Fstoppers is asking for your help! We have a 10-minute survey that will make you eligible to win 1 of 4 prizes and will also guarantee you an Fstoppers Original Tutorial discount. All you need to do is complete the survey below and you will enter the drawing. Here's what you can win:
For our latest submissions to Critique the Community, we asked photographers to submit their product images for review and feedback. We had a great variety of submissions this week and choose 20 of them to talk about. Thank you everyone who posted their pictures. To see the variety of shots we chose, check out the talented work from our community below.
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.
It comes up when I'm driving someone around and they ask where my car charger is (I don't have one). Or when I'm having a party at my house and my guests asks to go into my office to plug their iPhone into my computer. You don't have to live like this anymore. There is another way.
Submissions for a new episode of "Critique the Community" are now open! Between now and the end of the day on September 23rd, you have a chance to submit PRODUCT images to be critiqued by the Fstoppers team. For this episode, we will be giving feedback to 20 pictures. To qualify you must follow the submission rules below.
Aerial photography has always been something that I have found interesting. Seeing so many of our writers like David Geffin, Mike Kelley, and Noam Galai capture exciting photos and video from the sky has inspired me to finally attempt my first doors-off helicopter excursion. In just one short one-hour ride, I've learned a lot of do's and don'ts as well as a bunch of things to experiment with again. I even attempted shooting with a $7,000 lens that everyone told me would be a disaster — and it nearly was!
Yesterday, we posted Part 1 from our latest episode of "Critique the Community" on un-posed wedding photos. For this episode we promised to give feedback for every single image that was properly submitted. If you missed the last video, we went through a little over half the images and gave our thoughts. Today, we'll be giving feedback to the rest. Check them out below.
Last week, we asked the community to submit their un-posed wedding images to be critiqued here at Fstoppers. Unlike past episodes, we promised to give feedback to EVERY image that was correctly submitted. Thank you everyone for all for posting your pictures! We had a total of 49 images that we covered in two separate videos. If you don't see your image in today's video, stay tuned for tomorrow's post.
Over the last two months we have been releasing one episode a week of our Behind the Scenes series of our world tour with Elia Locardi. In this first season (Season 2 is currently being edited), we visit both Iceland and New Zealand to film our latest tutorial on all things landscape photography.
I came across a web app for scheduling appointments that was a complete game changer for my business! It's by far my favorite productivity tool. Every wedding photographer needs to check this out. It could be the missing link you need in your business to book more wedding photography clients. In my first week I was able to arrange seven meetings and book two clients. Wow! This changes everything.
As we have come to expect, Apple's latest announcement of the iPad Pro has caused quite a bit of controversy. Apple fans love the update and the additional accessories, while critics claim that they simply ripped off other products that are already available. Let's take a closer look.
Through September 13th, you have a chance to submit any un-posed wedding photos to be critiqued by the Fstoppers team in a new episode of "Critique the Community." What do I mean by un-posed? Your submissions need to be candid moments of people that you captured, detail shots, locations, or any other picture where you did not position or pose your subjects. This episode we promise to critique EVERY submission, even if it takes a few videos to do so. However, to qualify you must follow the submission rules below.
Do you edit video in Adobe Premiere? Have you customized your keyboard with your favorite tools and shortcuts yet? If not, you're not editing as quickly as you could be. Check out our favorite tools and shortcuts to get the most out of Premiere.
As I am writing this Apple is having a press conference about their new products. The Apple Watch is getting a software update, the Apple TV is getting a total overhaul, the iPhone is all new (and can finally shoot 4k video), but potentially the most exciting news for photographers is the Apple iPad Pro.
Markus Andersen, certainly one of the leading street and fine art photographers in Sydney, Australia, and known globally, has just released pre-orders for his first book – and it looks stunning. “Rage Against The Light” published by TG Publishing showcases his wonderful work around his home town of Sydney (and for the first 100 pre-orders, 42 remaining pre-orders, comes with a free print).
Starting your own photography business can be very rewarding. However, we often let our creative right-brain get ahead of the left-brain practicalities and fail to ensure we are adequately protected from a legal standpoint. Corporate Attorney Adriel Sanders sent us these important legal considerations that may seem obvious to some, but many overlook.
The final episode of this season of Photographing The World Behind The Scenes is finally here. In episode eight, we finally wrap up three months of filming and to celebrate, I go bungee jumping and Patrick takes a ride on the worlds tallest swing.
