Fstoppers Original Articles

I'm a portrait photographer. I think that is pretty obvious by my portfolio being completely full of people photos. The nature of the portraits I shoot varies from time to time, but ultimately I make images of humans almost exclusively. Being specialized is great, and even critical, according to many, in regards to creating a photography career. There really isn't any doubt it in that. However, don't let that specialization bar you from ever trying out other types of photography.

My first camera was a Minolta SRT-101. I loved that camera. It was an excellent tool for learning about photography and manual exposure. As it was completely manual in operation, the internal meter was my only guide for achieving correct exposure, outside of using an external source or just guessing. Fast forward 20-plus years and the way I use an internal light meter has remained largely unchanged. That all changed recently.

About 1 billion people use Instagram each month, that’s 1/8th of the world population. The top four countries other than the United Sates are Brazil, India, Indonesia, and Russia. That’s a huge variety of languages, cultures and perspectives, yet the most followed people on Instagram are celebrities.

Photographers that have true originality in concept and style are few. But Anna Isabella Christensen’s photographs show just that. We discussed her photographic adventure in Iceland, where she took self-portraits to a new level.

Have you ever made a picture of a landscape? Sure you have. Everyone has. Making the photo is the easy part, but showing the landscape how you experienced it, is something else. Often the photo does not show the landscape from you perception. Finding a subject is often one of the solutions.

There are several timeless photography debates that are fun to engage in but will probably never be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. There’s film versus digital, zoom lenses versus primes, small compact minimalistic camera versus fully featured monster-sized pro camera, and of course, continuous lighting versus strobe lighting. This article will not seek to determine whether strobes or constant lights are better for portraiture, but we will take a deep dive into how one photographer used continuous lighting on a recent celebrity shoot.

As many of you know, Lee and I recently moved to Puerto Rico, and with that move, we are having to completely redesign our new studio space. In today's video, we tackle our in-home network and wireless Internet connection. Surely the limitations in Puerto Rico will prove to give us trouble... or will it?

F is a big letter of the alphabet photographically speaking and so, to mark this, the two topics in this post are split in two in order to do justice to them. First up is the iconic brand Fuji.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail," but then again Franklin wasn't a photographer. Photoshoots with humans, animals, or even some objects are dynamic and even active situations that are at the same time part inspiration and part performance. Finding the right balance between planning and improvisation can help take your photography to the next level.

Just recently after moving back home for the summer, I decided to begin a new aerial series. Up here in Bergen County, New Jersey, there is not much to shoot, or at least that is something I tell myself. One day after skimming Google Maps for spots to fly, I came upon a few islands on a lake, each with their own individual house. Intrigued by what I saw, I knew that I had to find a way to capture these homes in a way that makes them more interesting to me. So right here, my series began and I will explain why I think it is important to keep every photo consistent.

Color grading your images can be fun, yet, in some cases, an arduous task. The subtle nuances that it can provide can make or break an image. Learning to color grade effectively takes years, and understanding the subtle differences that adding numerical values can make to the RGB of your image is an art form.

Creative pursuits are inherently two-headed beasts. We are all too familiar with being passionate about photography, so much so that we can sink all of our spare time and a good portion of our money in it. Especially when you travel with photography in mind, landscape photography can start to become a trophy hunt. And I can’t blame you. Travel is expensive enough, so you want to make your shots count, right? In this article, I want to present a new way of looking for meaningful shots that may be more interesting to you in the long run.

Self-devised projects may seem like a waste of time. But are they really?

On Nov. 17, 2013, an EF-4 rated tornado ripped through central Illinois relentlessly damaging and destroying over 1,200 homes, and ultimately killing three people. The Journal Star’s photojournalist team sprung to action after the tornado subsided, taking to the streets and skies of the affected towns to document the ravaged community. One year later, they traced their steps of that tragic day to create this astonishing Then and Now photo series.

We are currently locked down in Puerto Rico, and it's literally illegal for us to go outside to take photos, but we found an old lesson we filmed in Alaska that was never released.

After a lengthy and involved negotiation for a large commercial project came to an unfortunate conclusion, I wanted to share some of the lessons I learned that may help you in your future business.

If you're in the market for a new gimbal you're probably overwhelmed with options. In today's video, I will compare the five most popular gimbals and let you know which one you should buy.

Often when retouching skin we want to clone away high contrast blemishes without also cloning the texture surrounding it. Advanced techniques such as using frequency separation can be a great help to make this sort of thing easier by separating detail from broader tones. One often overlooked technique that does a great job of preserving mid-tone detail while cloning is to leverage the power of blend modes to target only bright tones or dark tones when cloning.

Setting goals is a great idea with anything you want to improve at. However, setting the wrong sort of goals can impact your chances of attaining them. Here is a guide to setting goals that will definitely improve your work.

Selling your images online can be seriously complicated. You can try to submit images to some of the larger stock image marketplaces, but getting approved is tough. Even if you do get some of your images through, the marketplaces will take up to 85% of your royalties away from you.

In any creative field, there seems to always be a tipping point — one that when you reach it, you suddenly yearn to help others learn your craft. Photography is no different. What's interesting is that at one point in time, photography was more like any other skilled labor, such as being a carpenter, electrician, or blacksmith, where you had to first pay your dues as a apprentice for years before ever being able to perform said craft on your own.

It's time for great photography savings with some of the biggest deals of the year. If you happen to be looking for new gear, a faster or easier way to edit your photos, or a more efficient shooting workflow, here are offers that will help.

We can't deny the fact that an overwhelming majority of the stories and articles we see online are about professional photographers and going all-out in shooting. So for a day while traveling, I thought I would step back, reflect, and shoot like how I did before I started taking photography way too seriously.

