The ability to create images with powerful composition is one skill that separates great photographers from good ones. If you photograph weddings or anything involving outdoor portraiture, keeping these three tips in mind will help you to create strong compositions wherever you go.
The idea of discounting our work is something most of us don’t even want to consider. We’ve spent a ton of time honing our skills and have more invested into our work than the consumer can possibly understand. That’s why mini-sessions are perfect — if you have the time.
There are many things that go into the final mood of an image. My intention was to have a California-like warm sun with a heading-to-the-beach kind of feel for this car photo. The challenge was that I had to shoot it in the high desert. We have pine trees and some lakes, but the ocean is far away. So we found a windy road heading down to one of the small lakes and planned out our session.
Anker, a company known for their chargers, battery banks, and cables also produces a series of affordable and compact solar chargers. These devices, when combined with large mAh battery banks and various USB chargers, can be used to charge just about any electronic device, keeping a photographer up and running no matter how far they may travel.
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.
There seems to be a surprising amount of contention relating to whether or not you should watermark your images. Some people are adamant that yes, you absolutely need to put your stamp, so to speak, on images that you're putting out there online. Other people feel that a watermark is tacky, or that somehow it's presence cheapens the quality of the image that it has been applied to. As I have found with most things in life, context is king when it comes to watermarks.
In part two of our Micro Four-Thirds lens guide, we focus on some of the best telephoto lens options. The 2x crop factor of this format offers photographers and videographers some seriously impressive reach which is compact and affordable compared to full-frame alternatives.
You really are spoiled for choice when it comes to posing female subjects in your photographs. Working with males, on the other hand, can be a little more limiting, as a lot of the shapes which look great on the fairer sex don't always translate over so well. Use these key fundamentals when trying to get the best out of your male subjects even if they are not models.
When I first discovered ShootProof, I loved it. The idea of handling all of my file delivery as well as print sales from an online platform easily through my website was just amazing. But after a good amount of time, I grew frustrated with a couple flaws in their system that were deal-breakers for me. I then switched over to Pixieset and haven't looked back. Pixieset isn't near the giant that ShootProof is (yet), but ShootProof could take a few lessons from the up-and-comers.
Living in the live music capital of Texas, there is no shortage of opportunities to experience incredible shows while taking some memorable shots. Capturing the excitement can be tricky, however, as dim lighting and moving subjects don’t usually play well together. Here are some tips for making the most of your next concert.
Sometimes when you're out shooting that epic landscape, in order to capture the entire view, you need to shoot a series of images on location and then stitch them together afterwards in post-processing. I think we've all been there. Depending on which lens you're using, that can create the particularly frustrating challenge of dramatic image distortion. In a nutshell, the wider focal length of the lens, the more distortion you are likely to see when stitching shots together.
If you really love landscape photography, it can be more than a professional pursuit or a hobby, it can almost become a way of life. This awesome video shows how a day of shooting long exposures can become a meditative experience.
SLR cameras are small wonders of modern technology. This neat video shows a shutter in action, so you can see exactly how the mechanism works.
Living in Houston, it’s usually very hot and humid here. One of the downfalls is coming from inside a building or the car with AC on cold and then proceeding to go outside to shoot when it's hot outside. Whether it's moving from a cold to warm environment or vice versa, the drastic change in the temperature could cause your camera lenses to fog up. What can you do?
There are no shortage of Nikon D850 rumors these days. Following up previous news that Nikon shooters should be happy about, the additional features, pricing, and release date information once again found by NikonRumors set the stage for what continues to be an increasingly optimistic outlook for the D850.
When buying a quadcopter, it’s hard to know where to draw the line on what accessories you should be buying with it. It’s already an expensive investment independent of all of the extras you’ll practically need. It’s even more painful to consider how a simple, inexpensive component can keep you from flying successfully. After adding a DJI Phantom 4 Pro + to my lineup, I complied a list of all of the hardware I found most valuable to help you get the greatest return on your investment.
Lightroom is widely used for cataloging and editing photos. But did you know that you can use it to quickly and easily edit video as well? Colin Smith of PhotoshopCafe offers five quick tips on color grading and editing videos in Lightroom.
Datacolor’s Spyder5 series of products is their latest in calibration tools to help digital artists make sure they are always seeing the most accurate colors on any monitor display. There are three models to choose from: Express, Pro, and Elite+, with the Spyder5Elite+ version receiving a large software update last year. Now Datacolor is making it even easier to get a better calibration for your workflow by offering discounted prices when you upgrade to their Spyder5Elite+ model from any of their previous models or competitors products.
Most lighting modifiers come with diffusion panels that soften and even out the light emitted. Some even come with two panels. These panels can have a strong effect on your light, and it's well worth understanding exactly what to expect when you use them or leave them off. This helpful video gives you a comparison of all three situations.
You may have just started your journey in photography or you have been on the market for quite some time, and you still wonder if your website has more to do with getting more clients than you might think. The answer is yes, but only to some extent. Let me tell you what I thought was important for my website and what I think is important today.
