For some it’s creepy, for some it’s beautiful, for others, maybe it’s a mix of both.

Gaithersburg photographer Ben Salb’s close-up shot of a mother spider has earned him first-place in the Insects and Arachnids category in the Nature Conservancy annual contest.

“It’s a super zoomed in photo of a wolf spider mom with dozens or maybe a hundred or so spiderlings, her babies, on her back,” Salb said.

According to a news release from the Nature Conservancy, 80,000 photographers submitted over 189,000 entries for the prestigious worldwide contest. Salb took his winning photo in a neighborhood park in Gaithersburg.

He calls it “Wolf Spider Mama.” Salb used a technique called focus stacking to get the final image.

“It’s actually 129 photos that were taken individually from the closest point to the lens, to the hairs on the baby’s legs,” he said.

The camera Salb uses takes the shots automatically, but afterward, he uses software in a painstaking process to get a final, perfect image.

Salb’s prize for winning the contest? A $1,000 Amazon gift card.

“Not too bad, got some Christmas shopping money.”

Photography is not Salb’s full time job, but he said he started honing the craft during the pandemic.

“There was kind of an international wave of people who started the bug photography and macro photography at the same time,” Salb said.

You can see more of his work on his Instagram page @bens_small_world.

“I don’t know if the internet or world is just more interested in bugs, or if we’ve kind of helped people see bugs in a different way.”

An anonymous street photographer spent six months visiting hundreds of different areas in Los Angeles documenting raw and poignant images.

Warning: This article has photos that contain mild nudity and depictions of self-harm.

Suitcase Joe’s photos are an empathetic look at displacement and mental illness; Joe previously spent ten years documenting the inhabitants of the notorious Skid Row area of downtown Los Angeles.

For his new project, Grey Flowers, Joe departed from his work on Skid Row and traipsed around the wider L.A. area to meet punks, the unhoused, the abandoned, and what Joe calls “beautiful strangers.”

“I thought I had a good idea of how diverse Los Angeles is but after moving around so much from neighborhood to neighborhood on a daily basis it gave me a whole new perspective,” he tells PetaPixel.

“This city is a never-ending world of different people and places. I could shoot a hundred books around L.A. and they could all be different. There were so many neighborhoods and communities I wanted to dive deeper into while shooting the book. I’m now currently doing just that.”

Grey Flowers is a hardbound coffee table book containing 300 photos all in black and white because Joe feels that the medium has more impact than color photography.

“They capture more of the raw truth of people and their environments. They have a timeless feel that always leaves me longing and wanting to know more. I chase those feelings in my photos,” he explains.

Joe says he visited a different neighborhood every day while shooting for Grey Flowers and it was never the same.

“One morning I could be by the railroad tracks shooting near DTLA, by lunch I’d be in Venice, and later that evening I’d take a bus several miles up Sunset Boulevard and walk back home,” he says.

“It was all a great medicine for the soul and it gave me a whole new love for this city.”

Joe says his experience was different from when he shot Sidewalk Champions — a project all about Skid Row — and he didn’t shoot as many transient people

“There was a girl named Trash who in the book is the girl with hundreds of scars on her arms from cutting,” Joe says.

“She was really fascinating to me and I kept going back to see her. I heard recently she passed away but I can’t confirm it; though, I haven’t been able to find her since.”

Joe says that he continued to keep in touch with many of the subjects in his book and is keen to keep documenting in the same vein.

“After I had enough photos for a new book I felt there was still so much to explore,” he says.

“So many captivating stories and lives of varied people each drastically different from the other but equally fascinating.

“I’ve now partnered with another filmmaker and we’re making a docuseries based on some of the people and subcultures I discovered through Grey Flowers.”

Grey Flowers is published by Burn Barrel Press and can be purchased via the website.

More of Joe’s work can be found on his Instagram and website.

Image credits: Photographs by Suitcase Joe.

Few people enjoy getting soaked in the rain, and as such, it can be tempting to avoid even heading out when the drops start flying. Nonetheless, if you are willing to brave the inclement weather, it can make for some interesting landscape images. This great video follows an experienced landscape photographer as he deals with heavy rain and tries to make worthwhile images. 

