The photography world is chock full of products meant to make photographers think they will instantly improve their work and take dazzling shots. Some are obviously better than others. Here are the best and worst pieces of photography gear I've purchased.
The phrase, “charge what you’re worth,” makes sense on the surface, and it’s advised so often in photography business circles that no one realizes it’s a bad idea.
Want to spruce up your product photography skills or maybe get some inspiration for your next product shoot? Check out this video guide on how to light and produce great shots for your clients!
Photography is a very secretive industry at times, but a few years ago I decided to share everything and answer any questions via instagram.
Portrait photography takes both technical competence and the ability to work with people, making it a challenging but rewarding genre. This great video will give you five helpful tips to improve your portraits.
Wedding photography is a notoriously difficult genre, full of fast-paced action and challenging scenarios. This fun and interesting video shows a wedding photographer's point of view on the big day and offers some helpful tips and tricks along the way.
Landscape photography can be a tricky genre to work in, particularly since you don't have control of the light or the elements. There are lots of lessons to learn, and to save you time and aggravation, this great video features an experienced landscape photographer talking about lessons he wishes he had learned sooner.
If you spend enough time in this field, your images are going to be stolen at some point, quite possibly on Instagram. What do you do at that point? This video follows a photographer as he discusses a recent case of his own.
When you are new to working with artificial light, one of the toughest parts is learning where to actually place the light for proper images. This helpful video will show you several fundamental lighting positions that can help jumpstart your work with strobes.
When you're new to artificial lighting, it can be a bit overwhelming trying to understand how different modifiers and attachments can change how your subject looks. This great video will show you how several common modifiers and attachments make your subject look so you can choose the appropriate equipment for your shoot.
A decade seems like a bit of a milestone to me, from my first camera to working as a commercial food photographer. There have been lot of lessons learnt along the way.
One of the best pieces of advice I have been given in recent times was to not be a firefighter. Before you all jump on me and tell me I'm a dummy for saying something negative about people who are clearly more heroic than I am, let me explain. What I mean is to not be proactive in how I operate.
Dog photography can be incredibly rewarding when you do it right, but it can also be quite frustrating when the little puppers are bouncing all around and paying attention in every direction except yours. This helpful video will give you some quick tips to improve your pictures of dogs and to increase your chances of getting the shot.
If there is any basic accessory almost every photographer should own, it's a 5-in-1 reflector. Versatile, portable, and cheap, I have one in my bag at all times. This excellent video will show you the many different uses for a 5-in-1 reflector and how you can employ one to improve your shots.
It has been some time since Adobe last released a new control to Lightroom, and as such, I was very keen to try out their latest addition — the “Texture” slider. Since a good majority of my work is underwater, I was of course interested in what value it could add to underwater images. As I have quickly learned, this new feature is a great tool for underwater photographers — particularly those who struggle with backscatter in their images.
In this article you will learn how to quickly improve the look of your video footage and speed up your color grading by using a corrective lut which is also know as a look up table.
When's the last time that you let yourself shoot images without giving a thought to their monetary value? It's too easy to get caught up thinking about how to monetize our profession and it's so important to step back, slow down, and just shoot for the fun of it.
Obviously, no one watches porn videos, but the adult industry represents 30% of internet bandwidth with a greater visitor count than Amazon, Netflix, and Twitter combined. The French artist Hierophante, who specializes in social satire, made a short video depicting all the cliché of porn videos.
In this extensive breakdown, go behind the scenes of a 1950s themed shoot and see how I shot, lit, and edited it from start to finish.
Creativity comes in many forms, but something that all disciplines have in common is that you need to practice — not just your technical skill, but the act of thinking differently.
The Retouching Toolkit is, without a doubt, the best Photoshop extension I have tried yet. It helps streamline one's editing workflow, improves Photoshop's interface, and with the latest update, it's getting one step closer to becoming the only Photoshop plugin you could ever need.
If you recently updated to the latest version of Lightroom, you may have noticed a new slider near the top of the Develop module: Texture. With many different ways to add this sort of effect to a photo already in the program, you might be wondering if and how this new slider is different. This great video will explain what the Texture slider affects and show you comparisons with things like clarity and sharpening.
A lot goes into making a video look professional, and one of the final and most important steps is the color grade. It's easy to make a mistake here, and this great video will highlight four such missteps that new videographers often make when it comes time to color grade.
If you don't use a tripod, you're doing your photography a great disservice. But how do you know which tripod is best for your particular needs and circumstances?
Have you always wanted to photograph live concerts, but are anxious about how to start? Were you recently hired for your first concert photography gig, but don't still looking for more ideas on how to capture great moments of the show? Well look no further, and keep reading.
