Eric Curry is a photographer who specializes in painting with light. Unlike using strobes to exposure your photos, painting with light requires you to use long exposures and constant light sources to effectively “paint” over your subject and capture it on your sensor. The newest image in Eric’s American Pride and Passion series is one of the most complex light painting images I’ve ever seen and the behind the scenes video shows just how much work goes into such a big project. Click the full post to see the final image and be sure to click on Eric’s website to see many more examples of his layered light painting photographs.
In the video below National Geographic photographer Dewitt Jones talks about looking for the “right answers” during every photoshoot. As professionals we are always put in the position to take the best possible image even if that image may not be easy to capture. Dewitt explains what it takes for him to not just get a decent shot, but continue to get the “right” shot over and over in every situation. How confident are you that you can deliver amazing photography in any situation?
This video by Trey Ratcliff is a pretty cool idea. Trey traveled across the world in 80 days and documented his adventures with over 8,000 photographs. I hardly ever travel with a camera when I’m on vacation and even if I did, I’m not sure if I could ever force myself to take so many images in the moment. But then again I probably won’t ever have anything this cool. Click the the full post to watch how Trey made this video.
In Jay P. Morgan’s newest video he shows us how he uses a crane to bump up production value by using a crane. Now I know you might be thinking there’s no way you can afford a crane but you would be wrong. Last month we posted this video review of a $125 crane that anyone can afford. I purchased one and I am really excited to try it out in the near future.
What could be more fun than drifting a MINI Coupé around Rio, Brasil during Carnival? Director Paulo Martins takes you behind the scenes in the latest MINI commercial from the Another Day, Another Adventure campaign. Instead of filming the commercial during the annual Carnival in February, Paulo recreated the festival months later so he could drive the car directly into the parade. I have to admit I was a bit nervous watching the stunt drivers weave in an out of the city but it does make me envy one of these small cars.. Click the full post to watch the final commercial and head over to the MINI Youtube Channel to watch other commercials in the series from Honk Kong and Iceland.
I’m sure many of you have heard the saying “overcast skies make for amazing photos”. While it’s true that soft overcast light is usually more flattering on people’s faces, it can also make your photos super boring and even gloomy. So what can you do with your bag of tricks to spice up a photo session during cold, rainy, or overcast days? Damien Lovegrove explains how you can use a “dingle” (or more commonly a Cookie) to bring some pseudo-sunlight into your portraits . This clip is from Damien’s Speedlight Mastery DVD and he does a great job explaining this super useful technique that can be applied to many of your own shoots at almost zero cost. Next time you see those interesting shadow patterns while thumping through your girlfriend’s fashion magazines you can imagine the dingle that created them!
Recently Petapixel featured a rather amusing video of photographer Fabio Pires out of London. Fabio is a street photographer who shoots spontaneous photos off the cuff. Unlike the video we featured of Clay Enos’s street setup, Fabio’s approach is more in your face, candid, and potentially more risky. In Fabio’s opinion, the best shots come from strange and interesting people who aren’t expecting to have their photo taken. I dunno, maybe in England this isn’t frowned upon as much as it is in the United States?
If you have seen Peter Lik’s work in person then you understand that it’s impossible to put into words the look and quality of his prints. Peter’s photography (and his post production) is fantastic, but what really makes his work stand out is his printing and presentation. If his images were printed on standard photo paper at a standard size, his work would not have the same “wow” factor.
Right before a trip to Italy I went back into Peter’s studio for a little inspiration. After studying his work and speaking with a sales rep about his printing process I decided to shoot, print, and frame a shot in Italy for the absolute cheapest price without losing the “wow” factor that Peter’s work has. This is how I did it.
Footage like this scares the bejesus out of me but also makes me wish I knew how to surf. Tahiti is home of Teahupoo, the world’s most dangerous naturally occurring wave. If you’ve watched the documentary Riding Giants then you’ve seen how monsterous these waves can become. I’m not sure that Teahupoo is actually larger than Peahi or Mavericks but it must be called the most dangerous wave for a reason. This video was shot with the Phantom in all it’s slo-mo glory. Click the full post to see more footage in real time as 32 of the world’s top surfers try to wrangle the beast.
