Web designers often browse through portfolio websites of other designers for inspiration and ideas that can be used in their own work. Photographers, like designers, have a need to display an attractive portfolio for their websites visitors, and many photographers have excellent portfolio sites. In this post I’d like to take a look at 25 of the best. This collection is based on the quality of the portfolio site itself, not necessarily the work being displayed inside the portfolio.

This post is part of an ongoing series at That INDIE Dude called “Inspired”. True creativity and originality demand true inspiration. The point of this series is to help readers find new and fresh areas of inspiration in their lives, so as to help them find their most creative and original selves.

Breaking into the field of photojournalism usually takes time and a lot of effort. It’s a competitive business, controlled by editors who are often over-worked and centers around what is widely considered a subjective product. In this post Photojournalist and photo editor at www.WeSay.com Jason Geil gives some tips on how to get into Photojournalism.

Today portrait photographer Christina N Dickson looks at ‘the Gold Hour’ and why it is a great time to do portrait work. Christina’s work can be found at www.ChristinaNicholePhotography.com. You are an admittedly talented people photographer. You like taking candid. You like taking portraits. After a few months of practice, you’ve progressed. But it seems that there is still something missing from your portraits. If this is you, there may be one thing holding you back from getting to that next level in your portraiture.

Today is Blog Action Day - a day where thousands of bloggers around the world focus upon and highlight issues around one topic - poverty. Here is our contribution - a collection of images taken to highlight poverty from around our globe. Click the images to be taken to the Flickr pages of the photographer and to learn more about the story behind the faces you see.

We finished the Texture this week, and boy did we get a feel for things. dblaveino’s shot of the red door really stood out to all of us. The vivid colours, and strong textures that seem like you could just reach out and touch them made it a clear winner this week. But our runners up were really close too. KodiakStar’s picture, titled “What is texture, without touch” took the idea of texture to it’s extreme. Not only did the picture have the texture of the finger, but also a texture added on top with post-processing, and of course, what is texture if you don’t have touch? And last but not least, k9mom’s picture of the yellow lamp shade had a very strong texture that was backlit by the bulb. The primary colours and diagonal lines also helped to accentuate the composition.

In this quick and easy video tutorial, Peter Carey explains a how to straighten images the easy way in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0. Gone are the days of guessing the proper rotation to balance out your horizons. Watch as he explains, in less than 60 seconds, how to easily straighten any image.

Everyone who has ever been interested in photography might have seen or heard of the movie called, “Born Into Brothels” and how the photographer Zana Brinski transformed the lives of the children of Calcutta through the art of photography. That movie transformed my life. Humanitarian work has always been something that I was interested in. After hurricane Katrina tested the wills of Americans across the continent, I read about an art teacher that went to New Orleans from the east coast to do art with the children living in the stadium during her spring break. As an art teacher myself, I remembered thinking that I wish I could do something like that.

Yann Arthus Bertrand is a professional and internationally recognized photographer. You’ve probably seen his amazing aerial photographs here or there but never knew they were his. I know some of them look like hdr photography but they aren’t, they’re just amazing art meant to make you admire his talent. He started taking photos of animals but he ended up selling over 60 books of photography taken from helicopters and balloons. Some of his good pictures were published in National Geographic magazine. It must be mentioned that he earned the admiration of all the photographers in the world because of his work, skills and brilliant mind.

I love high speed Photography. Being able to capture a moment in time that we, as humans, would otherwise be unable to see. The beautiful mixture of technical precision and artistic freedom. The following are a collection of High Speed Photographs featuring the use of water or liquid. While you may have seen many collections featuring water, bullets, exploding fruit etc, I thought I would pay tribute and showcase some of the most stunning and beautiful liquid based High speed Photographs.

We collected beautiful portraits of children who lived in poverty but are now supported by charitable organizations. These photos were shot by photographers, photojournalists and organizations who have tried to improve the conditions of children in poor countries. The money these organizations raised gave these children hope, a future, something to rely on and something to believe in. There are millions of children out there who need your help. And you can help them by donating to the Global Fund and donating to Kiva.

"Clouds of insects danced and buzzed in the golden autumn light, and the air was full of the piping of the songs of the birds. Long, glinting dragonflies shot across the path, or hung tremulous with gauzy wings and gleaming bodies" - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Summer is gone. It's time to enjoy what the Autumn lakes landscapes can offer to our eyes.

Today while sorting through some old boxes I found a photo album filled with the first ever photos that I took as a young budding photographer. I was around nine years old when I first started using our family’s film point and shoot camera and I still remember my Dad’s ‘training’ on how to use it.

An idea places you only half way away from that cool work you're looking for. The other half depends on how you manage to make that idea happen. Ram Martinez, a Venezuelan photographer, has cool ideas, and works it out really smoothly. Beautiful girls, cool background, a little texture and we're done. Playing around with patterns is also sweet. You guys should really check this guy out. After checking these few pictures, go to his Flickr photostream. Cheers! ;)

Sometimes sitting in your cubicle, working a M-F, just doesn’t cut it. It hurts. Not mentally, but physically. Even sitting at home constantly can have your mind eventually dwelling within a cave. So to not only open up your minds, but keep them open, you must stay in an expanded atmosphere. Below, we list a couple of photos, randomly chosen from the web, no matter what quality and relay them to you. This is just a small taste for the guys who are tired of the area around them and are excited for more. Enjoy!

The Roots, one of my favourite bands, has been a great source of inspiration for me for a long time. They are one of these old school hip hop groups who play live with a whole bunch of instruments, not with dj's. Here are some great pohotographs from their live show in Oslo.

Animals, autumn, beach, beams, black and white, boat, bridge, clouds, dawn, dusk, evening, field, flowers, foam, fog, forest, grass, green, hdr, hills, house, ice, lake, light, mist, morning, mountains, panorama, pathway, people, pine, reflection, river, road, rock, rocks, rush, sand, sea, shore, silhouette, sky, snow, spring, summer, sun, tree, trees, valley, village, water, waves, winter photos

Browse Dave Adams Photography.

Photography is constantly reminding us how wondrous and beautiful the world we live in truly is. It often urges us to take another look at the ordinary things around us in a new light, revealing a quiet beauty in even the most mundane of objects. More specifically, smoke photography, with its alluring images of ghostly wisps of smoke, shows us that we don’t have to look very far to find this beauty. In this edition of our Monday Inspiration series, we present 60 examples of beautiful smoke photography and smoke art: a round-up of some of the best examples of photos and artworks where smoke dominates. At the bottom of this post are some links to tutorials on creating your own smoke photographs, as well as other resources on the subject.

I can’t say that the photos below are typical for Nobuyoshi Araki photography, simply because there are no naked bodies. I love all of his works and that’s a bit sad that I can’t post most of them here because of their content. They are different, they are beautiful, they are passionate, they show you something that is not allowed. Many of his book were printed by Taschen and will definitely buy some of them for my own collection.