Coming to you from Thomas Heaton, this fun video follows him as he tries to create images in heavy rain. No doubt, rain is not particularly much fun, but if you are willing to bundle up and take extra steps to protect yourself and your gear, you can be rewarded with interesting shots that show off a lot of drama. Besides the intriguing look of moody clouds and flying rain, these shots can be attention-grabbing simply because viewers are so used to seeing landscape photos with glowing sun arcing across the frame, so seeing something so unusual instantly helps one stand out from the crowd. So, next time the rain falls, consider taking a shot or two (just stay safe and avoid any lightning). Check out the video above for the full rundown from Heaton. 

And if you really want to dive into landscape photography, check out our latest tutorial, “Photographing the World: Japan With Elia Locardi!” 

In the pursuit of happiness, Matt Hahn has been lucky enough to travel all over planet golf.

Without knowing it, you’ve probably seen Hahn’s work in print, online, or on TV. He had all the tools for a big Wall Street job but a chance opportunity to start photographing golf courses and golf events has segued into a full-on new career path. From credit and currency to clicks of a camera, Hahn’s career pivot has brought him to plenty of cool places.

With no signs of slowing down.

“This year has been wild,” Hahn says, “with where I’ve been, and the places I’ve seen.”

Planting the photography seed

Hahn, 28, was a baseball player growing up but admits he got burnt out with how much baseball he played. The summers before both his sophomore and junior years of high school he had a game every day – sometimes two. He started playing golf at a local par-3 course with a few of his friends and joined his school’s golf team in his junior year. He played all winter on frozen greens and got better and better. He says he dropped about 20 shots off his average score between his junior and senior years.

(Jeff Marsh)

Hahn likely could have gone to a D-II or D-III school to play golf, but he wanted a full-package college experience and not just sports. He decided on the University of Delaware, and as a low single-digit handicap he joined the club golf team there where he eventually became president. He did drone and GoPro content to help promote the club on social media.

Because of the success at Delaware, he eventually became the president of the National Collegiate Club Golf Association (now owned by the PGA of America) where he was the face of the organization that boasted more than 13,000 members.

After graduating with a degree in finance and economics, Hahn was quickly hired by Topgolf where he worked for nearly five years in a wide range of business functions.

Matt Hahn’s 3 Tips for Great Golf Photos

1. Good light is the king.

“If you’re somewhere and have the ability to go out at sunrise and sunset to capture images, that’s what you need to take advantage of: good light. It’s the most important thing for capturing great images on course.”

(Matt Hahn Photography)

2. Get a new perspective.

“If you’re going to a spot where it’s heavily photographed, try to move yourself around and get a different perspective. If I see a group of people standing in one spot at a major event, that’s typically a sign for me that I need to head in the opposite direction. Bringing different perspectives will help your work standout from the crowd.”

3. Use your phone’s grid.

“Turn the grid on for your phone’s camera. Next time you’re taking a photo on-course, try putting the subject of the photo in each of the nine quadrants. The best composition for a photo often has the subject out of center frame, and this will help you experiment with different compositions and images. ”

While working at Topgolf, he travelled to some cool places and would often extend his work trips to check out new courses. His full-on photography career started thanks to PGA TOUR player Zac Blair and his annual event called “The Ringer.” Hahn got into that event via a social-media connection and headed to the 2019 edition at North Carolina’s Dormie Club. At the event Hahn was paired with the Chief Marketing Officer of the Dormie Network, a collection of private clubs with a singular membership fee structure.

“I sent a Dropbox (link) of stuff that I took and (the CMO) was like, ‘You’re pretty good at this. Do you ever think of getting paid for this?’” Hahn says with a laugh.

He was hired by the Dormie Network to shoot a couple properties and that was client No. 1. Client No. 2 was the PGA of America, as it had Hahn shoot the new campus at PGA Frisco.

“The Dormie stuff I was doing was […] marketing-collateral style images. What helped me from the start is that I had a bit of an eye for more than a typical golf-course photo and that got me to build out a bit of a portfolio,” Hahn says. “There was a different value proposition to bring me out because you’re not just getting photos of the course, you’d get images of the whole experience.”

