Fstoppers Original Articles

From coating your lenses with Vaseline to creating pinhole cameras, we all love experimenting with camera and lens hacks from time to time. While it's hardly a new found trick, and while it's not as harmful as it sounds, lens whacking can give you impressive effects to give your footage just that extra bit of finesse and adds a lovely romantic element overall, especially when combined with slow-motion footage.

Prepping for the off season is something we rarely do, as we barely have time to keep our heads above water during the busy season. Even though we may break goals and surpass expectations at certian times, there are always a few months out of the year where we feel like we are starving for work. A couple months of low sales can take half the year to make-up and recover financially.

In today's competitive marketplace, successful photographers are finding themselves creating more and more content that isn't strictly photo based. Platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook are reaching more and more people with video content. In today's article, I outline 10 simple tips you can use to polish your video content.

Awakening your creative mind can be a challenge, but from my previous article "Fstoppers Creative Photography Challenge (Part One)" I hope that these challenges are helping you overcome your creative rut. Sometimes it's hard to spot simple things and sometimes you just don't have that drive to take that photo. There are tons of options to sharpen you creative skills, but I find these challenges relaxing. Here are some more added challenges for you to continue.

"Keep your head down and always know where the ball is. It hurts when you get hit." And with that, I was off and running. Here's what it was like stepping out of portraits and events and into the world of professional sports photography.

The Great Plains offer some of the most extreme and jaw-dropping weather on Earth, and those who venture there with their camera are rewarded with some of the most unique and stunning images possible. We interviewed Paige Vincent, a photographer capturing those phenomena.

Repeatedly say something is good, loud enough and long enough, so that anyone who listening to you believes it. Raise that single voice to a chorus and then that belief becomes fact. So is fine art photography the classic con job?

Over the last couple of years, the Non-Fungible Token (NFT) market was booming, and I couldn't scroll through the Twitterverse without seeing the many posts saying "GM", sharing their images and links to buy them as NFTs. After a huge crash in 2022, the NFT crew has finally started disappearing from my timelines, and good riddance to them.

The time has finally come. Leading to this moment, you sat in the hot sun for hours, waiting for the grazing of the bird’s toe on the water, creating mesmerizing concentric circles, and boom: you got it!

As often is the case, the aftermath of tragedy has drawn my attention away from the cool gadgets and techniques of the photographic profession and caused my mind to drift back to the why. Allow me a moment to indulge a larger question.

Photographing cars and motorsport is a unique and exhilarating genre of photography, here are 5 good reasons you should try it.

I got through the Sunday eclipse and helped a couple of friends with their first time try at eclipse imaging. It got me thinking about what I've learned over the years that might save you some time when the next one comes along.

The New York Daily News, once called “New York’s Picture Newspaper,” has nobody left on staff to take pictures after its parent company, Chicago-based Tronc, cut the editorial staff in half on Monday.

Underwater photography has become extremely popular with the increase of mermaid models. Getting the shot for a breathtaking underwater image is not as tricky as you may think.

It’s no secret that newspapers are letting go of photojournalists left and right. But you don’t see other newsroom jobs being lost at quite the same clip as photographers, and it’s a problem that starts at the earliest levels of journalism education.

Your smartphone might have the perfect auto-mode for the job, why not save some time?

Whether you’ve worked with Photoshop for years, or are new to the program and want an updated approach to cloning, healing, and editing out distractions and issues, there’s been a number of updates that have challenged the old paradigm of editing in these situations. Want to know the new approach you should be using?

Over the years, education has taken a major turn. Shifting from in-person to online. But even now, online education is beginning to shift.

The Game of Life has only a few pivotal moments; graduating college, choosing a career, and getting married. And most people only want to do that last one once in their life. So when a friend asked me to shoot his proposal to his longtime girlfriend, I was both elated and terrified. Happy for two close friends of mine, but scared out of my wits about the pressure of capturing such a moment.

If you have been prepping for the busy season with high school seniors, your first step is to find quality senior representatives or models that will endorse you and your business. This article will provide you a few easy networking tips for finding and screening senior reps for the upcoming year.

Zoom, focus, spray and pray. That seems to be the M.O. of many photographers who shoot runway. I admit, I was one of those photographers. The one who scours through thousands of images at the end of the night, wishing they had shot more strategically. And, after two hours of culling, flagging three images per look, they’d be lucky if only one was tack sharp. After many shows, I’d criticize my every move and would long for a time machine to do it all over again.

Photo-thieving criminal gangs and huge corporations profit from stealing our photographs. Let’s stand together and fight back.

If you are a Profoto user who has always dreamed of the day you could see the actual power settings of your strobes directly on the remote, today, your dream has come true. I was one of the first photographers to test the new Connect Pro in my own studio, and I have to say, this is a very welcome upgrade for any Profoto user.

After a long day of shooting, thought I would take a moment to write a short piece about one of the most important tools in my kit.

With Canon’s new mirrorless gear now shipping across the world, I had the chance to speak with wildlife photographer and conservationist John Marriott about his experiences with the pre-production models of the R5 and R6.

I was hired to shoot graduation photos for a client recently, a particular job that certain photographers may be at odds with accepting. Simply put, it’s one of those gigs that can be hard to get motivated for if it isn’t your style. As a working photographer however we must all make decisions with our career and in my case, work is work regardless of the genre. So how can you take something as simple as a graduation shoot and turn it into an experience? Here are a few tips.