An artist recently won a respected photographic portrait competition with a work that wasn't a portrait at all in the traditional sense, causing a large controversy and outcry. For the most part, however, the work is not being given fair or proper consideration it deserves, and that's a shame, because it stunts the growth of a genre.
Humidity, sunlight, water, and most of all, time, are just some of the culprits in the damage most printed photographs will endure. However these memories of loved ones do not need to be thrown away or thought to be unrepairable. A few layers in the digital world can bring it back for your clients.
In November of last year, Jonny Von Wallström sold his feature-length documentary film "The Pearl of Africa" to Netflix. He had been attempting to chase down the video streaming service for several years. This included hunting down contact information for commissioning editors and attempting to woo Netflix employees at every pass. After a number of disappointing setbacks, he finally landed an offer. In a fascinating vlog entry on his YouTube channel Creative North, he discusses his journey to landing a global distribution deal with the streaming monolith.
Mike Olbinski, an award-winning photographer, did it again. Here is his latest production, a stunning time-lapse showing some of the most powerful thunderstorms, supercell structures, and tornadoes of the American Midwest. Olbinski specializes on storm chasing but this season was particularly tough for him. Mother Nature has not been cooperative this year despite his extensive weather forecast knowledge. The storm chaser had to drive 27,000 miles across 10 states during a month to capture the 90,000 frames necessary to finish the project. Hence, he called this video “Pursuit.”
Just recently, I was able to test out the Venus Optics 105mm f/2 STF lens. After having it and using it here and there for a few months, I came to the conclusion that it would not be a bad addition to my photo bag. There were a lot of things I enjoyed about this lens considering I've never really had a prime telephoto lens before.
Almost all photographers nowadays are familiar with modern equipment and use it to create, show, and improve their work. Some is necessary like new cameras, lenses, computers, and some is complementary. It all depends on your work style and the photos you want to create. But let's ask a question here. How much of this technology and knowledge do you need for being a better photographer in your genre?
Blackmagic's DaVinci Resolve is widely known for its color grading tools. It’s what many would call an industry standard thanks to its powerful features. With the Beta 4 of Resolve 14 that was released a little while ago, the software saw its editing and audio capabilities improving quite a bit as well. However, many forget or don't know about them and stick to working with Premiere or Final Cut Pro. Discover in this video how Resolve editing and audio features work. Perhaps you’ll see they are exactly what you needed.
In this video, Photographer Andrea Belluso uses strip softboxes to create dramatic portraits of his friend and pilot along with a gliding airplane. Strip softboxes create soft light with a long highlight on the aircraft body.
I've been waiting for the day that a tablet could capably replace a dedicated laptop for photography work since I bought the original iPad in 2010. That day seems to be closer than ever with the latest round of iPad Pros. Check out this review of their ability to provide a dedicated workflow for photographers.
Over the last several weeks, my social media feeds have been flooded with a torrent of lavender images, each seemingly more beautiful than the last. Late June is generally the high season for the lavender bloom in the famous Provence region of southern France. It's a time of year when photographers, tourists, and bees come together in perfect harmony to dance among the purple fields from dawn to dusk. Photographer Jimmy McIntyre was part of the crowds last month and made an informative and entertaining video on his ten-day trip photographing the bloom.
Back in 2008 the Canon 5D Mark II was a photographer’s dream. The camera revolutionized the industry and opened new creative horizons for many professionals. The low light performance, dynamic range, and image quality were unheard of. This technological wonder was a huge hit in the photography world and beyond, especially in the indie filmmaker community. Later in 2012 came the 5D Mark III, with a solid body but somehow conservative specifications. Since then, it seems that Canon has decided to freeze progress, and lately, take a few steps backward.
If you've got some old family photos lying around that you've scanned and cataloged in Lightroom, you might be interested in colorizing them. Here's how to do that without ever even touching Photoshop.
With every new lens release we get bombarded with wild claims of “sharpest lens ever” and “bokeh so soft you’ll want to lie down in it.” A barrage of MTF charts and comparisons flood the web and debates rage in forums about which lens is better than which. Opinions fly and the knowledgeable and no so knowledgeable lock horns. But what if there were something other than sharpness that we could be looking at to discover a lens’ optical quality. Just what does a high element count with a few ED elements do to the resulting images?
You've probably seen some pretty comical behind-the-scenes images of the kinds of positions photographers put themselves in just to get a shot. They climb trees, hang off cliffs, stand in the middle of rivers, lay down in the dirt, all just to frame up that perfect shot. Well there's almost always a reason behind the madness and sometimes those reasons end up having a much bigger impact than most people might expect. Sometimes it's about getting a really intriguing angle on a particular subject, but I find myself laying in the dirt quite a lot just so I can create a composition that carries more depth. Let's compare a couple different shots that can help make some sense of this.
“Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” What an inspiring, hopeful idea. Unfortunately, it’s not always true. According to this article on USA Today, only about 20 percent of businesses last past their first year, and even less survive past the five-year mark. So, what happens when someone falls in love with photography and thinks to themselves, I should start a business? The answer is: a lot of stuff that is not related to photography and, sometimes, the death of a passion.