Capturing golf’s biggest moments

Through the uncertain time at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Hahn got furloughed at Topgolf and built more of a portfolio of photography, so much so that by the spring of 2021 he saw a seven or eight-month schedule of jobs ahead of him. He posted on social. He networked. Things kept happening, and he decided to leave Topgolf in June 2021.

(Matt Hahn Photography)

“This jump was a risk, but it was a calculated risk. I had already run the numbers with my finance background,” Hahn says, smiling. “I had a plan and knew it was going to work out.

“The new world for me was on December 31 of 2021. In 2022, you had to start all over again.”

Hahn, however, had a “great” year in 2022. He’s now done plenty more brand shoots, destination shoots, and tournament shoots. Hahn shot the PGA Championships at Southern Hills and this year at Oak Hill, as well as some work for the United States Golf Association, including tee-to-green drone flyover videos of Pebble Beach which appeared on the broadcast of the 2023 U.S. Women’s Open.

(Matt Hahn Photography)

(Matt Hahn Photography)

(Matt Hahn Photography)

(Matt Hahn Photography)

All that momentum carried over into 2023 and now he has an eye on the future. He shot two of the four men’s majors along with the U.S. Women’s Open and Ryder Cup – “I want to make sure I’m part of that crew for the foreseeable future. You get like 15 majors worth of emotions in that first morning session,” Hahn says about the biennial event – and is eager to get more into shooting women’s golf, especially with the Solheim Cup returning to the United States next year, and the other two men’s majors.

“The majors and the Ryder Cup . . . it’s a whole different animal. There are so many different things to focus in on. The crowds. The players. The bags. The details. That lends to the fun of shooting those,” Hahn says.

When Hahn caught the golf bug in high school and progressively became more of a golf junkie, he didn’t plan on it becoming a career in the way that is has. But he’s never been happier – or more creatively fulfilled.

“If you would go back and tell high school or college me that I’d be doing what I was today, I’d never believe it,” Hahn says. “To have the opportunity to bring the places and moments to life in the game that I’ve seen is a really special opportunity . . . one that I don’ take for granted.”

(Matt Hahn Photography)

When Artemis III lands near the South Pole of the Moon in a few years, the astronauts will be equipped with a brand-new camera for images and even videos. The prototype currently being tested is made from off-the-shelf camera parts, high-quality lenses, and NASA’s bespoke modifications to make it Moon-proof. It can operate in temperatures from -200 to 120°C (-328 to 248°F), has protections against dust, and buttons designed to be used by astronauts wearing chunky space gloves.

The Handheld Universal Lunar Camera (HULC) was tested by astronauts Thomas Pesquet from the European Space Agency, NASA’s Jessica Wittner, and Takuya Onishi from the Japanese Space Agency as part of the PANGAEA training course which provides astronauts with the knowledge and skills to be good field scientists in the future exploration of the Moon and Mars. 

The trio were completing their training on the volcanic island of Lanzarote in the Atlantic in both broad daylight and in dark volcanic caves to simulate potential future extreme scenarios for lunar photography.

“The engineers have done a really good job reconfiguring the buttons and arranging them in a simple yet reliable protection for the camera,” Pesquet said in a statement.

The Apollo teams had standalone mechanical Hasselblad cameras and across the entire mission, 1,407 photos were taken on the Moon. The Artemis III mission alone is likely to take more pictures than that – not because the astronauts will have more sightseeing time, most of it will be science work, but because the camera will allow for a lot more images to be captured and stored.

“The lunar camera will be one of many tools they will need to handle on the Moon, so it should be easy to use. The human factor is a big deal for us, because you want the camera to be intuitive and not taxing on the crew,” explained Jeremy Myers, NASA’s lead for the HULC camera.

“We are trying to choose the best lenses for the Moon shots and optimize the settings in a smart way. We want astronauts to be able to take a detailed image of a crystalline structure in a rock and to capture landscapes, all with the right exposure.” 

The camera will continue to be tested and improved, but the team is confident that Artemis III will have the best possible product to shoot incredible photography and footage on the Moon.

#inform-video-player-1 .inform-embed { margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 20px; }

#inform-video-player-2 .inform-embed { margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 20px; }

Vibrant colors, soft lighting and varied textures are just a few reasons why fall is a great time to take photos. And the beauty of south-central Kentucky this autumn will be the focus for members of Somerset Community College’s Fruit of the Lens photography club.

