Another year has passed and the Fire Monkey has replaced the Wood Goat... Yes, that's right: the Chinese New Year has arrived and the carnival is back in the streets of Paris! It is always so much fun photographing street events and festivals, so I simply could not miss it. After capturing dragons and firecrackers against the traditional Parisian backgrounds of the Marais in 2015, this time I decided to head to the 13th district of Paris, the very heart of the Chinese community. The show promised to be truly flamboyant, if it wasn't for those rain clouds on the horizon... but first things first.

Besides photographing sights and architecture, travel photography is also about capturing portraits, whether it's your travel companions or people you meet along the way. During photo tours, our participants often ask us for some tips on how to capture a good portrait against an iconic background. We have therefore put together some tips to start with, while our photographer Elena kindly volunteered to pose for photos to illustrate the main points. In part I of this article we will cover the basic principles of portrait photography, while part II will provide some tips and tricks on how to make the portraits more interesting.

Most digital cameras are equipped with various automatic modes (or presets) that help beginner photographers get more control over the resulting images without venturing too far into camera settings. If you don't feel quite ready for semi-manual or manual modes, you may start discovering your camera from these presets, letting the camera help you according to the situation. By understanding how the automatic presets work, you will learn how to use them creatively and to adapt them to various cases.

Holding a camera safely and steadily is one of the key moments for getting great quality images. By combining it with Shutter Speed vs. Focal Length Rule you will get the sharpest travel photographs possible. Whether you have recently bought your first DLSR camera or it's been with you for a while, check out these 8 easy steps and make sure you hold your camera correctly for the maximum steadiness and the best results.

Shorter days and longer nights, festive decorations and lights, presents and cards for family and friends, Christmas and New Year celebrations, smell of cinnamon, cloves and oranges, time spent with our loved ones - it all makes the winter Holiday Season a very special time of year. It's also the time to get the cameras out and head in search of more magic photos! Here are some 5 ideas on how to capture festive moods during holiday season to get your started.

In a great photo, everything is important: the subject, the composition, the colours, the light, the perspective. Speaking of the latter, if the horizon or vertical lines in the photo are slightly off, this will affect the overall impact of the image. Luckily, Lightroom has some great tools for easy removal of distortions caused by the lens and correction of perspective distortion in the photo. In this tutorial we will show how to easily correct any distortions in your photos and make them shine.

As travel photographers, we are always in search of new and exciting places to go to and to photograph, whereas the area where we live often does not seem as inspiring. Have you ever said to yourself: "I've been to that place so many times, I know it by heart, so what else can I photograph there?" If yes, then it's time to go there again and look at it with new eyes. Let's look at how to make the most out of familiar places and how to improve your photography by going back to the same spots over and over again.

In the age of digital photography, when memory cards provide more and more storage capacity, it is easy to get overwhelmed by the quantity of photographs we take. The skill of sorting, organising and storing digital photo files becomes just as important than any other photographic skill. As a professional photographer, I came up with my own routine of dealing with large quantities of photographs on a regular basis. In this article, I will guide you through the 7 steps of my photo selection process and hopefully you will find some helpful ideas to apply to your daily life as a photographer.

Once you have tested the accuracy of your camera's autofocus system as described in our previous article and determined that one or some of your lenses do not produce perfectly sharp images, you have two solutions: have your camera serviced by a professional or, if your camera has an autofocus micro-adjustment feature, do it yourself. In this article, we will guide you through 7 easy steps for DSLR camera's autofocus calibration process using Live View mode on the example of Canon 5D Mark II camera.

Automatic focusing is a great help in ever-changing environments you find yourself in as a travel photographer. It wouldn't be a mistake to say that we use automatic focusing 99% of the time. For best results, we need the autofocus to be both fast and reliable. While the former depends on the quality of the lens, the latter may get inaccurate with time. If you noticed that the focus on many of your images is slightly off, you may run a quick autofocus test for your camera before rushing to the camera repair shop. In this article, we will explain how to check the accuracy of your camera's autofocus at home, while our next article will provide some tips on camera autofocus calibration.

How do you spice up your travel photography, stimulate your creativity and practice various photo techniques at the same time? Start your day with a photographic self assignment! Focusing on one single idea or task at a time will be your guide, will make you more disciplined and will get you to think outside the box. And beside this, you will end up with a great series of photos that you can share with your friends and family, or maybe even enter a photo contest! Here are 5 ideas of self assignments for better travel photos.

Each year at the end of August, several streets in northern Paris explode in one of the biggest, loudest and most colourful festivities: the Ganesha Festival. Streets bursting with colours, traditional Indian music from every corner, the smell of incense and jasmin flowers, smiling people dressed in their best clothes - everything blends together in the atmosphere of celebration! If you are ready for one the most flamboyant sides of the City of Light, grab your camera and join me for an unforgettable walk among the worshipers of Ganesha.