Top 21 Up-and-Coming Photography Sites to Watch (and Learn!)
July 8, 2011 
30 Comments
- I’m beginning to warm up to cheesy stock photos… have you noticed that I’ve used some super cheesy ones the last few days?
I’ve spent several days searching all over the Internet to find the very best 21 up-and-coming photography websites. Each of the sites on this list are well deserving of a good read. While I have been following most of them for some time, a few of them were new to me. When you visit these sites, I would appreciate if you leave a comment letting the website owners know you found them through Improve Photography.
Here, I will use “up-and-coming” to mean websites that are not yet household names (such as Digital Photography School, Strobist, or Scott Kelby’s Blog) even if the sites are already somewhat popular. There were 5 criteria by which I judged the (literally thousands) of photography instructional sites: (1) The content must be updated at least weekly, (2) The author has to be competent, (3) The content must be unique and informative, (4) The site must be both user-friendly and not filled with ads, and (5) I have to have learned something by reading the site.
The Best 21 Up-And-Coming Photography Sites on the Internet (In no particular order)
ExpertPhotography.com – A new photography site with provocative articles and knowledgeable writers. The site layout is very well done, and the content is always compelling. To get you started on this site, I would recommend this article about ISO for beginners.
CurrentPhotographer.com – This site has a tremendous amount of quality content. When you first get to the site, you may be tempted to skip over a lot of the content because the navigation is tricky, but I recommend hovering over the “Tips and Techniques” section to find the goods. Here’s a good post on landscape photography to get you reading.
EPhotoZine.com – This site has great information, especially for beginning and intermediate photographers. I’d recommend this general landscape photography post as a starting point.
Photography.ca – I absolutely love this podcast by Marko Kulik up in Canada (eh?). He is very knowledgeable and fun to listen to. Great site with authoritative articles. I liked his post on low light photography.
PhotographyTalk.com – This is a large site with an active community behind it. The articles on the site are well illustrated and cover important topics for photographers. You may find this article on autofocus to be helpful.
PhotoNaturalist.com – This site is focused on outdoor photography of nature: wildlife, landscape, and macro. The site has many helpful articles. I especially liked this article on shooting perched birds.
PixelatedPhotographer.com – This is a new site to me, but it seems to have good content for photographers that like the geeky side of photography and try to keep up with tech news. I think many of you would find this article on wireless flash to be helpful.
Burrard-Lucas.com/blog – I have read this site for quite some time. The photographers have thought up some interesting photography projects and share all of the things they are interested in on the site. Without a doubt, their most famous post is this one on the BeetleCam.
VirtualPhotographyStudio.com – Cool site with a wide range of topics covering portrait photography and the business of photography. This article on posing models is a great starting point.
WeArePhotographers.com – I almost kicked this site out for not being user-friendly, but the content was too good. The author obviously has a passion for photography. I LOVED the concept of night portraits in this article and am excited to do something similar.
PhotoCreative365.com – This site is for portrait photographers, from portrait photography professionals. You might like this article on setting up a wordpress blog as a photography portfolio.
PhotoPathway.com – This is one of the nicest sites on this list. The site has fantastic articles. If you don’t yet understand DPI and PPI, then here’s a great article.
DigitalPhotoBuzz.com - This website by Mark Stagi is very helpful for photographers of all genres. I thought you all would like his article on using digital graduated neutral density filters.
SmallAperture.com – This is a terrific site for staying up-to-date with photography news and everything going on in the industry. This commentary on a London photography workshop was pretty hilarious, I thought.
PhotoPreneur.com – Great site with some great articles. Don’t go to PhotoPreneur.com or you’ll just wonder why I sent you to this site. The good stuff can be found on the PhotoPreneur blog.
PhotoComment.Net – A cool site from South Africa, but the information is universally applicable. If you have a pet, you might like to read this article on pet photography.
PhotographyCorner.com – It takes a few minutes to get oriented on this site and figure out what is happening, but it is full of great content and active users. You might want to check out the forum as a good starting point on the site.
LearnFoodPhotography.com – Great site if you’ve ever had an interest in food photography, this is your ticket. A good starting point is this article on lighting your food photography.
3Exposure.com – Good, short articles on panoramic photography, hdr photography, and time lapse photography. Definitely worth watching this site. Whoever registered the domain should be fired, though. There are WAY too many possible misunderstandings for this url: tripleexposure.com, 3exposure.com, threeexposure.com, threeexposures.com, 3exposures.com, ugh! Not only that, but they didn’t buy the misspellings and redirect them. HOWEVER, it really is a cool new site by Scott Bourne and deserves to be on this list. Here’s a good post on time lapse photography to get you going on that site.
PhotoAttorney.com – Many readers of this site know that I am a third year law student (only 10 months to go!), so this site about the legal aspects of photography is of special interest to me. The author is about the only writer on the legal aspects of photography that I trust. Every time I hear the folks on TWiP or other photography sites talk about the legal aspects of photography, I roll my eyes because of how wrong they often are. Seriously, Photo Attorney is worth a read if you are one of my US readers. Here is a fascinating article on property releases.
Further Reading:
- 10 Ways to Dramatically Improve Your Photo Blog Overnight
- How to Photograph Gorgeous Night Portraits
- Volunteer Photographers Wanted
- How to create a photography website for free – an introduction for beginners
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Beautiful pictures captured by the photographer. Every picture is telling the story of the event. I love all the photos.
Great list and resource! Definitely some great blogs I haven’t seen before. Thanks.
Another one you might be interested in that I find really useful is http://www.neilvn.com/tangents. A lot of great lighting advice, but also a bit of everything photography related.
Such a great post about portrait photographers NY. Keep on posting!
Nice list of sites. I really love digital photography with my Nikon AW100
Nice list of sites!
Thaks for adding Pixelated Photographer to your list. We really appreciate it!
Thanks for including PhotographyCorner.com on the list. While we’ve been around for a while, I definitely still think of us as “up and coming.”
This is my first time pay a visit at here and i am in fact happy to read everthing at single place.
AS a suggestion to add to your list – this one for professional photographers – creativelive.com. Great information and 1-2 X per month 3 day video’s workshops – free covering everything from wedding to babies to boudoir photography
Bah, the BeetleCam thing is just a novelty. I would still prefer to be in control of my camera with a zoom lens. Those pictures they posted were not up to par in comparison of photos taken at a distance for some odd reason.
I will take a look at some of these. I am looking for good sites that will help a novice who just had a Canon 5D and many nice lenses, filters and gear gifted to her. You guys all seem pro, anyone have good novice sites? Have two kids in sports and will be shooting outdoor recreation, pets, hunting also.