Something that happened last week really hit home for me. Everyone probably already has heard, as it has been reported by almost every single news agency in the world; Australian photographer Brett Costello was robbed of $40,000 of camera gear in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil last week while in town to cover the Olympics. However, this article isn't about him specifically.
For outdoor and adventure photographers, knowing your terrain and location is essential for a safe journey. With that in mind, National Geographic created an easy-to-use website to find and print USGS quad maps to use for planning or while out on assignment.
This Cinemagraph time-lapse was made using only 12 JPEG images. The software allows photographers to create motion within a static photograph. You need to upload each image to the website, and then you design the movement within each image. Once you get a moving image "flowing" you can render it out and import it into Adobe Premiere Pro to create the final time-lapse.
Canon Master Krystle Wright had a pretty neat idea: shooting a kayaker cresting a 60-foot waterfall at night. With some ingenuity, she got her shot.
I shot and edited a narrative film in the last month. It was a first for me. I had this scene in my mind of a person burying a suitcase or bag in the woods, like it’s something he or she wanted to hide or get away from. I had a second idea about a guy walking down a long passage way and knocking on a door with no one opening for him. I decided these two contrasting visual ideas will be my story.
The Internet and mass proliferation of capable devices has allowed almost anyone to broadcast live video. Many have taken advantage of it in the form of things like Periscope and Facebook Live, using it to broadcast behind the scenes footage and discuss trending topics, but Explore has used it for a rather neat purpose.
Storing and transferring data from a shoot is an important, yet often overlooked detail when it comes to on-location projects. When juggling multiple cameras, each with multiple cards, it becomes critically imperative to be 100 percent sure that all of your photos and videos are accounted for. In this video, Jay P. Morgan shares his workflow for wrangling data and making backups.
One of the most exhilarating aspects of environmental portraiture, especially when out on assignment, is that you never quite know what your shooting environment is going to look like. If I had a nickel for every time I walked into an awesome location, only to be quickly shuttled off to a closet-like space to do my work... Well, I'd be able to buy a sandwich. But a really nice sandwich. Here are some tips that may save your sanity while trying to compose an interesting portrait in a postage stamp sized room.
Broncolor announced two battery-powered strobes today. Coming in 400-joule and 800-joule variants, offering flash durations of as little as 1/19,000s, and in a similar power option, the new Siros L strobes are clearly aimed at the 500-watt Profoto B1 with nearly identical features in all but one area, depending on what's most important to you.
Shooting or being involved in a fashion or beauty shoot is a lot of fun. It’s a day where creative personalities, the photographer, stylist, hair and makeup and assistants as well as the client's creative team get together to produce a story, a body of work that they want to show the world. Everyone is focussed on bringing their best ideas to the party.
Underwater housings are infamous for being just about as expensive as the body they’re meant to house. They do an important job — that is, they keep your camera from complete ruin in the water, and they do it reliably (what other way is there when it comes to oceanic saltwater?). Nevertheless, those wanting an option that stings the wallet a bit less will be happy to hear about the Aquatech Base Underwater Sport housing. What better place to test this new, low-cost alternative than in Hawaii?
For those of you may not know, we recently created a 20 hour photography tutorial with the incredible Joey Wright on all things swimsuit photography and retouching. We've been posting a weekly behind the scenes series of the creation of this tutorial. This is Episode 4.
Fripito is a new mobile application made for photographers, by photographers. With many travel guides catering to the casual tourist, the creators of Fripito wanted to have a resource where professional photographers could research and plan their shoots for a specific destination, while also offering information on transportation, food, lodging, and so on.
On one side, we have advertising photography, where everything is contrived and meant to look a certain way. It might as well be a painting with how planned out each step is. On the other, we have photojournalism. As the opposite, true photojournalism should never be staged, posed or "created." The idea is to capture what is and has happened. Unlike a painting, photography has the power to show real time exactly how it is with no artistic interpretation. What captivates me is when those two worlds collide to create art with purpose, and that is exactly what Clay Cook has done with his portraits of impoverished youth in Ethiopia.
Los Angeles-based photographer Zach Sutton has spent a long time doing on-location photoshoots for his business. These kinds of shoots usually involve the typical off-camera strobes on light stands and maybe an assistant to help mule equipment or adjust lighting for the photographer. However, when Sutton moved to L.A. last July, he quickly learned that this sort of on-location shoot is not allowed in the city without a proper commercial shoot permit — even if it’s ultimately for personal use. His solution for getting by light stand free looks somewhat crazy, but the end results speak for themselves.
