Fstoppers Original Articles

According to Wikipedia lifestyle photography is "a style of portrait / people photography which aims to capture and document real-life events, situations, or milestones in an artistic manner and the art of the everyday." Photographers every day are advertising sessions as lifestyle photography, but in reality, are totally missing the mark.

Chances are you've heard of Alt-J or could recognize several of their hit songs currently being played on every indie rock station. What you may not know is that their song Taro was written about the first female war photojournalist and her life partner who both died doing what they love.

We often look at photojournalists and think, how could you do what they do. How could you stand around taking photos while people are suffering or could benefit from your help? On the other hand, we rarely think about transfering that realm into something tragic that happens in our own eyes, but that is exactly what Abe did.

So, it’s two weeks into the new year – how are things shaping up? Booked a ton of new work? Setting up to land your dream client? If, like me, you’re still working out the kinks and wondering how you’ll make it all work, this post is for you. I’ve got five tips to help keep you going, keep you motivated and keep you on track for the year ahead.

It all started happening in the early 2000's as the once expensive CD-R disc burners began to heavily drop in price and later came pre-installed in every computer. Then clients started asking, "Can I get a disc with the photos?" and a new era of disc burning began which lasted over 10 years. Fortunately, over the last few years other options have become available, which leads me the prediction. This year will be the very last in the 'disc burning era' and quite honestly I can't be any happier about it.

My photographer-friend from Moscow Aleksey Dovgulya is visiting me in Los Angeles right now. We went to the same high school, but only met in 2008 after I got into photography. While I was studying in Australia Aleksey built an impressive list of commercial clients in Russia. In the past few years he has photographed for major brands such as Rolls-Royce, Renault, BMW, Schwartzkopf & Henkel, Benetton, Vogue, Christian Louboutin, and the list goes on and on.

When going through hundreds of photos, workflow processing can be a real pain. Tools like Lightroom can help speed up the process, but nothing can compare to the Adobe Photoshop. Here are a few tips that can help you speed up your workflow process considerably.

There are many hurdles that a new photographer tries to overcome early in his or her career, one of which is simply that we don’t have the funding and massive budgets that some of our more well established peers might have. When it comes to choosing a location for our photo shoots we often find ourselves restricted. Here are 7 places you can shoot on a budget!

Are you bored of shooting portraits on white, black, or gray? Are you looking to add some color and creativity to your subjects and environments? Are you looking to shoot more composite photography using backplates you've made on location and subjects you've shot in studio? If you've answered yes to any of these questions and aren't already a genuine wiz at using gels, then this post is for you.

The release of the C series of cinema cameras from Canon has garnered a lot of attention of filmmakers as a great alternative to cameras like the RED. After much debate, our studio purchased the camera a few months back and recently flew to Austin to shoot two commercial spots. We couldn't have been happier with the results.

I am a serial procrastinator, I will do it tomorrow is a common theme. However my goal this year is to meet my deadlines! Nothing is more unprofessional than missing a deadline for a client. With Google Calendar and a simple Excel / Google spreadsheet file I am able to schedule a multi-deadline schedule in a few clicks.

I would like to wrap up my Secrets to Crafting Top-Quality Beauty Portraits series in a quick roundup on the most common mistakes I have been noticing beginner Beauty photographers make.

I will sure talk more about Beauty photography in the future, but I'd like to summarize a few things at this point.

In part 1 I covered the process of building the best panoramas with little distortion by finding the no parallax spot in your lens. In part 2 we add in our model and use curves and levels to colorize the sky in Photoshop. In addition, this tutorial builds on utilizing the combination of plugins and Photoshop to target specific tones of your image, which is a great technique when building a dramatic environment.

In the last article I shared, "The Most Important Setting in Lightroom is Set To Off By Default", I believe there was a misunderstanding because while talking about auto-saving your edits, I didn't also discuss backing up your Lightroom Catalogs. It is important to back up your catalog and as you will see in this video I'd even highly recommend changing the Lightroom default location for a more secure backup.

As more and more photographers are shooting backplates on location and subjects in the studio, I've found the best tool for the job isn't necessarily your lens or the camera but a specific tripod head that finds the no parallax point in your lens. This was by far our favorite purchase of 2013 here at RGG Photo.

Change is afoot and 2014 could well be the year that completely redefines the photo and video landscape as we know it. It doesn’t matter if you you shoot weddings, fashion, portraits, landscapes, products, food or concerts - these changes will affect us all. Here are three game changers - let's take a look at what they are, what they could mean for you, your photography and your business.

"Trevor, I have been editing this wedding for the last few days and now my Lightroom catalog says it is corrupted! When I opened a new catalog and reimported the photos from my hard disk I can't find any of my previous edits I worked so hard on. I am so frustrated! What did I do wrong?" Keep this from happening to you by having Lightroom automatically save your changes, but this setting is off by default. I'll show you where to turn it on.