In case you missed it, ‘Rocket Wars’ is a five minute film that has changed the game. It's breaking new ground and heralds in a beautiful new era in filmmaking. 150,000+ views and a Vimeo ‘Staff Pick’ are pretty amazing, but what’s ground breaking isn’t that the film is just a beautiful cacophony of visual and aural eye and ear candy. What’s fascinating is the fertile new ground it thrusts us headlong in to, and how it engages us. How did the filmmakers pull this off – and importantly – what can we learn from them to apply to our own projects?
If you ask any well-known and successful photographer what the most important thing you can do to grow your business is, they will almost all point towards shooting personal projects. Before the end of every day, I try to visualize at least one creative and interesting idea that might be worth photographing. Nine times out of ten, those ideas are complete garbage. Every now and then, I come up with a really great idea, but unfortunately, 90% of the time, I completely forget these great ideas and they never become a reality. Here is how I have solved this problem.
Many beginning photographers find it very difficult to translate their vision verbally. In order to save yourself time, effort, and frustration the day of your shoot, use a mood board. Mood boards are visual collages of inspiration designed to provide your team or client with a visual reference guide that everyone can agree on before your photo shoot.
Earlier this week, we asked the community to submit their wedding photographs to be critiqued by Lee and Patrick. Thank you everyone for all for posting your pictures! Check out the images we've selected.
In this tutorial I will show you how to setup your studio strobes for full length portraits as we shoot an editorial style lighting setup. First we will look at the entire gear list we used and you can use for a similar setup, from the backdrop to the studio heads. I will breakdown our lighting. with lighting diagrams and explanation of WHY we are placing our lights where we are. Also, in this video tutorial we share some Behind The Scenes from our shoot day.
Since fall is the biggest and busiest Wedding Season for most photographers, we want to see your best wedding images for our next episode of Critique the Community. Lee and Patrick will select 20 images to critique; upload your wedding image of choice to your Fstoppers account, then paste the URL of the image in the comments below. We are anticipating a lot of images, so you have until August 25th to submit your best image.
Or at least that's what the salesman tried to sell it to me as. You see, LG's new G4 sports a pretty incredible camera for a phone. Its 16 MP 1/2.6" CMOS sensor has an f/1.8 lens in front of it for light-gathering goodness. If this wasn't enough, the full manual controls of Android's new camera have been implemented. This all sounds impressive. But, just how capable is it?
Working as a wedding photographer is often an exercise in mutual respect with other vendors who have parallel, yet sometimes different, priorities in serving the bridal couple and their family. Most of time everyone is on the same team, but occasionally we photographers run into rules that don’t serve anyone properly. When those rules come from the church, it’s often hard to explain them away.
Giving a great first impression is imperative, especially when our work is mostly based on aesthetics. It can be the way we dress, the image we carry through social networks, or even a simple email signature. I have tried many different email signatures, using HTML formatted text, an image, or a mix of both. But I never was satisfied with how it looked. I then stumbled upon WiseStamp. A very simple way to create a professional and clean looking signature for your emails.
Since the advent of photography, the craft has completely changed the world — from its profound effects on communication and documentation in practical applications, to being a powerful form of personal expression and a visual art. Now, photography is being used to look into the past and discover significant historical information thought to be lost forever.
So if you have been watching social media this week, then you most likely heard about British photographer David Yarrow who made headlines after a tiger allegedly got "loose" during a photo shoot that was taking place in the well-known Packard Plant in Detroit. As a photographer, I am in Michigan a lot for various still and video projects throughout the year and have a lot of creative industry friends in the region. After reading the initial news reports, I decided to do a little digging of my own and went to the source to find out what REALLY happened.
Although the summer heat is still lingering, fall is swiftly approaching. It's that time again: time to hit the books and head back to school. Books are expensive, but we have some exciting news: The New York Institute of Photography is giving three lucky winners their choice of a free photography course! There are just three easy steps to enter for your chance to win.
Recently I had the distinct honor of being a groomsman in a close friend’s wedding. It’s a lot of hurry and stand while remembering where to look. The pressure really is more on the two people getting married to remember their lines: “I do.” But as part of the wedding party, you also get the full brunt of posing, smiling and cheesing it up for the wedding photographer.