When a commercial photographer, Sasha Leahovcenco, decides to document the touching experience and life of people he has never met before, the result is quite astonishing. You would think pre-production played a huge part and that he had to have had exceptional gear, carried by a huge team, but the truth is far from that. The experience was the heart of this series, and the pictures show it well. Combining both journalistic and commercial genres with a very personal approach yields pictures we only wish we could see more often.
Let me tell you: there’s nothing quite like a new camera and a change of scenery to recharge the old creative batteries, especially after a long British winter. I just came back last Sunday from a fantastic three-week trip to Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand and therefore, had plenty of time to intensively test the new Pen-F by Olympus, which I've had since mid-February.
Commercial Photographer and Videographer Jay P. Morgan has spent the last 25-plus years mastering light, production, and the business end of photography. He shares most of his insights on The Slanted Lens, his site dedicated to providing step-by-step instruction on how to light for photography and video. His latest video finds him in Gettysburg, combining strobes with ambient light, featuring Honest Abe and a couple of sweet cannons, while he shows us how to light a scene during sunset.
I love to shoot tethered whenever I can. It’s the most successful way to create real collaboration on set, and clients are more engaged when they can see what’s happening on a big screen. Depending on the environment and the demands of the production, I’ll choose between a couple of tethering approaches.
Music concerts are often a wide mix of sensory input, and a good concert photographer must figure out a way to capture the full scope of a concert experience in a single image. How well are your images accomplishing this difficult task? Submit your best concert photos to our next episode of Critique the Community! Please follow the guidelines for submissions below to ensure eligibility for your image to be chosen. We will be accepting submissions through Sunday night, February 28th, and will be offering feedback to a total of 20 pictures.
It's usually all about that sweet, soft light. Many of us portrait photographers probably would never even consider using a harsh, bare light without something to diffuse it, but Profoto and Pye Jirsa with SLR Lounge show you there is a time and place in this video tutorial that includes three step-by-step scenarios that teach you how to create dramatic photos with a single naked and unmodified strobe.
Photographer Nick Saglimbeni recently shot an image of Jhené Aiko for a Humane Society campaign to save the shark population. The goal of the image was to photograph Jhené in the ocean at night (or at least make it look that way). To create this shot, Nick decided to use a pool and strobes to create a similar look.
Our second tutorial with Elia Locardi: Photographing the World: Cityscape, Astrophotography, and Advanced Post-Processing was all about different types of cities. We started in Cinque Terre, a region of Italy where cities are basically built into the side of a natural landscape. We then moved on to Rome to shoot ancient architecture. Next we moved on to Singapore and Hong Kong for something a little bit more modern.
Warning: treacherous waters are ahead. A dark, cold place where only the brave dare to explore. Recent video projects by photographer and cinematographer Sven Dreesbach create a feeling of icy-cold tension, contrasted by a sense of meditative pleasure. It's a vibe that is best soaked in rather than pontificated upon by some internet writer. Oh, and he did it all on iPhones.
Your headache from over-drinking (either in celebration or in deep depression) may be wearing off, but for those that had to photograph Super Bowl 50, that headache began days before the big day. The preparation for covering the game took its toll on those that enable us look back on it this week. Fstoppers caught up with ESPN photographer Andrew Hancock to get a look into the gear, setup, and planning to cover the most important event of America’s favorite sport.
Big movies mean big budgets, which usually mean big visual effects. The Moving Picture Company (better known as MPC) recently released another one of those mesmerizing VFX breakdown videos for their most recent feature film, “The Martian.” The breakdown reveals some aspects of the film and of Matt Damon's performance that were both challenging and impressive, like the fact that the helmets worn in the film didn't feature physical windscreens. Those were added later with matching reflections to the scenery.
Regardless of what genre of photography you shoot, understanding light and its characteristics is key to creating better photos. For those of us working with off-camera flash, there is another layer to the complexity: balancing ambient and artificial light. On top of that there are various modifiers that can be used for artificial lighting to replicate or create certain effects. A great way to become proficient in understanding and seeing light is to examine photographs by other photographers in your genre.
