Lighting

Fstoppers Lighting Diagrams – Head Shot

The other day Phlearn came up with a way to emulate Martin Schoeller’s portrait lighting. I have been wanting to lock down Schoeller’s technique for years now, so when I saw Phlearn’s post, I was stoked. And they did a fantastic job. I even learned their cool Photoshop technique of adding natural looking highlights and shadows. The problem was that in order for me to try out their lighting technique, I needed two strip soft boxes for my strobes, which I didn’t have. [more]

LUMENATOR- LED Photography Light

Kickstarter product “LUMENATOR™” is a portable and battery powered LED light stick. The 1200 lumen bar has a dimmer on it so you are able to adjust the power. The bar will have attachments that allow you to change the white balance and even add on a color hue bar. Check out the Kickstarter video and see if this possible product will fit your needs and help back this project.
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The Story Behind the Mashup Photo of Pro Athletes and Angry Birds

Early in February of 2013, Rovio announced a new side project called “Angry Birds Superstars,” which juxtaposed athletes with the hugely popular Angry Birds imagery. Though there likely are more on the way, Rovio has started the project with NHL Stanley Cup champion Anže Kopitar and NBA All-Star Veteran Andrew Bynum, both photographed by Jere Hietala. The point? Because it’s fun and awesome. [more]

Behind The Scenes: Shooting Models On Miami Beach

Guest writer, Julius Ise is a professional photographer based out of Germany. In January he traveled to the beautiful beaches of Miami. While he was there he called around to several modeling agencies to set up a shoot. This is a great example of shooting personal work. He was able to get some great shots for his portfolio while at the same time helping out the models at DecoModels. [more]

Lighting a Band in the Mountains

Guest writer Brandon Cawood is the owner and head photographer at Flash Light Productions. He primarily shoot weddings as well as commercial and product photography. He spent most of his teens and early 20′s playing in bands and touring the country. After he became a photographer, naturally one of his favorite type of shoots is band promos. [more]

Shooting a Martin Schoeller Inspired Portrait

Martin Schoeller is a very successful portrait photographer whose work has been featured in The New Yorker, Outside Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, Time Magazine, GQ, Esquire, and Vogue. The style of these portraits is beautifully simple regardless of the nature of the person in front of the lens, and the guys at PHLEARN wanted to try and recreate his unique style. [more]

Behind the Scenes Video: eCommerce Shoot for Skreened

Skreened is an eCommerce company that specializes in on-demand screen printing. Shirts are their biggest sellers. Since each shirt design is unique, they needed a library of images with models in blank tees so they could overlay the latest designs in post. When they approached me to shoot for them, their main request was that these portraits be fun and energetic. [more]

Photographing Richard Harrison: The Softer Side of Pawn Stars

For reasons unknown, I receive many calls to photograph pseudo reality TV shows more than almost anything other than athletic campaigns. Like sports, I try not to watch the shows I photograph. It is not out of disrespect for what the celebs and athletes are doing, but rather I want to remain distant from the connotations put upon them from commentators or editors. As much as we’d all like to believe that everything about a reality TV show is real, it is often far from it. [more]

Free-Lensing: Turn Your Old Lens Into a Tilt-Shift Lens

Israeli based photographer Dima Vazinovich is specializing in news, documentary and wedding photography. One thing that separates him from other photographers in the industry is the unique and creative look his photography has. Recently Dima decided to try adding a new kind of look to his portfolio, and the results are truly amazing. The idea: “Freelensing” / tilt shifting with a cheap broken 50mm 1.8 lens to create magical images. [more]

NYC Blizzard? All You Need Is A Little Imagination

Are you located in the North East and getting hit hard by the snow storm? Are you just sitting inside? Brian Maffitt isn’t. He decided to grab a projector, throw on some cool visualizations and point it out into the snow and take pictures of it. A very cool and unique idea and way to spend the time sitting at home. [more]

Removing Distractions From Your Photographs

So, how do you shoot at the legendary Disney Concert Hall without breaking their rule of ‘No Professional Photography‘? You do it with finesse. Benjamin Von Wong was faced with the task of shooting the Trio Dinicu at the location without looking like a professional photographer. In this behind the scenes video he shows you how he accomplished that and also walks you through cleaning any distractions from your photo using Photoshop. [more]

Sam Hurd’s Prisming Technique

I have been following the amazing photographer Sam Hurd for a little over a year now. I just recently recommend a good friend to have an anniversary shoot done by Sam and I was intrigued by the techniques I heard he used. Shortly after this Sam released a blog post sharing his method of Prisming and his secrets were out of the bag. I have given his method a try and I love the results. [more]

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