Erik Almas is one of my all time favorite photographers. His work mixes equal parts clever advertising and personal vision in a way that makes each image intriguing to study. But behind all of his brilliant images is a businessman who works diligently to get his brand in front of art buyers and advertising agencies. Today PRO EDU has released a free section about marketing from Almas' Composite Photography tutorial, and this advice is something every photographer should hear.
Welcome to the this week's installment of Fstoppers’ Gear Tuesday! Below, you will find the answers to last week’s questions, including great topics such as film scanners and the Nikon D750.
It's Monday morning and that means another completed retouch and time to submit your image for next week. We had more amazing submissions last week and here is the winner! In this post, you will see the SOOC image compared to the retouched image and I will discuss the particular challenges and the direction I decided to go with the photo. You can also watch the entire retouch in the video. And once again, you can post any image of yours that you would like and it may be chosen to be retouched for free and delivered to you in full-res to do with what you'd like.
What do you keep in your camera bag that helps you stay inspired and creative? The team over at Format and ONA Bags want to know. They also want to give you $6,000 worth of prizes. Interested? It's really simple to enter the #myOnHand Instagram Contest.
One of the questions that crops up often on photography forums, sites, and even in photography conversations over a pint is "which lens should I buy next?" It is said with such sincerity and met with so many recommendations that are, in the end, mostly meaningless. It even rears its ugly head in the form of "What is the best lens for 'X' photography?", as though somehow, another person's answer will guide the asker to greatness.
Last week I made a list of 10 of my favorite photographers to follow on Fstoppers and a few people complained that too many of them were "portrait" photographers. I've scoured the community again and today I've created a new list with 10 incredible, additional photographers who shoot much more than your average portrait.
Natural-looking images are making a comeback. If you look at recent issues of big magazines, you will see that makeup is often a nude with some shine to it, retouching is less "doll like," and even simple 1-light setups seem to be the standard. Some people will argue that it has been like this for quite some time. It is true, but I find that retouching is more flagrant than before. Even well known high-end retouchers seem to leave more imperfections in their images than a year ago.
Buying used gear is always a balance between risk and potential reward. There is always a chance the lens will be defective in some way or another, but there is also the potential that you will get a perfect lens at a great price. When buying online, you are at the mercy of the seller, but when going out to buy used gear in person from local classifieds, there are several things you can do to decrease the chances of getting a lemon.
Three years ago, Photographer Christian Carollo came upon his grandfather's travel photography from across the United States. The initial spark for the "Past and Present" Project started with a particular image of the small coastal town of Winchester Bay, Oregon. Christian wondered if he could replicate the image and he succeeded. This was the start of an epic and awe-inspiring project now known as the Past and Present Project. Christian has traveled all over the United States, continuing to replicate his grandfather's images. The results are breathtaking and have re-inspired in me the true emotional potential a single image can have.
Lenses, bodies, lighting, software, film, digital. Photographers can be a technical bunch. We must not forget what lies beneath the tangible, first-order details, though.
I remember meeting Peter Hurley for the first time. I walked into his studio and saw him shooting a client's headshot with 4 Kino Flo hot lights (normally used for video). I asked him why and he said "The quality of light is just better than strobe. It fills the pores on a human face differently." At the time I was intrigued, but I no longer believe it.
Almost every photographer has found one of their images reproduced online without their permission. The first question you might ask yourself is "how much money can I get for this infringement?" However, copyright law can be extremely difficult to understand and there are many common or case law rulings that factor in on how an image can be used fairly or commercially. In this fascinating video, the guys at PRO EDU sit down with Joe Naylor with Image Rights and fine art photographer Peter Coulson to discuss how photographers can protect their art.
Photography and Videography are expensive hobbies/professions but we do our best to help you save when we can. Today I scoured B&H, eBay, and Amazon for the best photography deals and I've found 5 different sales that you may want to check out.
Welcome to the this week's installment of Fstoppers’ Gear Tuesday! Below, you will find the answers to last week’s questions, including great topics such as the stability of memory cards and ultra low ISOs.
Its Monday so as promised here is the completed retouch for last weeks winning submission by Mitchell Flores. For only being the first week of this regular segment we had an great number of submission and it was hard picking, can't wait to see what you guys submit this week. In this post I'll go over some of the steps of the retouching process and talk about the challenges for this particular image. If you would like your image to be selected for next week, post your low-res image in the comments below by Wednesday of this week.