This is yet another article of the Secrets to Crafting Top-Quality Beauty Portraits series. If you haven't read the first three, you can find them here: on compositing, on shooting Beauty portraits on location and in studio.

Today I would like to talk about framing, posing and directing your models when shooting Beauty portraits. While lighting and compositing are very important parts of creating a striking image, the model's pose, facial expression and her body language can make or break it.

Some photographers have the wonderful ability to marry creative technique with technical application, and then convey this to us in a way that is genuinely interesting and educational. I picked up three such books this year and would describe them all “inspir-cational” - a wonderful mix of both inspiring work, combined with a high level of educational value. If you’re looking for a little learning as well as something to inspire in the New Year, I can heartily recommend all three.

Each week on Fstoppers Answers, we answer a question asked by the photography community. This week, we were asked - "How do you market to social media? (When marketing your photography on social media, is it more effective to always be trickling out content constantly, or less frequently but higher quality and more content at once. For example, if I do a shoot with a model, should I post a photo a day, or a set a week?)"

You finally got that Canon 5D Mark III camera you have been desiring and now you are trying to figure out how best to take advantage of all it's great new features. Here are five ways I have customized my camera to best fit my needs while shooting weddings, events and portraits.

It seems like Stillmotion is never content sitting still for long. These Portland based filmmakers have spent the better part of a decade chasing their dreams and doing so on their own terms. The one consistent thread for Stillmotion has always been executing amazing stories that need to be told.

Each week, we ask the public to submit a question to have answered in our segment called "Fstoppers Answers". Last week we asked “When Did You Make the Jump to Full Time Pro?”. This week, we asked the staff of Fstoppers "How Did You Approach Your First Agency/Client?"

In this article I would like to share some of the basics and tips for those of you who enjoy shooting beauty portraits with controlled artificial lighting.

Make sure to check out my previous articles of this series: Secrets to Crafting Top-Quality Beauty Portraits: On Location Lighting and Composition and visual balance.

UPDATE: WE'RE SOLD OUT - 6 years ago I built a collapsible softbox that could easily fit in my pocket while I was shooting weddings. I built this product for myself and never dreamed that it would become a real product one day. 2 years ago Patrick and I set out to have the "Flash Disc" mass produced and patented. We just received our patent and first batch. Order now and get 3 before Christmas.

As 2013 comes to an end, many of us are starting to think about fresh starts and goals for the New Year. For most, 2014 will mean expanding and upgrading gear or even taking a leap of faith. Personally, I’ve taken a very counter-intuitive leap of faith. I sold the most expensive video asset that I've ever had: My RED Scarlet.

When winter hit and weddings and senior portraits weren't generating any income, Michael Sasser decided to expand his reach by adding boudoir style photography to his repertoire. If you're looking for a way to increase your business through the slow months, this might be just the thing for you. In this interview, Michael explains how his new sessions have been working out.

A few days ago I covered a story here on Fstoppers about an online altercation between a massively popular music producer, Diplo, and a Canadian based photography collective under the name of Visualbass. Diplo has recently stepped forward and has made a statement on Fstoppers about the incident.

Each week, we ask our writers a question generated from the public in a series that we call "Fstoppers Answers". Last week, we asked our writers the long "What Is Your Photo Education? How Important Do You Think Formal Education Is In The Field?". This week, we ask our staff "When Did You Make the Jump to Full Time Pro?"

Many of you might already own a Google Chromecast. If you don't yet I would highly recommend picking one up. They are inexpensive ($35) and it's one of my favorite gadgets of the year. Here are some of my favorite things you can do with Chromecast and why I say it's the best $35 you can spend towards your education.

Last night on the EDM Photographers Facebook group a member posted a tweet from an upset photographer who wasn't properly credited for an image that famed music producer, Diplo, posted on his Instagram feed. The concert photography collective, Visualbass, tweeted their irritation to Diplo about the uncredited photo and was met with a rather unpleasant and public exchange from the artist.

Most people haven’t heard of Saul Leiter, yet he was one of the great photographers of the 20th Century. The reason you might not know him or his work is because he simply didn't care about pursuing recognition or a particular career path. With his passing last month, let’s use this opportunity to reflect back on his stunning work, and see what we can all learn from his artistic vision, his philosophies and his razor sharp eye.

This powerful timelapse video called "Wyoming Wildscapes II" was put together by photographer Nicolaus Wegner. Taking 14 months, this video covers the cycle of the seasons, the shifting of the landscape, and the ever-changing weather. To find out more about this project, I interviewed Nicolaus and asked about his gear, workflow, and experiences.