“Fall Into Nature” is the theme for this fall’s exhibit. It is the club’s 23rd show since its first in 2012.

“The transformation of landscapes during fall is dramatic,” says Cindy Burton, faculty advisor for the club. “Trees lose their leaves, revealing new perspectives and features that were previously hidden. This changing scenery allows photographers to capture the beauty of nature’s cycles.”

Burton said that entries to the exhibit will be accepted until Sunday, Nov. 19 and that a premiere showing of the presentation will be held Tuesday, Nov. 28 at noon in the Citizens National Bank Community Room located of in the Rogers Student Commons. All members are encouraged to attend this showing.

While Fruit of the Lens photography club is an SCC student organization, anyone with an interest in taking digital images is invited to join and participate. To become a member, simply email Burton at cindy.burton@kctcs.edu and ask to be in the club.

“The main criterion for joining the club is just to enjoy taking photographs,” Burton said. She noted that members can use any type of camera, even the camera on their phone, for their submissions.

Additional information on the club is available on Facebook at “Fruit of the Lens photography club.” This page will also include links to past exhibits.

Exhibit rules and guidelines

All club members are eligible to submit entries to this exhibit. To be a member, send a request to cindy.burton@kctcs.edu.

Any camera, including on phones, can be used.

Entries must pertain to “Fall Into Nature” theme. All photos must be appropriate, tasteful and taken in south-central Kentucky.

Limit entries to your favorite ten (10) photos. Photo size should be 1 to 5 MB.

Photos manipulated in program such as Photoshop will be disqualified. (Normal color adjustments are perfectly acceptable.)

Name image files in consecutive order, such as “MaryE-1, MaryE-2, MaryE-3, etc.”

E-mail entries using the above naming system to: fruitofthelens@gmail.com.

Deadline for submitting photos for this exhibit is Sunday, November 19 at 12 midnight.

#inform-video-player-3 .inform-embed { margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 20px; }

The American photographer Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) is regarded as one of the great documentary photographers of the 20th century, but a new exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, makes the case that her revolutionary style of reportage was rooted in her early experiences making formal portraits in commercial photography studios during the 1910s and 20s. Dorothea Lange: Seeing People, curated by Philip Brookman, brings together 101 of Lange’s photographs spanning half a century, from early studio portraits to images from her wide-ranging travels in the 1950s and 60s.

“She apprenticed with a series of portrait studios,” Brookman says. “Probably the best known would be Arnold Genthe’s studio in New York, and it was there she learned not only how to run a portrait studio, but also the importance of a pose—the hands, the face, the light—and how to embody who somebody is through how you pose them, how they’re lit. When she then went out into the world, and began to photograph people, she took all that with her.”

The exhibition draws heavily on a 2017 gift of 143 gelatin silver prints from the Los Angeles collectors Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser. These are supplemented with key loans from institutions including the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Oakland Museum of California and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Many of Lange’s most famous images will be on show, including her 1936 image of a white plantation owner and five Black field hands in Mississippi, and her indelible portrait of a California agricultural worker framed by her young children, Migrant Mother (1936), which Lange made while working for the US government’s Resettlement Administration. But there are also many images that are rarely shown—and some that push the boundaries of the portraiture theme, like her 1942 image of an “I am an American” sign that a Japanese American store owner put in his window amid rising xenophobia following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.

“I really wanted to think about the notion of portraiture as something that has to do with the formation of identity and I saw those words, ‘I am an American’, as being a statement of identity that one could consider to be a portrait—this is who I am—even though it’s not a picture of a person,” Brookman says. “It’s a much more contemporary way to think about portraiture.”

The show gives a snapshot of Lange’s life and times, from the poverty and activism in the Bay Area in the early 1930s to the plight of agricultural workers during the Great Depression and the forced detention of people of Japanese descent during the Second World War. “The issues that she was engaged with—migration and climate change, land use, racism—all of those things are still with us today,” Brookman says. “She defined a form of documentary looking that has to do with wanting to understand not just who a person is and what they look like, but what’s around them and how their situation came to be what it is.”

• Dorothea Lange: Seeing People, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 5 November-31 March 2024