional to even ask. Seriously, this is their JOB and how they make a living. It’s two separate events, period.” (Also Read: Bride pulls off WWE move on groom. Watch)

“Your sister can hire the photographer for another day, maybe the next day to preserve makeup. She’s being selfish to ask if she can do a photoshoot on your wedding day. The photographer is going to be busy shooting for you! Don’t let your sister do this,” expressed a third.

A fourth said, “No, actual professional wedding photographer would entertain the sister’s request.”

• Topics
• Bride
• Reddit

Elizabeth David famously despised photographs of food. And well she might. For most of the time she was writing, food photography was awful. This wasn’t due to aesthetic inadequacy, but the purely technical problems of the medium. If you wanted a colour picture for a book, magazine or advertisement hoarding in 1960, it would need to be shot in a studio, on a large-format 5×4 or 10×8 camera. Colour transparency stock was “slow”. It took an enormous amount of light to make a decent picture, so the camera was bolted down, the shutter stayed open for long exposures while hot tungsten lights beat down on the food. It was really no wonder that the pictures looked artificial. It was all cold, all propped into place, and half of it was probably sprayed with oil or varnish to make it look the tiniest bit appetising.

David knew that there is only one criterion for a picture of food to succeed: deliciousness. You couldn’t convey deliciousness with the photography of her era, which is why she painted such delicious pictures with words. She rejected visual representation and fought publishers for the right to do so.

Fashion photography of the same period faced similar technical limitations. It’s why those 1950s Vogue shots look so characteristically poised, elegant — and still. But in the ’60s, the advance in smaller, more portable cameras, faster film and a new attitude among editors transformed the way fashion was shot. It wasn’t about how the clothes looked anymore. A photograph had to express how it might feel to wear the clothes. The images didn’t even have to be objectively beautiful if, instead, they could communicate quirkiness, fun, youth or rebellion.

The British food renaissance of the late ’90s saw food photography follow fashion. Led by the colour supplements, food photography became more “lifestyle”. Pages filled with dishes shot in natural locations, usually with shallow depth of field, so some impossibly aspirational situation might be inferred from a tantalising blur of background. This wasn’t sausage and lentils; this was saucisse de Toulouse with puy lentils and redcurrant jelly on a heavingly packed evening in an achingly hip gastropub. It was light years away from the funereal banquets in those awful staged photos of the ’50s. Jamie or Nigella’s food would never be shot like Robert Carrier’s, or Fanny Cradock’s. And the loveliest thing was that the informality, the ease and the creativity finally achieved what David never lived to see: properly delicious pictures of food.

Then iPhones arrived, and everybody was a food photographer. With terrifying speed, the smartphone has caught up with photography, particularly of food. A shot of a meal, snapped in a restaurant by an enthusiastic diner, is a truer communication of deliciousness than even the most beautiful studio shot. The phone’s got it nailed. It’s doing everything food photography had finally developed to do, capturing well-focused, naturally lit images of something made to look delicious and served in a curated environment. What can a professional photographer and crew bring to that, except artifice?

We’ve recently witnessed some pushback. Food books and magazines have started featuring more stylised shots. Acid colours, forensic flash and ironic formicas and plastics as props. They’re cleverly “quoting” the bad old days of food photography with hints of deliberate visual awkwardness. It’s a bit Op-art, a touch Warhol, even vaguely punk. But the trend is already dying. The pictures just don’t seem to work because nobody’s interested in looking at food if it doesn’t look delicious.

I’m lucky. I get to work with the very best food photographers and, indeed, I trained as a photographer myself. It hurts me to say this, but it feels like we’re in danger of entering a rut as the consequence of a peak. Modern food photography has achieved peak deliciousness. But the way things are moving technologically, it is a matter not of years but months before advances in smartphone lenses and algorithms mean their pictures are widely accepted for publication or printing. Then AI, fuelled by those images, will create an infinite number more, with no need for human intervention.

So where is food photography going? Is it possible to predict? In the earliest days of photography, people like Julia Margaret Cameron or American photo secessionists like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen tried to make photographs in the style of traditional paintings. Photographers snapped at the heels of the fine arts. At the same time painting, which for its entire history had largely striven for the goal of emotionally affecting, lifelike representation, flew into a flat spin. What was art, if some technological process could achieve perfect realism? Photography was the insurgent medium and the painters responded by dumping realism, pursuing impressionism, abstraction, surrealism, pop and conceptual art.

This is an alluring historic precedent but, as far as I can see, we don’t have that sort of opt-out. Elizabeth David is still correct that the only meaningful criterion in a depiction of food is deliciousness. We can’t throw that out.

I desperately don’t want the visual side of our industry to run out of road and stagnate but, if food photography is constrained by deliciousness, it can’t ever have its own impressionism, dada, pop art or anything like it. I love the work we’re doing at the moment, how could I not? It’s the best it’s ever been. But we’ve peaked and I’m struggling to imagine how we move forward.

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Forward-thinking as it may be, mainstream media holds women to unreasonably high standards. Women in the workforce are expected to be professionally unflappable, perpetually composed in the face of adversity, all while looking as classically pretty as possible. 

At this point in time, it is hardly a secret that disheveled women are overlooked, and attractive women are admired from a distance but ultimately tuned out. The worst part about the pseudo-progressive patriarchy is that it would have the perfect woman tending obsessively to her looks, arbitrarily keeping up a facade of anti-materialism.