Maha's new Powerex MH-C980 8 Cell Charger/Analyzer is out and it's a full-featured, professional charging beast. Check out the nitty gritty on one of the most advanced AA/AAA battery chargers on the market.

So you want to create images and travel to gorgeous and beautiful places but how are you going to afford to travel several days or weeks and still pay for food, a roof over your head, and the costs to go from point a to b, c, d, e, etcetera? Well, do you like to camp? For those photographers where money is tight or who just want to have the most flexible arrangements possible, camping is one of your best options to get to out of the way places and still get some rest in between your photographic pursuits.

You’ve poured your blood, sweat, and tears into your art. Now, it’s time to make sure it is preserved.

If you're trying to gain an edge in a competitive market, getting inspiration from places you might not normally look could really help. This new documentary series will expose you to some of the world's most creative minds in fields you may have never considered. As an added bonus, one of the episodes features famous photographer, Platon, and is worth a watch just for that alone.

What’s holding you back? Is it work or responsibilities? Is it just life getting in the way? Is it you making a commitment to taking that next step? This morning I was overlooking the Rio Grande into Mexico and I thought that there's no place I’d rather be than right here in this moment. This is what getting out of your own way feels like. It’s happiness and adventure and exhilaration. It’s when we’ve overcome ourselves and have accepted the fact that we just have to move. We have to pick a direction and go.

I've been holding off on learning video ever since I started my photographic career. Having now taken the plunge, I can safely say that I wish I had embraced video sooner.

As I head into the new year of photography, I’ve taken the opportunity to think a lot about composition and how it relates to my photography and to photography as a whole. It is true that every picture has a composition, whether the creator intended it or not. Some spend much of their time thinking on how to compose, others do it instinctively, and others pay very little heed to it. Whatever your approach is, your photographs do have a composition, and it is worth considering how it affects the way your images are interpreted.

Music photography is a heavily saturated industry. With many emerging photographers happy to shoot for free to have their name associated with musicians, it has become very difficult to make a living by specializing in music. But there are a few pioneers who have risen amongst this heightened competition; this is the story of renowned music photographer Kana Waiwaiku.

The Fstoppers community is brimming with creative vision and talent. Every day, we comb through your work, looking for images to feature as the Photo of the Day or simply to admire your creativity and technical prowess. In 2016, we'll be featuring a new photographer every month, whose portfolio represents both stellar photographic achievement and a high level of involvement within the Fstoppers community.

Your mind plays clever tricks, helping you make sense of the world. It creates imaginary groups and lines. So, understanding how that works will lead you to take more compelling photographs.

I love shooting film, it's not always the best choice, but the idea that I am forced to slow down and really be sure I like my frame before I hit the shutter overall makes me shoot more efficiently, reduce the amount of culling at the end of the shoot (which is my least favorite part of any photoshoot to be honest), and with shooting with 6x7 I can get a very specific look that is hard to replicate with smaller sensors, for better and worse.

Sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference between a technically accurate photograph and one that has been modified, enhanced, composited (you pick the word) in order to give it a broader audience appeal. Nature is both stunning and surprising in its raw magnificence which begs the question: why should we mess with it at all in photographs?

CrashPlan is a popular cloud-based backup solution that many (myself included) use to backup their computers and external drives. But the company's announcement this morning to focus on business-to-business services leaves consumer customers hanging, despite their promise not to do so. Those of us with particularly large backups on CrashPlan's consumer service have a problem that raises a greater question about cloud-based backups in general.

Cameras are expensive, and you spend your hard-earned cash in the expectation that not only will your purchase be the latest and greatest, but that it works out of the box. Would you still buy it if you knew it was at least partially experimental?

For just about the past year now, I have been working in real estate and aerial photography. I mainly work with the agents directly and the most important thing for me to do is be able to establish a good relationship with each and every agent I work with. These agents are my clients and I want to be able to keep them as clients so they continue to come back to me for any photo, video, or aerial work they need to market their properties. Within this short little year I have been working, I've dealt with so much and learned more than I ever could have imagined.

As a working pro, dedicated amateur, or just plain photographer, the last thing you want is a dead camera, especially when it's through no fault of your own. Failures are part and parcel of the working life of a camera, however, what can the the Soviet T34 tell us about this?

Exactly what does it take to be “lucky?”

GuruShots is a website that hosts, "The World’s Greatest Photo Game,” in which it invites participants to submit their best photos to various challenges. They have receive thousands of entries and millions of votes and recently hosted the "Amazing Men" challenge. Check out the three winners of the challenge below as well as the 100 top rated images below.

A few months ago we released the landscape photography tutorial Photographing The World 3 with Elia Locardi. Today, the behind the scenes series on the creation of that tutorial continues with Episode 11.

One mistake that I've noticed many photographers make is not thinking about what type of music they have playing while on a shoot. You'd be surprised how changing the tracks up a little can dramatically affect the outcome of your images. Check out these free playlists before your next shoot.

By narrowing your focus and promoting your specific skill set, you can grow your business and stand out in even the most overly saturated market.

Are you taking full advantage of every single tax break you can get in your photography business? This upcoming tax season, follow these tips to make sure you keep as much of those hard-earned dollars as you can.

A wedding photo booth can be one of the most entertaining and memorable activities at your wedding. They can also be a total dud and waste of money. In this video, I share my top tips for building a successful photo booth for my wedding!

As cameras get better and more capable, it has become easier than ever to capture an amazing photo. But for some photographers, pushing possibilities beyond comprehension is the only way to roll. Check out the amazing results produced by combining over 2,000 carefully focus stacked images of butterfly wings.