This Is What's ACTUALLY Trending in Photography (and it’s not AI)

Added: 2026-04-29

[00:00:00]This video is sponsored by Squarespace.

[00:00:02]In a world full of AI editing, we're really seeing a shift in photography that is going in the complete opposite direction. So, this video does not feature any AI editing tools. You're welcome. Instead, we're going to talk about the three photography trends I'm seeing in 2026 and some tips and tricks on how you can implement them into your own photography this year. The first trend I'm seeing is more imperfect, real moments and more cinematic storytelling.

[00:00:27]Now, these kind of go hand in hand. Now, I'm going to show you a few examples.

[00:00:30]And the first one is from my all-time favorite photographer. She happens to shoot weddings. Her name is Jennifer Moyer. Now, at first glance, you can see she obviously has an amazing eye. Her framing is impeccable. The moments she's capturing are incredible. She's very experienced. Now, I know this because I've shot with her. She doesn't focus too hard on her settings, and she's really just looking for moments. She's not really focused on getting that technically perfect photo. And a lot of times this comes through by using a slow shutter and a high drive mode. It's more about ensuring she captures that just right perfect moment. And she doesn't really mind having to sift through a ton of photos later on. So these imperfect photos, maybe they're a little bit out of focus, maybe the shutter's a little bit slow, maybe the lighting is a little darker, but it kind of adds to this moody, nostalgic, raw feel to the photo.

[00:01:22]And then coupled with that, we're seeing a lot of photographers choose to shoot in different aspect ratios. You've probably seen that kind of longer aspect ratio, the traditional like 4x3 Instagram ratio. You've seen that split into three parts. And that immediately also translates into a more cinematic style. And the last thing you'll notice about these more imperfect photos is gone are the days, my friends, of shooting at f1.4.

[00:01:49]We are shooting at likely F4 and up. Now again, this is not sponsored, but Jennifer also does offer a film club.

[00:01:58]So, it's essentially a course for other photographers, and it's all centered around the concept that by studying cinema or studying film, it will improve your photography and your cinematic storytelling. So that's really the emphasis of her photography and not necessarily getting that [music] totally technically perfect photo. It's more about the emotion and story behind it. Could I say story one more time?

[00:02:25]Probably. Number two.

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[00:03:19]Now, back to the video. My second trend is that a lot of photographers are dirtying their frame. We used to see this particular technique a lot in 2016, 2017, 2018, using crystals and different prism effects to add a a different effect to your photography. And typically it was done with portraits, but in my opinion now it's being done in a bit more of a tasteful way and a bit more intentionally rather than just kind of randomly adding this to your photos for the sake of making them look different. Now, here's what I mean by that. So, this is Patrick Tomaso. If you don't follow him, you probably should.

[00:03:53]He's awesome. [music] He took some head shot for Project Hail Mary, and he actually made a reel on this. If you guys want to go watch it, I'll have it linked in the description below. And I'll also have all of these little accessories I'm about to mention also [music] linked in the description below. But he picked up these little prism lens effects that [music] he used to kind of emulate the effects from the film. Now, these weren't expensive. He was honest about that and he was honest about everything he used in order to create these photos. He used a plugin called Filmbox in order to get the film effect that he used on these photos. And again, you see this trend of moving away from things that are overly produced and we're trying to get back to that really tangible, nostalgic in camera [music] feel. Another example, my friend Juan, who shoots for the NHL, used again similar prism optical lens effects [music] for his photos for the NHL at the Olympics. and he used these more to emulate motion blur. Really helped emphasize the speed [music] of the hockey players. It also added some really cool effects to the lights in the rink. And these really stood out to me when they came across my feed. And I'll just show you really quick where you can pick them up and how much they cost.

[00:05:09]They are overall not very expensive. You can get these half motion blur filters or halo filters and that way you can really control how much [music] of the effect is happening on your photo and where you're placing it on the lens. Or there are certain other ones you can [music] apply directly to your lens as just a regular lens filter. I would [music] recommend having one that's separate so you can really control the amount of this effect that's happening and pull it in and out easily while you're shooting. But yeah, this one right here, this kaleidoscope one for example, is $33.99 and that's Canadian.

