Fstoppers Original Articles

There is an old saying that "you only find what you are looking for." It's critical for any artist, including we photographers, to know what it is that we are working to create. To have a vision and stay true to it so that it will become a reality. When you go out with the intent of creating images you know what you want, right? You choose the location, the time of day, maybe the lighting, certainly the subject, and of course what gear that you need to bring it all together. We tend to be control freaks to make sure that we get what we want.

With so many amazing new RGB LED lights on the market, it's easy to see why so many content creators are utilizing these in both their photography and videography projects. Today, I look at the Meteor 30 and 60 Pixel Tube Light by Aparo and show you how I plan to use it in my own studio.

With M we reach a significant milestone in the A to Z of Photography as this is the halfway mark. So far "Bronica and Burtynsky" and "Fujifilm" have been the most read with the "Family of Man" and "Image Stabilization and Into the Jaws of Death" languishing at the bottom of the popularity charts! Onwards then to Inge Morath and Minolta.

When you look at an image, how do you interpret it? Is it able to inform you about what has preceded the events that are depicted and what is about to happen? The ability of an image to "speak" is something John Berger believed lifted it from being ordinarily graphic to providing a visual narrative.

Look, I think we've all been there, none of us want to have to bring extra stands, tripods/monopods, or even extra cameras just to get behind-the-scenes images (BTS for short from here on out) or video for our websites or social media, even though we'd all love to have that content. After some trial and error, I think I've landed on a fun and flexible solution by using a 360 action camera but there are some things to know before you get started so let’s get into it.

Ever wondered what your images sound like? Well, you can find out with a strange process known as sonification.

Are you even a photographer if you’ve never taken a Polaroid? If you’ve yet to experience the magic of instant photography, or if you’ve been away from the game for a while, there’s good news. The film being produced by Polaroid over the last couple of years is more consistent than it has been for a long time.

The holidays are over, you’ve spent all your money. How can you save money on a birthday or Valentine’s gift?

Ben Moore, Nikon Europe Creator, is an urban architectural photographer who understands the grind. His passion and tenacity for pushing himself have led to a career of stunning image creation.

As all medium format shooters know, moving fast with larger sensor cameras can be a challenge compared to their full frame counterparts. So, I recently tried out the Fuji GFX GF 45mm-100mm f/4 R LM OIS WR to see if it would speed my workflow and unlock additional potential in my Fuji GFX system.

The draw to lower your prices will be just as strong as the economy is weak, but while that may be good for new business volume, here’s why you should stay firm on existing business, even as rescheduling occurs. Don't know how to handle that? I also have a few tips for what to say to your clients to avoid falling into the trap of discounting services to the point of driving yourself further into debt.

Finding the creativity and inspiration to succeed as a premier fashion and editorial photographer is hard enough, keeping it up for more than three decades is a completely different story altogether. Rankin's new show at 180 Studios is a retrospective of Rankin's first decade of work at Dazed and Confused, one of photography's most influential magazines.

For many photographers, the Adobe software suite is the main suite they use for editing and to manage their content. Over the last few years, however, many creatives have become dissatisfied with the monthly subscription model that Adobe has now opted for. For this reason, many photographers have been looking for a viable alternative.

Have you ever wondered how to create a stronger portfolio and artistic voice? In this article, I will share my methodology for creating better photographs.

The cult of celebrity is alive and kicking, now seemingly the domain of the "influencer". However history is littered with photographers who attained celebrity status — step back 80 years and Weegee made the unusual step from press photographer to, well, influencer! This was long after the second of our two articles, which looks at the wet collodion plate process.

We all have our favorite songs that we sing when are going through bad times or want to pump ourselves up. In this hilarious photo series, a photographer captures his friends singing their favorite songs and imagining that the camera is not there. See which song each person was singing!