Vaping is a phenomenon that has swept across America and much of the First World, mostly as a safer alternative to cigarettes. The culture, however, is what has caught the attention of the media worldwide. Smoke tricks have likely been around for as long as humans have been inhaling smoke, but vaping has spawned something quite interesting out of it: smoke tricks and ridiculous plumes of vapor spilling out of people’s nostrils. Photographer Louis Amore (whom we featured last year with his portrait series of English veterans) went to a local vapor shop, Prohibition Vapes, to document a vaping competition.
As a photographer and an artist, one of the most rewarding accomplishments you’ll have is when you see your work featured in some type of way, whether it is in a magazine, an art gallery, an advertisement, etc. In this piece, I will take you behind the scenes of the exciting and riveting experience of a fashion editorial, from the preparation, to the actual shoot, post-processing, and beyond.
I recently had the pleasure of picking up one of the first final production models of the Inspire Pro and X5 Micro 4/3 Camera, and immediately took it to one of the most beautiful photography destinations in the world to test it out: Meteora Greece. I spent the better part of a week there getting the hang of flying and capturing both photos and videos and I was able to come away with some stunning results. This review is meant to showcase what I was able to capture and give you an idea about the capability of the new X5 Camera and the key differences between the Inspire and...
I have been following and reporting on Vincent Laforet's "AIR" series since its first round was released. I came across an early printing of the book itself in the waiting area of San Francisco's Storehouse startup while I was about to take on another interview. I knew Storehouse and Laforet had a good working relationship, and I knew the images so well. But I didn't have time to look inside -- not that I felt I had to, however, since I knew the work inside and out. So when Laforet offered me a copy of the book to review, I simply had to say, "Of course," even if it was with mixed feelings. What could I, objectively speaking, really get out of it? Hadn't I seen it all?
MacPhun released Aurora HDR just a few weeks ago and touts it as the most advanced high dynamic range (HDR) software in the world. Certainly, veteran users of Photoshop and Lightroom might be skeptical. But if your sole purpose is to create HDR photos on the Mac, Aurora HDR might be the best option out there, seeing as it was created with the close consultation of HDR photographer Trey Ratcliff. In this video, Ratcliff dives deep in a first-hand look into how to get the most from Aurora HDR.
Christmas is just around the corner and you might find yourself scrambling for a cool little gift for that photographer in your life. Atmosphere Aerosol is a new product which, as the name describes, is an aerosol can that dispenses a cloud of fog in a pinch. Small, light, and not needing electricity, this little can of foggy goodness might just be the perfect replacement for that fog machine. Will this be the next addition to your camera bag?
Epic sunsets seem to kind of sneak up on us. While a sunset happens every day, you need nature to cooperate and give you the right conditions for an out-of-this-world finale. One of the struggles many photographers face with landscape photography is if the conditions will be right for the shot. Will clouds block out the sun? Will it be too clear? What if you knew ahead of time that the upcoming sunset was going to be amazing and worth the drive or hike to an epic viewing point with your camera?
The Syrp Genie caught everyone's attention with its contemporary design and advanced automation features that made it a time-lapse photographer's best tool in the field. Today, photographer Mark Gee shares tips on how to set up and use the Genie while offering a few great suggestions that apply to all methods of landscape photography, from what apps he uses on his phone to help him plan every shot to how to edit for final output. Need to shoot a time-lapse soon? Whether you're experienced or just starting, there's undoubtedly something in here for you.
No stranger to unique and challenging photography pursuits, Ben VonWong's latest adventure sent him across the Western United States in search of summer thunderstorms, with an entourage of assistants, filmmakers, and models helping along the way. VonWong shared this behind-the-scenes video, but also some insightful information as to the conversation he hopes to start– one about the seriousness of climate change.
There are a zillion photographers out there, but there aren’t a zillion clients. How do you make your work stand out? Success comes when a client will book you because it's you and not because you are just another good photographer. In the process, having a recognizable style might also make you a happier photographer. But how can you get there?
When I was younger, my dad took a class on photography at a local community college. To this day, he says that the biggest thing he learned from the class was that to take interesting pictures, you have to go to interesting places. I suppose that if you are a travel, landscape, or nature photographer, that is true. What a lot of people don’t realize is that interesting places are all around us. Having grown up in Ohio, I always thought that I was stuck in a dreary, featureless landscape of corn and soybeans.
While some photographers stay close to home, others travel quite regularly. I’ve been traveling my entire life for one reason or another. And whether it was for a newspaper job I was essentially commuting to (living four days in Southern California and three days in Northern California every week) or a short trip on a personal photographic exploration, I quickly learned that it’s great to have some creature comforts to keep you company along the ride once whatever glamour of traveling that’s left these days fades away.