One of the more subtle but powerful ways to create impact in your images is to give them the feeling of greater depth. This excellent video discusses six methods you can use to create more dimensionality in your landscape images for a greater impact on the viewer.
Some photos look like paintings. Not because they have some dreadful filter or effect applied, but because their use of light and composition is ethereal. In this video, Vinny Le Pes breaks down what is happening in these incredible images.
Adobe's updates to apps across the Lightroom lineup today include a new Texture slider under the Presence pane for a finer alternative to clarity, tutorials created by photographers you know so you can follow along with their edits, additional tools that help others collaborate to add images to albums with you online, and more.
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.
More and more photographers are either switching to or beginning to add video to their services, and while there are lots of similarities between shooting photos and shooting photos, there are enough differences that it's important to take the time to learn to do it properly. This helpful video will show you five common mistakes photographers make when switching to video and how to avoid them yourself.
Whether you’re shooting headshots at a Fortune 500 company or taking photographs of a family member for Mother’s Day, there’s one piece of gear you should definitely have in your kit for every portrait session.
Capturing an image is one of many steps in the process of putting together a photographic body of work. While titling your images is not obligatory, if you are thinking of exhibiting them or submitting to competitions, then this can be an important step. Although this can sometimes seem daunting, it need not be. If you’ve struggled with this, then read on.
Canon has quite a storied history of extreme lenses, and one of the most famous of those was definitely the EF 200mm f/1.8. This great video examines what made that lens so special and why it was (and remains) so expensive.
It’s one of my favorite photography tools: the simple colored gel. Not only can it improve the color balance of your image, it can dramatically boost your visual impact when used to add touches of color to your shot.
The Canon 11-24mm f/4L lens is a beautiful piece of glass, but it's also a highly pricey piece of glass. This fun video takes a look at just why it's so expensive.
As with anything you wish to progress in, investing both time and money ought to be a careful process. So, what do you believe are the wisest investments you can make as a photographer?
An online tool that can remove image backgrounds instantly has been officially adapted for Photoshop. Previously, the same process required numerous steps and often ended up being a tedious process. However, despite the advancement, images still face the same size restriction issue as the previous online counterpart.
If your images are too large, you worry they will be stolen. If your images are too small, they lose their impact. Here is what I believe to be the best balance for this problem.
Digital photo frames were hailed as a leap forward for presenting your images, a technology to go hand in hand with digital cameras. So, what happened?
Technique, skill, creativity, and yes, gear can all affect the quality of your photographs. But there's one thing many photographers overlook when out in the field that will quickly improve your photography without costing you a dime or requiring any practice or specialized skills.
In this article, you will witness a portrait shootout between a landscape photographer and a portrait photographer. Who do you think will capture the best portrait images?
Explore the national park or national forest for a week or more, maybe get paid? There are tons of artists-in-residence opportunities scattered across the United States. Take a chance, see a new part of the country and create new work inspired by unique landscapes.
Creatives are, well, creative. I think it's more than just a cliche that creatives can be a bit disorganized. Ideas can come and then go with such frequency and speed that keeping track of them can be difficult. Do you have a way of keeping track of your ideas? Of making sure your ideas make it onto the screen?
Are you enjoying your macro photography but need that extra something to make it pop? Check out these simple lighting tricks to improve your macro shots!
Having a low budget is not a restraint for making a great looking film. In our hands we have recording devices that have been a dream for young filmmakers in the past. In this video you will learn several tricks that will help you overcome your budget limitation achieving the same effect on your audience as if you had more resources to make it "for real."
Creatives often suffer from some sort of anxiety, and it can be a serious impairment to our ability to get work done and to grow both our abilities and our careers. This important video details one photographer's struggles with anxiety.
I once tried to color calibrate my monitor... It was a disaster.
Trying to create an overall feel or style for a collection of images can be challenging, especially if there is a large amount of diversity across a set that you want to present together. In this short video, photographer Julia Trotti explains how she uses Lightroom to create a cohesive collection of images.
While we all love it when a gig lands in our lap, sometimes the timetable doesn't work in our favor. Having a decent amount of time leading up to the shoot can be critical in getting the best results for you and your client.
I have done photography for seven years and full time for the past three years. In that three-year period, I have mainly focused on landscape photography. I have learned a ton about photography in that period.
![A Music Video Highlights the Disturbing Reality of the Porn Industry [NSFW]](https://cdn.fstoppers.com/styles/med-16-9/s3/lead/2019/05/f1e5fd394d482d42df420a5e1303a0c0.jpg)