I’ve just had Selina’s answers back for this interview and feel sick. Some numbers - 80 hours shooting, 7000+ stills, 40+ hours of rendering, sleeping in shifts to meet deadlines. I thought my current project was tough - compared to her's, I feel like I'm sat on a beach drinking a piña colada. Her video “Limitless” has had 6+ million views in 2 weeks, so all her hard work paid off. Read on to find out how she put this beautiful video together.

Composite photography seems to be the standard in advertising these days and Erik Almas is one of the photographers leading that race. In this behind the scenes video from Erik, we also see the use of CGI to turn his hometown into an ice winter wonderland.

Each and every week, we feature a segment called "Fstoppers Answers", where we invite our community to ask a question to our writers to answer. This week, you asked "What Is Your Photo Education? How Important Do You Think Formal Education Is In The Field?"

Cyber Monday is winding down as midnight draws closer but you still have a few hours to save 20% on what we believe is the best Lightroom Workshop collection on the internet. This download includes 23 hours of tutorials as well as some of the best Lightroom presets on the market today. Use the code "BF2014" to save 20% now.

Working as a commercial photographer, I have the opportunity to travel often with my work. In the year 2013 alone, I've flown over 25 thousand miles, and have a few thousand more before the end of the year. Here are some tips I've picked up over the years to help make traveling as a photographer much easier and far less stressful.

Each week, we have a segment called "Fstoppers Answers" where we invite our community to ask our writers a question pertaining to the industry or their workflow. Last week, you asked "Does Not Having The Latest Gear Make You Feel Less Adequate?" and this week, we want to see your workstations for editing photos and video footage.

As the end of the year looms, we begin to look back and reflect on the previous year and think about aspirations for 2014. What will make this coming year successful for you? Getting paid to live and work as a photographer? Producing creative, fulfilling work? Being published? Teaching and helping other photographers? One photographer I've worked with this year did all of these and in this interview, she shares her insights on what success is for her - and importantly, what this could mean for you and your career in 2014.

Tired of hunting for budgets as if they were unicorns? A few weeks ago I wrapped up our commercial pricing guide which is a great reference IF you can get a paying client. As many of us know, sadly, that can be a pretty big IF. Here are a few strategies to help you turn a client with no budget into a winner!

It's no secret that I love the music phenomenon of EDM or electronic dance music, and it seems I'm not the only one with fans ranging from all ages across the globe its popularity only seems to be spreading. With so much new music and artists coming into the scene it's interesting to see how the music can be visually interpreted into music videos.

Having just returned from the Caribbean on an assignment last week, I thought it might make a nice subject for my first post here on Fstoppers. Photography in the Caribbean (and really any tropical island locale) presents a few challenges - or opportunities depending on how you look at it. Namely balancing good light with good water color.

For the past 2 years I refused to join Instagram. I just didn't think it was for me, I didn't believe I need it for my business and I just didn't like the idea of destroying my photos by cropping them and adding weird filters. So many people tried to convince me to join Instagram in the past year or two, and I always said "No chance!" But finally, after continuing insistence by friends, last month I decided to finally give it a try and just one week later, I got my first corporate client from it. Kind of crazy.

Michael Belcher is a young New York-based cinematographer who is creating beautiful and compelling work, with a rich and varied visual vocabulary. Come behind the scenes on his latest shoot with this Fstoppers exclusive, and find out what we can all learn from his philosophy, experience and insight.

Each year Patrick and I work on one extremely large project. Two years ago we created The Art Behind The Headshot with Peter Hurley. Last year we finished our 14 hour tutorial on how to become a wedding photographer. In 2013 we teamed up with Mike Kelley to produce what I believe is the best resource available on How To Photograph Real Estate, Architecture, and Interiors.

Each week, we ask our staff of photographers and videographers a question pertaining to the industry, from our readers. Last week, we asked "How Do You Balance Your Personal Creativity In Your Paid Work?". This week, we as "Does Not Having The Latest Gear Make You Feel Less Adequate?"

As a wedding photographer and workshop instructor I travel quite frequently. In the last couple of years I have been all over the world and throughout this time I have picked up a number of great travel tips. Here are six of my favorites that will hopefully make your next trip more enjoyable.

Currently the only black and white instant film available in the 3×4 size is the Fujifilm 3000b, and it's being discontinued. Yes, you read that right. One of the single most popular instant films will no longer be around. The photography industry isn't a stranger to films being discontinued. It happened with Kodak, so it was only time before it trickled to other manufacturers.

Probably like most of you, I have a plethora of different memory card sizes from 2GB up to 32GB. When I head out on a big shoot I tend to wonder if it would be better to use the smaller cards and spread the shoot out across a number of cards or shoot entirely with one. It seems every photographer has a different opinion on this one, here's what I think.