Stanislas Giroux gets it. All of his videos have a common thread of featuring fantastic soundtracks. This video, "Curves of Iran," celebrates modern Iran's rich visual textures and — you guessed it — curves. Fitted to great music, fun (but fitting) sound effects to every cut, and a great overall tempo, this video makes use of hyperlapse-like cuts, but spares your brain from the monotony of yet another time-lapse by letting the actual shots play in real time once you've "arrived" at your new destination. Truly imaginative. And at the Giroux's request, I'll remind you to listen with headphones.
AIG's recent move to begin insuring unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) marked the beginning of the first large, national insurance company to get ahead of (or catch up with) the "drone movement." Like this season's migration of Canadian geese, everyone seems to be flocking in droves, clearly intent on getting to the online shopping outlets and local electronics stores that sell the latest drones. But few actually know about how to use their newly affordable crafts safely and without risking their entire life's savings. A quick phone call with the Hill & Usher insurance agency led us to a few clues about where to start.
So you want to travel with a model? I've been shooting portraits for around four years now, and have started to (finally!) add more traveling to my life. Unintentionally, it turns out that my travel partner, my friend Victoria, also happens to be a model. In a relatively short span of time, Victoria and I have shot together in multiple countries and states, including Florida, North Carolina, New York City, Ireland, Italy, and France. In my career up until this point, I had worked with a variety of models, choosing them based on how they fit a location or look. Here are some of the pros and cons of the experience.
A sense of adventure has always been a common trait among photographers especially those who photograph landscapes. This sense of adventure often takes us to some interesting and remote locations. Well now there is an app that allows you turn those remote destinations into a scavenger hunt for other adventurous souls to find. TapTag allows you to leave a photo "postcard" of the location you visit for others to find.
The ME20F-SH is Canon's latest, crazy-high ISO camera, able to record clean video at over ISO 4 million (not a typo). Early footage was lackluster in content, and early media stated the natural security-field uses for such a camera. But the latest video suggests the ME20F-SH could be used to shoot incredibly beautiful footage of our world that wouldn't have been able to be captured the same way in the past.
YouTuber Michael Delaney found a pit full of rattlesnakes and, despite anyone's best suggestions, didn't turn back. Instead, armed with a GoPro on the end of a stick, Delaney recorded the scene, most of during which the only audible audio was the collective rattling of the bunch. Eventually, repeated strikes from multiple snakes knock the GoPro off of its mount and into the middle of the pit (good luck getting that one back). Put it some headphones, put the video on full screen... I dare you not to flinch at the first good strike...
Cinema5D founder Sebastian Wöber's latest three-part tutorial on drone shooting starts off with quite the introduction in Part I. Wöber could honestly be saying anything to accompany his to-die-for footage, but what makes it so fantastic is how great the information in this video is. From safety to beginner tips on getting started and how to get that cinematic shot you have in your head (don't worry, Wöber has plenty examples if you don't), Part I has you covered. And there's more to come...very soon.
A few weeks ago, I shared the second episode of the video series "Off the Beaten Track," where photographer Chris Schmid visited the land of the Maasai people, photographing their culture and the wild animals of the National Reserve in Kenya. Chris recently released the third episode where he explores a much cooler climate. Svalbard is one of the most remote places in the Northern Hemisphere. This episode is beautifully shot with the DJI Inspire 1 and DJI Zenmuse X5, giving you a new look into the quickly melting ice and the polar bears who live there.
The Pakpod is Kickstarter's latest small-camera tripod to hit the market. It's not made of carbon fiber or even metal. It won't stand much higher than a couple feet. And it looks a little funny - let's be honest. But it does one thing better than any other tripod I've ever seen: it attaches to anything (even under water).
It seems that a lot of photographers tend to avoid direct sunlight and for a long time, I did too. Occasionally, I would backlight subjects, but I would never dare light them directly with the sun. I decided one day that it was time to embrace the sun. In this article, I break down my methods for achieving a good photograph in direct sunlight, discussing what has helped me and what you should avoid.
As a self-taught photographer, I’m an advocate of learning through doing. I didn’t study it, but I can imagine that reading all the Photography 101 books that are available still wouldn't prepare you for actually being on a set, with a model standing in front of you, and a team awaiting your creative direction. In my journey, experience has meant everything. Here are some of the things I’ve learned over the years that may help when shooting your own portraits.