[00:05:44]There is also a company called Prism Lens Effects. And I've been looking to get my hands on a few of these as well.

[00:05:50]There's a [music] split diopter. Those look really fun. Halo. Now, there are a lot of people that are going to say you can add this in post. You can, but that's not the trend that I'm seeing right now. We want these in camera, which is so nice to see. Now, this third trend is no secret. It's been around for a minute, but I'm seeing it more and more frequently come up on my feed. So, what I'm seeing is motion blur. And I'm seeing that in [music] a ton of different respects. Whether you're using a flash to freeze your subject in time and leave some light trails behind them, or [music] whether you're taking your subject and using that slow shutter to have them move more slowly through the frame [music] and they're your background is actually frozen in time.

[00:06:28]Or maybe you're shooting an engagement with a couple, [music] getting them to spin around in a field and it's sort of giving you that whimsical, carefree, high energy feeling. The first thing it does is of course imply movement. It adds [music] subject separation. It conveys energy, emotion, and most typically used to show the passing of time. And what I'm really seeing this used the most with is in combination with flash. So kind of cool full circle moment. I'm going to show you guys the feed of my old editor, Josh Kobayashi, and he shoots a ton with flash. He actually posted an entire video recently. I was hoping that this would go live in time to make this [music] with the newer Q120, and it was a outdoor flash he was using. He got a model to [music] pretend to have like a little jogging session with him. And he got some really cool effects with this that again, if you were just typically firing off some photos of someone running, it's a little bit hard to capture the energy and the speed of the run, especially with the dark background and the model being in blue [music] and white running shoes.

[00:07:34]The addition of the flash really helped draw your eye to [music] the model, to the shoes, and it added a bit of blur to all of the darker [music] background areas of the image. Now, he uses this a lot in his photography, and originally this was [music] sort of a mistake that happened with film that quickly turned into one of the most iconic looks in [music] photography. Now, now, this next little tool suggestion, I actually did buy one, but I didn't buy the flash that accompanies it, but my friend Nicole Shapiro did, and we got to play around with this a little bit when we were in Vegas. So, there is a site called Retroia [music] and they have this little repurposed disposable film camera lens and it looks like an Oreo and people have made videos about this joking around that it's the Oreo [music] lens and it's really cool cuz essentially it's a set it and forget it.

[00:08:23]It's it's light. It costs 50 bucks on this website right now. It's on sale.

[00:08:27]You get this [music] really nostalgic soft look to your photos. Not sharp at all. That's not the point. But when I bought this by itself, I realized, oh [music] crap, I can't actually set my aperture. I can't I can't set anything except my ISO. I need a lot of [music] light for this to look good. And that's where they offer a little retro flash add-on. Again, it looks like that's 50 bucks right now. It has four power levels. It's tiny. [music] It's smaller than your AirPods. This in combination with the lens is going to allow you to get that high flash nostalgic [music] film look with potentially even the light trails that you want. So, you pick up this lens, you pick up the flash. If you're looking for a Portra [music] 400 preset, I still sell one on my website.

[00:09:09]You're done. You've got a no-brainer [music] film photography look. So, I think the cool thing to note from all of these trends that we're seeing is that people still want this. They still want real photography [music] effects. They want things done in camera. We want to do it ourselves. And we're really trying to reach back in [music] time to get a sense of that. Like, what is photography really about? What is the emotion behind the photo? How do we make that come through? rather than a ton of AI tools and add-ons and effects that [music] it would seem isn't really even appealing to many people right now. This is what's popular. We're taking our high megapixel cameras and literally dirtying up our crispy photos all for the sake of art.

[00:09:46]And I think that's pretty cool. Thank you guys so much for watching today's video. If you liked [music] it, please give it a like down below. Subscribe if you're not already and hit the notification bell to get notified for all future videos. And if you want some more little insights, tips, and [music] tricks on photography in 2026, let me know what you want to see in the comments. Bye.