When it comes to photography, the most time consuming part of the process is the editing. Retouching a beauty photo can take 3 hours with no breaks. Because of this, I’ve been trying to find new ways to be more efficient without cutting corners.

Gonzalo Amat brings us through how he started in photography, and grew into a cinematographer for Amazon. Are they the new HBO, free from rules and regulation, and does that make the job more fun?

At the start of March 2020, I found myself at a photography convention in Cape Town, South Africa, to present a workshop on travel photography. The central theme of my presentation was the notion that it isn't necessary to travel to be a successful travel photographer. Little did I know that within a couple of weeks of that presentation, I would be putting my advice into practice as the borders of the world slammed shut virtually overnight.

Most of the successful photographers and videographers that I know are effective at constructing a plan and making it a reality. And for the most part, this works, and when it doesn’t they usually have a backup plan. This is the base expectation for most people that have actually put time into developing their career. If you've worked long enough, you know that the odds are pretty great that things won’t go exactly as planned, so you prepare for that. But what I find is overlooked so often is not necessarily the forethought to make a Plan B but the forethought to consider how you will handle yourself when things inevitably go wrong.

In my previous article, we talked about the technique and tips for performing focus stacking for e-commerce shoots. In this article, we will further expand into discussing the advantages of using focus stacking techniques, apart from the obvious reasons of getting the entire product to be in focus. There are a few more logical reasons and advantages behind focus stacking.

I always wanted to sell my photography as fine art but always felt like it would take too much time to do it myself or that the quality of online platforms would be too low. That was until I found a solution that meant very little work for me with no compromises on quality, pricing, or customer support. If this sounds too good to be true, then keep reading for an in-depth look at the new Darkroom.com storefront that is now offering you more tools and features to sell your prints online during the holidays, the easy way.

Photographers nowadays have plenty of tools at our fingertips: Lightroom, Capture One, Photoshop, etc. However, all of these are either expensive, complicated, or have recurring payments (or all three). The automatic photo editor PhotoWorks is here to change that, targeting the photographer who isn't quite tech-savvy with layers, warping, and such, but wants a bit more "oomph" to their photos.

I'd love to shoot the new Tesla Roadster, but being that it's going to cost a quarter-million and it's not even for sale yet, that wasn't a possibility. I got the next best thing, the official Tesla Roadster diecast model.

Since the introduction of AI-generated headshots, many have been lamenting the inevitable end of our industry, forecasting doom and gloom across every online forum almost on a daily basis. But one photographer isn’t afraid, and in fact, he believes that AI technology is actually good for headshot photographers and ultimately will strengthen our industry.

With COVID-19 impacting our world on a global scale, it has become an important part of social history that needs to be (safely) documented not just for tomorrow, but also future generations.

I've been getting more and more into beauty photography lately, and I'm a big proponent of using one light whenever possible.

Ever wondered how people created those "impossible" photos of them sitting off the ground? Here I teach how to make a levitation photo in just under 10 minutes using some simple tricks in camera and finishing it off with Photoshop.

In the final part of my four-part series, I want to focus on the one person who can make or break your photography business: you.

Post-processing at the computer for hours on end often leaves me feeling nostalgic. Maybe there’s something tangible to film photography that I’m overlooking. After seeing a fellow landscape photographer working his 4x5 near a tree in the local dunes, his approach to our hobby had me contemplating my choice of hardware. There are so many analog-inspired pictures circling the web, that it’s obvious that I’m not the only one. Today, I want to share my thoughts on film photography with you.

Why are photographers obsessed with shallow depth of field? And why I think it can ruin your photography as it almost did with mine. Read on about how it started to affect my photography and what I did about it.

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 2019, 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.

Working day in and day out as a creative professional, I don't put a lot of stock in inspiration as a source of drive and creativity. Some days, you just have to do your job whether you're inspired or not. For me, staying motivated is far more important!

Many times the question arises on how to run a family and a business without losing your sanity. After speaking with one entrepreneur who is successfully managing the balance, we shared a few tips to keep the pressure down and the success rate high.

Welcome to the next—and 6th—episode of our 8-part video tutorial series about long exposure photography and how different filters can produce dramatic results. As a reminder, each time we drop a new video, you have the chance to win some awesome prizes. Follow the instructions included in this post to enter this week's contest.

This is a three-step template on how to shoot consistently good engagement photos through a structured plan involving composition, lighting, and poses.

Today, I’ll talk about one of the best values in my constant lighting kit.

Eye autofocus, insanely fast burst rates, 8K raw video, and more. There is no doubt that camera features are getting better and better at a crazy pace. But the thing I am most excited for is not on a camera, it is in post-processing: artificial intelligence.

Almost all of us have caught GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) at some point. We can often get caught up with buying new lights and modifiers, new lenses, and it can all become rather daunting, so recently as a challenge to myself I shot an entire portfolio building session with a single light, a single modifier, and a single lens.

One of the most frustrating things a photographer has to deal with in today's market is having their work stolen or used for free. If you post images online, the chances of your work being used without your permission isn't just likely, but inevitable. How then can you as a photographer protect your images while at the same time publishing your work so you can promote your brand? In this free excerpt from our Making Real Money tutorial, Monte Isom shares the exact steps you need to take to both protect your work and recover damages caused by illegal infringements.

Have you ever seen those bold modern ads that just force you to stop and look? One got me this week. I was driving, and a billboard had a colossal burger, most likely shot with the 16-35mm lens, and a bold, canary yellow background with that primary McDonalds red. "I need that burger! Wait... I'm a gluten-free vegan!" I tipped my hat to the photographer and kept driving.

Whether you’ve shot raw or JPEG, the choice of what format to use when editing is very important. There are key differences in the capabilities inherent to PSD, PSB, DNG, TIFF, and more. Want to know which format to choose next time you open Photoshop?