With drones being so accessible and easy to use, everybody is taking aerial shots these days. But there's nothing like crawling into a tiny Cessna and exploring the skies from a plane for yourself! Here’re 10 tips on how you can do just that.

Have you ever felt stuck as a creative? Have you experienced being out of ideas when you badly needed them?

Like it or not, video is the preferred means of communication for most content creators these days. A quick look at Fstoppers itself proves that. Even when it is a photographer who is providing information to other photographers, video is the medium of choice.

You're about to become better at post-processing! Raiatea Arcuri, a landscape photographer from Hawaii, has an impressive portfolio. I was pleased to learn that he also shares some of his secrets to processing his landscapes. Arcuri teaches you how to process a stack of images shot at night to create a wonderful star trail nightscape using Lightroom and Photoshop, and I will share some additional tips to help you achieve stunning star trails.

If you knew for certain that you would succeed, what move would you make in 2022?

As a landscape photographer, what is my impact upon the very thing that I love to photograph and how can I reduce that impact? This was the overarching theme of the conversation when I recently sat down with Scott Bacon, Managing Director for a group called Nature First, the Alliance for Responsible Nature Photography, to ponder this question. Scott’s passion for the subject was immediately evident, and I found him to be an engaging and committed ambassador for what Nature First is all about.

For those who specialize in real estate photography, it is common to say this genre of photography is fraught with its own unique set of challenges, from dealing with challenging lighting conditions such as balancing interior and exterior light to time constraints to low budget and short turnover time. In the competitive world of real estate, it is almost non-negotiable for photographers to produce high-quality images to help properties look their best through the help of post-processing. While mastering these post-processing techniques has proven to significantly improve the outlook of the deliverables and also overcome the shortcomings of on-location shoots, they often take years to learn and master. Thankfully, the advancements in AI photo editing tools are making these hurdles easier to overcome and helping you gain a competitive edge in this tough market. In this article, we will explore the common challenges faced in real estate photography and how AI photo editors can help address them efficiently in editing real estate photography.

Today, I will definitively answer an age-old question. Or perhaps, more likely, pontificate on something that all people and all artists have been asking since the beginning of time.

Technology moves quickly, and it only takes a few generations for there to feel like a profound divide between age groups. What do you think the next generation will not know about the photography of today or will be surprised by?

You take photos, you write books, you're published in weekly and monthly newspapers and magazines, and travel the world with the sole purpose of... traveling. You sound like one of the early social media influencers of the 2010s who was "living the dream," constantly on the road, distributing a drip of photos and articles to the travel-enthused general public. However, it's 1888, and your name is Frank Carpenter.

In this article I will be giving some insight behind the creation of my latest video, “Green Heron: A Cinematic Portrait,” which includes dealing with gear limitations, working with music and sound effects, and forming wildlife footage into a story.

Graphics are international, with photographic ideas and images spreading like wildfire. They speak a universal language, are pan-cultural, yet have their own local meanings and understandings. This sounds like the world of Instagram, 500px, YouTube, and Flickr, but it’s actually 1858, and the Abdullah Frères are setting up their photographic studio in Constantinople.

The other day, a few guys on my team and I cooked up some new content for the 2018 Skypixel competition. Turns out we weren't able to submit them fore a silly reason that mainly took place on our end.

If you want to know how good your camera is, pushing its abilities as far as they will go is the way to find out. Combining speed, vibration, and low light stretches its photographic capabilities, and flying mud, rain, and thick fog help too.

In the first part of this series of two, I introduced bokeh — out-of-focus areas — and outlined the main controls of defocus. These include sensor size, focal length, aperture, distance to subject, and distance to the backdrop. How, then, do you compare defocus between lenses and cameras? Read on.

Our local high school had an idea to get senior photos taken for the young adults that have been working their whole life to achieve something, only to have it turn into an afterthought overshadowed by a serious global pandemic.

