8 Photography-Inspired Tattoos to Celebrate the Art

If you were around the CreativeLive office (or even just watching on the stream), you might have noticed some of the crew and instructors rocking some fresh ink, in the form of our really cool Photo Week temporary tattoos.

However, a lot of photographers actually go the distance and get real tattoos to demonstrate their love of the art. And some of them are really inspired and interesting. Here are some photography tattoos that are worth taking a picture of.

camera tattoo
Possibly one of the most notorious photography tattoo, photographer Lotte van den Acker‘s Asahi Pentax 35mm SLR piece, which is strategically placed on her forearm, has gotten a whole lot of press. In an interview with FStoppers, Lotte explained that “A camera is not a very elegant object and I thought ‘just a camera’ would be kind of boring, so I thought of something to make it more original. While brainstorming about it, I came up with the optical illusion idea.”


Amanda Sturgeon has photography tattoos on both legs — one is a diagram of a camera, and the other is the list of parts illustrated.

photography tattoos
If you don’t want an entire camera body on your person, opt for just a part of it, like this aperture tattoo that Bastian Greshake shared on Flickr.


Looking for something ultra-simple? Instagram user EmyandColour opted for this basic, clean Polaroid frame.

photography tattoos
Photographer Christopher L. saves time in his photo shoots with this instruction, tattooed right on his shutter finger.


Aleece White admits that these tattoos are “faux” (i.e., not the real deal), but her exposure reading tattoo is one that a lot of people have actually had made permanent.


19-year-old Lena Mirisola uses this back piece as part of her branding.

photography tattoos
Perry Wilson loves his 50mm lens so much, he got a tattoo of it.

Not sure if you’re ready to commit to a tattoo? Our friends at Tattly have some pretty great temporary photography tattoos — including an aperture like the one seen above — on their site.

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Hanna Brooks Olsen is a writer and editor for CreativeLive, longtime reporter, and the co-founder of Seattlish. Follow her on Twitter at @mshannabrooks or go to her website for more stuff.