Over 90% of commercial beauty companies are run by men, as reported by the Digital Beauty Group LLC. Companies like these tout a philosophy that would be mystical if it were not so hackneyed, promising detoxification and eternal youth in tiny plastic bottles. They rely on typically attractive women to promote their brands through advertisements. Occasionally, they introduce non-traditional models, always framing their bodies as objects deviating far from the norm, as though their otherness defines them.

A woman’s life is confusing and generally contradictory, but it is far from hopeless. If lived for one’s self, it is actually quite fun. Traditionally “girly,” surface-level self-care activities like getting one’s nails done or face made-up have the potential to empower. Erroneously discounted as shallow and male gaze-serving, methods of so-called girl maintenance are time and again opportunities for women to come together in solidarity. Cosmetic upkeep is no easy feat, after all. Why should women not support each other through spa days and salon outings?

In exercising control over their bodies, women ground themselves on a planet that spins so fast it threatens to fling them off of it. Among the various means of asserting power in this way is healthily appreciating the sensual lure of one’s body. There are several methods a woman can take to optimize the comfort she feels in her skin, an increasingly popular one being allowing herself to be artistically captured in boudoir photography.

A slightly suggestive and alluring art form, boudoir photography originated in the 1940s and has stuck around and evolved with the times. In a boudoir portrait, the muse is dressed to her level of comfort, usually though not necessarily scantily clad. A skilled boudoir photographer creates timeless images, simple yet splashy, based on the subject’s personal preferences.

Claire Nichols, born in Florence, Ala., is a local photographer offering boudoir photography shoots. Normally specializing in pictures of couples and families, Nichols has branched out, expanding her repertoire to offer tastefully provocative portraits of women.

In the past, Nichols’s preferred location for shoots of this nature has been downtown Florence’s GunRunner Boutique Hotel. Established in 2017, the GunRunner showcases its hometown’s authenticity by way of 10 luxury suites, each highlighting a different cultural facet of the Shoals area. 

“[The GunRunner’s suites] are very moody. They have the best ambience for boudoir shoots. When I look for a spot, I’m looking for someplace dark and sexy. Nobody wants to be in an overly bright area when they’re posing with that sort of delicacy.”

Last year, Nichols held a session in the GunRunner’s Billy Reid Suite, named after and contributed to by Florence’s own Billy Reid, critically-adored fashion designer and national trendsetter. Slots in Nichols’ last boudoir shoot included one outfit change per client and lasted a little less than a half-hour, producing roughly 30 final photos.

Those who identify as a woman are expected to present themselves with grace, regardless of circumstances. Yet it seems evident the everyman’s definition of grace is less about aplomb than it is appearance. 

In his 2005 commencement speech to Kenyon College’s graduating class, writer David Foster Wallace reminded his audience of the adage, “The mind [is] an excellent servant but a terrible master.” This cliché is tough to dispute; the mind is the source of self-doubt, of intrusive thoughts and misinterpretations. That said, to many women, the mind sometimes feels more like a captive than a captor, stuck in a body that is routinely subject to societal scrutiny. A woman’s brain can trick her into hating her body, warping her limbs into shackles, distorting her reflection. The mind’s eye is all-too-often a weapon of self-destruction. Even (if not especially) the most confident women are met by the world with vitriol, no matter the fact that they, like everyone, lack immunity to criticism.

Nichols comes from a family full of artistic talent. The photographer’s father, Gary Nichols, is a Grammy Award-winning country music singer. Her brother, Trey Nichols, writes and performs rock music in venues around the South.

“I think it’s great my family has such a rich history of creative talent,” said Nichols, “even if we’re all doing something different in the scheme of things. I get to capture a lot of the moments we share in pictures. That’s special to me.”

At age 15, Nichols was given her first camera as a Christmas gift.

“[My first camera] only had two lenses, but I used it throughout high school.” said Nichols. “I’ve since upgraded to a Sony Mirrorless Camera.”

Since then, she has been steadily advancing her career. Nichols’ first paid gig, a job taking senior portraits, was offered the year after she received the camera that sprouted her emergence as a photographer.

“Yes, I started off just taking senior portraits and family photos,” said Nichols. “That’s all I was doing. I was too scared to dive into wedding photography, and I didn’t want to be a sports photographer. I didn’t even know boudoir photography was an option. The more invested I got in my photography, the more I began to see examples of it. I thought, ‘Wow, that’s so cool! I would love to offer that.’”

Nichols now works full-time taking pictures. Her current portfolio includes wedding, maternity and boudoir portraits as well as photos of graduating seniors and parents.

“After my first three boudoir photography sessions, I really got the hang of things,” said Nichols. I’ve learned how to make people as comfortable as possible. My favorite part about boudoir photography has been building other women’s confidence. It comes down to a fun and creative way to appreciate their bodies. Women come into [a boudoir shoot] saying, ‘I’m nervous. I’m worried I’m gonna hate seeing myself this way.’ Then when I show them the finished products, they say, ‘Oh, my God. That’s me?’ They can’t believe how good they look. Honestly, everyone always looks so uniquely beautiful. No two [boudoir shoots] have been the same.”

The female form has been a focal point for artists since the invention of art. Boudoir-style photos are a particularly intimate example along this vein. Somehow simultaneously bold and private, pictures such as these are made special by the ownership women have over them. Whether they are taken with a lover in mind or simply for one’s self, boudoir photos have a common trait – the women featured in them should have complete control over who sees them. 

Less intense than taking provocative pictures on one’s own, booking a boudoir shoot is a decision worth giving thought. Those interested in Nichols’s work can get in touch with her on her website, where they can view her work and get in touch with her.