In this article, we'll go through the best sources of inspiration to plan a successful photography drone trip to a place you have never been to before. This is not an easy task, as unlike landscape photography, not everything has been photographed from a drone point of view, so just searching the usual photo sites doesn't always give you good results. It's also difficult because not every scene that works from eye level will work from a drone's perspective. It is vital to plan as much as possible to avoid disappointment and maximize the chances of coming home with some nice pictures. We'll also look at the results of the trip's expectations versus reality.
How could you make photo editing more intuitive? Both working professional photographers and beginners would really benefit from a more intuitive, time-saving way of interacting with Adobe Lightroom. Dragging sliders and rating images can be, well, a drag sometimes. I’m actually surprised it took this long for a creative company to dream up a dedicated photo editing console for Adobe Lightroom. But the day has finally arrived. Loupedeck promises to change the way you work with Lightroom and shorten the amount of time you spend sitting at your computer. Loupedeck is here and we’re reviewing it.
Papermakers G . F Smith, with help from the design agency, Made Thought, conducted a survey seeking the "World's Favorite Color" receiving 30,000 submissions from around the globe via online poll since it was launched in January 2017. The winner was chosen by popular consensus was a shade of green submitted by fine arts graduate Annie Marrs and UNESCO working inspired by the blue, grey, and green tones she saw in the River Tay in Scotland.
Just over a year ago today, I took the leap and made my first MagMod purchase. That first endeavor included: The Basic Kit, a set of Creative Gels, a set of Artistic Gels, an extra MagGrid, an extra MagGrip, a MagBounce, and a MagSphere. Over the last year I’ve added (and replaced) a few more items into my MagMod kit that is now to a point I’m now extremely happy with. After that initial purchase though, there was still one missing piece that kept lurking in the back of my mind. It wasn't actually a MagMod item so much as it was something I saw in a video on the MagMod page featuring TwoMann Studios.
LED lights are all the rage these days. Though they're already used quite a bit in the video industry, they're starting to make their way into the stills side of things, with folks like Peter Hurley embracing them. This great video examines the process of shooting portraits with LED panels, as well as the pros and cons of using them over strobes.
Some of the greatest films ever made took advantage of deep focus and Hyperfocal distance to tell a story on screen. Here's how you too can master the concept and add a valuable technique to your video and photography repertoire.
If you've ever been out and about and taken a photo of a tall building with a wide angle lens, you've probably noticed a weird phenomenon in which buildings appear to be falling away from you or into the center of the frame. This helpful video will show you how to correct perspective distortion using only Lightroom.
If you're interested in trying out astrophotography, it's a fun, but very different genre to get into. This helpful video will give you some quick tips to ensure you get it right and get those entrancing shots of the stars.
The Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Mini (SAM) is Sky-Watcher’s newest time-lapse and astrophotography tracking platform. It’s their attempt at a compact lightweight mobile setup that's both beginner friendly and easily packed into your camera bag.
The box-set revolution of the last fifteen years has pressed huge demands of screenwriters to flesh out narratives into 10-20 hours of television. Over the last few years, there has been a go-to technique that has helped writers add meat to the bones of complex narratives, whilst filling up the content needed to air modern TV shows. We’re talking about the flashback.
Large-scale film productions take an incredible amount of work by a veritable plethora of talented people fulfilling numerous roles to pull off. It's easy to overlook just how much goes on behind the scenes as the credits roll past, but this great video explains who does what and just how much goes into making a successful film.
With the rising prices of additional baggage when flying. Traveling with all the gear photographers need for the average location shoot is getting out of hand. There are lots of articles and tricks for saving some money but most of us have stripped down our travel kits to the essentials. This of course means for bigger jobs renting extra gear once on location. Manufactures seem to get this and there has been a boom in options, from battery powered strobes to wireless flashes and all sorts in between. Back from his online blogging hiatus, Zack Arias shares how he has solved this issue with an all in one ready to go lighting bag.
After losing almost my entire photo kit due to blatant stupidity on my part (yay insurance), I was put in the unenviable position of rebuilding a camera system from scratch. Being a portrait photographer, I immediately gravitated towards full-frame bodies. I was close to pulling the trigger on one when it hit me: Why not try a crop sensor? I'm glad I did.
Regardless of whether your idea of a "small-town" is one with 100 people or 20,000, the potential hurdles small-town photographers must get over can stack up quickly if you only focus on the negatives. Perhaps your goal in photography is to simply maintain a hobby. Maybe you aspire to maintain a high-profile business instead. Either way, I’m here to tell you that it’s possible to achieve your goals regardless of where you currently reside.
We all have an idea of how a non-linear editor works. You drag the files into the timeline, and move them around to create the interesting video you are intending to produce. But, if you're like me, setting up the project and to make sure no files go missing or aren't imported correctly can be a problem, especially if no one ever showed you how to do this. So I've put together a short way I do it, and then I've included a video to show how you can do it for a short film and how to sync audio. It's a video production starting kit.