Hurricane Irene down here in Charleston, SC was pretty unmemorable. However, up in NYC it seems most everyone pretty much followed the precautions and got the $@*# out of dodge. So what did the city that never sleeps look like when hit overnight by a historic storm? Check out this interesting black and white video shot by some daring videographers as they visit the subways and streets. Also be sure to head over to the Buffalo Picture House for some other great films and documentaries. Let’s hope they still have working gear after all that rain!
Tom Guilmette is now a pretty regular name on Fstoppers because his BTSVs in the field of video are some of the best we have seen. In the video below Tom travels out west with Eric Kessler to film BTS footage of some of the top timelapse shooters of our time. My personal favorite is Tom Lowe and we haven’t heard much from him in the last year because he is still working on his timelapse feature film. Check out the video below to learn from the best.
A few weeks ago Reese Moore interviewed Jimmy Chin for her column the Fstoppers Spotlight. Her Fstoppers interview revealed a lot about what makes Mr. Chin put himself in harms way as he climbs, rappels, and base jumps from assignment to assignment. In this behind the scenes video, Jimmy talks about the changing culture taking place within the sport of extreme rock climbing. He and his fellow climbers explore Yosemite National Park as he captures images for National Geographic. I dabble in climbing and think base jumping would be a huge thrill but I’m not sure I would ever have the guts to even hang with Jimmy for one day if this is his typical photoshoot. Check out 2:40 for some interesting off camera lighting while climbing!
One of the unfortunate problems with running a website is you are inevitably going to send traffic to a misdirected URL or even worse a page that flat out doesn’t exist. You are probably used to seeing pages that look something like this. Well the guys over at Nosh.me came up with a funny little way to track down their own 404 pages and fix the issue or flat out take them down. Check out the final video below and hit the full post to see some BTS on how the guys conceptualized the scenes. If you really enjoy this sort of thing then you will find some really helpful tips about color grading, after effects, and detailed production notes over at the 404 process page. Who knew it was so violent behind each of our websites?
There is no doubt that the RED’s Epic video camera produces some of the most crisp and surreal footage you are likely to see at a reasonably “budget” price point. Up until now, the only lenses you could use with the Epic had to have the PL lens mount found on cine lenses. Recently, photographer turned videographer Vincent Laforet was able to demo the new Canon lens adapter which allows the RED cameras to use most of the EOS mountable lenses. In the video below, Vincent shows what the RED/Canon combo can do out in the field. One particularly interesting combo is the Canon 600mm f/4 L lens mounted with the 2x Canon Teleconverter. Some estimates give this combo a 35mm equivalent of 3400mm with the crop factor but I think it’s actually a bit less than that (the RED should have around a 1.2x crop factor depending on the file output). Either way, the footage is pretty amazing and super exciting if you dream of using RED gear down the road with your existing Canon lenses. Any idea how he shot the video in low light? Looks like the lens would be at least at f8 which is almost unusable in anything but bright light.
Now I’m not exactly sure what the “largest stop motion animation” actually means but there is no doubt this video is pretty spectacular. You may remember Aardman Productions from our post on the world’s smallest stop motion video which is equally as mind blowing. This time they decided to use the beach as their canvas and film the entire animation on a Nokia N8 cell phone.. It’s pretty amazing to think how much work went into changing each frame on a set this large especially with tourists and tides. Check out the video below and then jump to the full post to watch how they created this clever cell phone commercial.
Eric Curry is a photographer who specializes in painting with light. Unlike using strobes to exposure your photos, painting with light requires you to use long exposures and constant light sources to effectively “paint” over your subject and capture it on your sensor. The newest image in Eric’s American Pride and Passion series is one of the most complex light painting images I’ve ever seen and the behind the scenes video shows just how much work goes into such a big project. Click the full post to see the final image and be sure to click on Eric’s website to see many more examples of his layered light painting photographs.
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