Now this video may be over many of your heads (it is definitely over mine) because most of us are still photographers who may only dabble in video but this is still worth posting. In the video below Video Copilot shows us how they filmed a car chase scene in the studio with a green screen. I’ve never shot anything on a green screen before but after seeing how easy this is, I may have to give it a try.
Strobist has an interesting article by architectural photographer Mike Kelley. Usually exterior shots of homes and buildings are simply too large to effectively light with speedlights or big power packs. The tried and true method of capturing a great looking exterior shot is to turn all the lights on in the building and wait for the ambient sky light to match the build’s artificial light. In the behind the scenes video below, Kelley shares his “selective lighting” technique and how it can be combined with multiple exposures from a small Canon 430EX to produce a sort of hero shot for publication. Click the full post for the final images.
Part of the appeal of doing something the long way is exactly that: proving you have the guts to reinvent the wheel. When Stephen Doyle was asked to help with the New York Times story What If The Secret To Success Is Failure? he decided to try something that would have been rather easy to produce in post production. Instead of relying on Photoshop, Stephen used forced perspective to physically write out words within different scenes. The final images appear to have words written on top of the images but infact they are embedded into each photograph directly. Click the full post to check out a second video and see a few examples of the final published images.
A big part of what makes commercial photography so interesting is it often requires photographers to incorporate the latest graphic trends into their work. In other words, in order to cut the mustard in commercial photography, you not only have to be at the top of your game but you also have to produce something eye catching in a market full of interesting media. That’s exactly what photographer Gary Land did with his latest Adidas ad featuring soccer superstar Lionel Messi. However, his arsenal of Profoto lights and heavy photoshop has caused a bit of controversy over on the Strobist website where many photographers are claiming the final image is a bit overkill. I personally love the final image and think the direction Gary went is exactly what separates the boys from the men. However, I can appreciate the purists point of view who think great advertising photos should remain true to real life and capture a more realistic vision. Check out this great behind the scenes video of the latest Adidas shoe ad and let us know what you think in the comments. Check out Gary’s interesting website as well for more inspiration.
Sometimes our pictures don’t quite have that special something required to gain popularity on the internet. With Adobe’s new feature, you can make any boring picture exponentially better in just a few seconds.
When it comes to giving great tutorials on DSLR video, the guys at Stillmotion are full of helpful tips and tricks. This latest video discusses some of the advantages you have in setting your camera’s white balance and color profiles. Since DSLR cameras still do not allow you to record in a RAW format, you must make many decisions in camera much like you would if you were shooting jpeg (which is great for events like weddings). Lee and I are big fans of getting it right in camera which is crucial when filming video because a compressed video has so much less room for error than a large 12+ megapixel photograph. Seeing real time comparisons of how white balance, sharpness, contrast, and color shifts can change the look of your final video is really helpful and should become a part of your workflow everytime you start filming video. Hopefully many of you can use this info when filming your BTS contest videos. We’ve featured Stillmotion a lot here on Fstoppers so be sure to check out their older videos as well.
Douglas Sonders has always created some pretty interesting behind the scenes videos of his photo projects. Recently he shot the band Blink 182 for the cover of Alt Press Magazine. The behind the scenes video below doesn’t show much mainly because Douglas only had about 30 minutes with the band and had to shoot 3 separate covers with each band member individually as well as 1 complete band photo. The lighting is pretty straight forward though with a few rim lights, a soft over head key light, and a ring flash. Check out the full post to see a detailed video on how Douglas photoshopped the final images for print and how he uses the Nik Software Viveza in his workflow.
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.
Patrick and I were invited to shoot a behind the scenes video with beauty photography Sam Yocum in NYC a few months ago. I’ve always been struck by the lighting and flawless models, makeup, and retouching that can be seen in high end Beauty work and so I couldn’t wait to see a real professional work…Check out the video below to see a little on how Sam works as well as a very detailed tutorial on how he approaches his post production. Click the full post to see a bunch of Sam’s beauty images.
Hurricane Irene is battering the East Coast of the US right now which has left many stuck in their homes browsing the internet for storm updates. One particular story that has filled my facebook news feed and was tweeted by CNN involves a shark swimming in the streets of Puerto Rico. Apparently the shark was swept up by Hurricane Irene and trapped inland on flooded streets of the Caribbean island. But something about the photo seems very suspecious. A few weeks ago Fstoppers correspondent Reese Moore interviewed photographer Thomas Peschak and one of his most famous images features the same shark making headlines today. Coincidence or is this shark just hungry for more media attention? Click the full post to see the two photos and you be the judge.
If you are a fan of iphone photo apps, huge CGI production movies, and sexy girls fighting with mystical powers then you will probably love this behind the scenes video. The Demon Cam is an iphone app that allows you to turn your face into a demon zombie. In order to promote the release of the Demon Cam, the guys over at Video Copilot created an unbelievably complex promo video that showcases how the application works. The behind the scenes video has a lot of CGI and chromakey trickery but it also has a bunch of clever ideas any photographer could use in their own productions. After reading the reviews of this app and seeing the amount of work that went into the opening video, I’m kind of curious to see what a Patrick Hall demon would look like. Click the full post to see how everything came together in the final video and head over to the app store to pick up the $.99 iphone cam.
Hello Fstoppers! My name is Sean Armenta, and this is my little spot on Fstoppers called The Post Production Tutorial. If you enjoy these videos, feel free to subscribe to my new Fstoppers PPT Youtube Channel for the latest updates. Feel free to connect with me on the right side bar and I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have about retouching.
This week we have part three of my Beauty Retouching Workflow mini-series. We will be enhancing the eyes and I will walk you through how I work with Imagenomic’s Portraiture plugin.
As always, thank you for your continued support and encouragement!
Be sure to drop by my Prep To Post workshop website at www.preptopost.com for even more information on photography, lighting, and retouching. I have a Beauty Editorial Workshop coming up in Washington, DC on August 26th, one in Hawaii in mid-October, and another event planned for the Philippines in late November.
We are two weeks into our 2011 BTS contest and the entries are starting to trickle in. I just watched Robert Simpson’s video called “Small World” and I was really impressed with the results. Robert used a D70 and kit lens in conjunction with some pretty interesting Photoshop techniques to create a very unique looking image.
To keep an eye on all of the contest entries as they come in you can check out the the contest section on our forum.
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?
Nosh: 404 from Firespotter Labs on Vimeo.
This week over on the Fstoppers Forum there has been some pretty interesting posts. One that grabbed my attention was made by user Evolize Photog who showed how he photographs luxury cars in motion. In this video Evolize shows how he photoshopped his suction cupped boom arm out of a Lamborghini Gallardo hero shot. This should be great inspiration for our behind the scenes contest we are running the rest of this year. I’m sure a lot of you are like me and have questions about mounting a boom arm, triggering the camera, and positioning the camera for the best angle. These are some of the topics you should consider when making your own BTS video in the future. Do we have any other automotive photographers here on Fstoppers?