Well it had to come… the final installment of the A to Z of Photography appeared last week and with that a huge void in my life! With every end there is a new beginning, but before we reach that, where did the A to Z start, what topics did it traverse in its winding journey, and what were some of the highlights?

And so with some sadness, tinged with a sense of relief, we reach the final letter of the alphabet. And what better way to finish than with a vastly successful company that has virtually spanned the lifetime of photography, along with some photographic input from yet another novelist.

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 2023, we're featuring a new photographer every month, whose portfolio represents both stellar photographic achievement and a high level of involvement within the Fstoppers community.

We all know Mark Mann from the close-up, soul-bearing portraits of what feels like every celebrity, public figure, and president in current times. Prolific seems a fitting word that should be permanently grafted to any discussion of the artist’s work. Today, however, we are getting to know Mark Mann in a way that you never have.

If you think this is a sci-fi horror thriller film with Transformers-style VFX you'll be disappointed. In fact, the action takes place in the 50s as a young man turns unfortunate obstacles into a romantic outcome.

Following along on the path of the ABCs of photography, we reach D and the process that kicked off photography in the first place: the Daguerrotype. But what or who will join such an auspicious and founding technique?

In last week’s article, I chose to talk about the joys of going small with lighting gear. In today’s article, we’ll go big, very big, with the Aputure LS 1200d Pro LED Light Kit.

While the coronavirus poses a significant threat to our physiologic well-being, the overall experience of this crisis worldwide could be harmful to us in another way.

We might feel confined during the pandemic, but it does not compare to the dark realities of those locked up in forgotten prisons. After 40 years of media shut-out, we get to visually experience the life in prison in Brazil thanks to the "Locked Up" project.

Have you ever walked by a beauty image on the shelf at ULTA or scrolled by a brilliant shot on Instagram and thought: “I want to make images like that”? Or perhaps you are a photographer who saw a picture and thought: “I could have shot that better!” You have the skills, but you don’t know how to break into the commercial market. In this article, I’ll share about how to break into the market and disclose tips and tricks to succeed in the commercial photography space.

New Year's resolutions have a bad rap — it starts with a well-meaning desire to lose a few pounds in weight, drink less, or quit smoking. Sure enough, a couple of weeks later those "promises to self" lie in tatters and you discard any further well-meaning thoughts. So don't think about making one, instead, go the whole hog and make three!

The Family of Man is the second of our two monumental Fs in the A to Z of Photography. Can it usurp the 77,000 strong workforce and $22 billion turnover of Fujifilm in the last post? Surely there is nothing more all encompassing than humankind.

Social media has undeniably dominated a major part of our lifestyle and played an even more irreplaceable role for us to express our opinions on the net. This social media domination has somewhat become both a blessing and a curse for photographers where most of their work is held hostage under the power of the scrolling algorithm. While some photographers may have taken the opportunity to market and broadcast their work to the world, it is still pretty challenging to maintain the utmost creativity and artistic integrity under the influence of the constantly evolving algorithm.

We’re calling it now: 2019 will be the year of new voices. In 2018, younger generations have been the force behind social movements and social change.

Once you find a great location, do you share it or keep it secret? If you keep it secret, why? Are you doing it to protect a fragile location or to protect your investment in searching it out? Do you have other reasons?

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 2023, we're featuring a new photographer every month, whose portfolio represents both stellar photographic achievement and a high level of involvement within the Fstoppers community.

Email marketing is one of the most commonly used tools when trying to land a new job. However, knowing what to write, who to write to, and how to follow up can make or break your campaign. In this article, we will take a look at some dos and don'ts of email marketing.

Warmth can be a lot more than just a temperature. A face with a smile can show warmth. The orange glow of a candle flame or from a fireplace are great examples. Sometimes this look can also be achieved with a radial filter and sliding the white balance towards the warmer side of the spectrum. When done correctly, a photo featuring warmth can tap into a very predictable emotion and feeling of comfort. Check out how our readers fared this week on our top ten list.