What does it take to turn your photography business into a full-time job? Three successful photographers share the critical steps they took to make a career out of photography.
Many of us feel the allure of a career as a professional photographer, the sort of mystique that surrounds going into any creative field. On the other hand, that's often tempered by financial and practical concerns. This great video talks about one man's journey from the 9-5 to professional photographer.
We all like to keep our ISO as low as possible to get high-quality shots, but that often means lowering the shutter speed to the point where we're toeing the line of sharp photos. This helpful video will give you a good rule for making sure you can still get sharp images.
You don't always need super complicated setups with many lights to create stunning beauty images. This awesome video will show you a great two-light setup and show you every setting and detail you need to know to make it work for you.
Whether you're a portrait, wedding, or event photographer, you undoubtedly encounter this issue: nobody has perfect teeth. But there is a perfect way to streamline the fix: create a Photoshop action.
Previsualization may be the one thing standing between you and a smooth production resulting in incredible photographs.
Sometimes, it's more fun and interesting to stop shooting every portrait at f/1.4 and instead find locations that complement or juxtapose with your subject to create more compelling photos. This helpful video will give you 10 location ideas that should be accessible for just about everyone.
I bet that I'm not the only photographer to at least think about the idea of diving into wildlife photography while standing in the middle of wilderness. It couldn't be that much different, could it?
We’ve all had the question thrust upon us, but it’s worth it to hear what other people are charging.
If anyone knows how to put together an incredible fantasy ensemble, it's creative portrait artist Laura Sheridan. Want to know where you can source amazing pieces like her for fantasy photo shoots? She's got a list for you.
The quality of your imagery in landscape photography, like every other genre, is highly dependent on the light and how it shapes the scene. This great video talks about how to find and recognize the best light out there.
As photographers, we're often taught to preconceive images, as this ensures that we can effectively realize our creative visions, anticipate issues, and generally take more control over the process of shooting compelling imagery. Still, we shouldn't become so fixated that we overlook other great opportunities.
Regardless whether you are just starting out as a photographer, or you if you have decades of experience under your belt, chances are you hit a point when you wondered where this whole photography thing was headed. Am I right?
VirtualRig Studio is the only software that allows realistic motion blur simulation, and it has many advantages over Photoshop's path blur. In this article, I will walk through the software and explain how to use it.
If you're failing to get hired as a photographer, then maybe your first impression and initial communication could be the things that are letting you down.
Some things in photography take years to master, while others take just a few seconds. Here are three tips that take less than a minute but can have a massive impact on your photo results.
Macro photography is a popular, albeit outlying and smaller genre of the medium. However, it is rich in useful and transferable skills that mean it's an important discipline, valuable to all photographers.
There are numerous ways to convert an image to black and white, each bringing with it its own balance of efficiency and artistic control. This method shows you how to really take the reins using just Lightroom.
This is a rallying cry for photographers balancing on the edge of failure: don’t give up.
No matter the sneaky techniques you use to get around it, sometimes eyeglass reflections are just impossible to avoid when photographing people. It’s always best practice to have the client remove the glasses for a single shot so that you have some bare eyes to work with in Photoshop, but for times when this is just not possible or you simply forget to take that extra step, this video will guide you through some great ways to fix that glare, without a ton of cloning or eye-swapping.
Posing can be one of the trickiest things to really get right in photography, as it has a lot of nuances that all need to be correct to really make an image work. This video will give you some useful tips for improving your posing and creating better photos.
When shopping for lenses, you may notice that certain lenses are classified or even recommended for a certain genre of photography. You might see sports, travel, wedding, or even wildlife as the typical use of some lenses. What if you are looking to get into or already shoot food photography, what lenses should you be looking at?
Gear matters under specific circumstances in photography, and without any doubt, you might need specific lenses for certain effects. But, if you cannot afford fast, high-end glass, and want to achieve that creamy-blurred background, then your Photoshop skills matter.
My studio has become a second home, and I invest a lot of time and money into it. Recently, I have been restocking a few essentials I can’t live without while trying to make my shooting more efficient.
I probably won’t ever be, or pretend to be, an expert at Adobe Photoshop; I spend so little time in it, using Lightroom for 90% of what I do, that I just don’t take the time in the program to figure out all of the little tricks that would be useful. In this great video, you’ll learn a new tip every couple of minutes that could really help out your photography and up your Photoshop game.
Color gels are a lot of fun to work with and when done well can add a certain oomph to your photo. It can also be intimidating and hard to get just right. And when I say just right, even that itself is very subjective. Some people prefer it to be subtle while others want the color to dominate in the image. There are also photographers who only use it for color balancing.
I always wanted to shoot the portraits of a classic Bharatanatyam dancer, but by adding a modern touch to the 2000-year-old traditional dance form. Here is how we created dramatic dancer portraits with a little technique and lots of imagination.
Breathing new life into your studio space shoot after shoot doesn't have to be difficult and it doesn't have to be expensive. With just a few simple DIY tricks, it's actually pretty easy to transform a plain white studio space into a stunning set.
Last week, I had a photographer friend (hobbyist, but very talented) ask me if it was still possible to make a living in photography.
Try searching your own name. Now, what do you see? Most importantly, what do your clients see?
There are numerous ways to do any one specific job in Photoshop, but getting colors to match can be one of the more trickier tasks. In this video by Colin Smith of Photoshop Cafe, we are shown how to use the LAB color mode along with curves to get those colors spot-on.
Choosing the ideal images for your portfolio can often seem as hard or harder than actually taking the photos in the first place. Most photographers tend to treat their portfolio as a dumping ground for as much work as possible with the intention that quantity is the key to building their credibility. More often than not, the opposite is true.
Most of my food photography is lit with only one light source and after a few years of taking a special interest in shooting food and drink, I know exactly where I want the light to be and why.
In an industry that seems to grow exponentially every day, how can existing and new photographers find an outlet for their work - one that is going to pay the bills and fuel their passions? Lifestyle, sports, and adventure photographer Scott Martin may have the answers you've been looking for.
Controlling color is one of the primary skills that allows photographers to develop their own style. Learning to balance the different aspects of color in your image is one of the more important things you can do.
Shooting low key portraits is fun. It does not require any fancy equipment, only the right understanding of light and the execution of the idea in mind. In this video from Adorama TV, Gavin Hoey explains his school of thought on shooting low key portraits in a small studio setup.
While beautiful, classic family portraits will never go out of fashion, sometimes clients desire something that shows the fun, frivolous nature of their relationships with each other, as well as the lifestyles they love. A fun, outrageous portrait that shows the special family dynamic may be just what your clients are looking for.
If you ever feel the weight of the world on top of you, you might want to consider letting loose with your camera. I've found that going outside and having fun with my camera is a fantastic way to combat stress and anxiousness.
When we start out as photographers, it can be a little underwhelming, I mean, we all have this idea of what we're capable of and yet we start out working on small jobs (often) with low budgets. Assisting helps you keep your enthusiasm while rising up through the ranks of experience and gives you access to productions possibly decades away from your current skill set.
One of the most fundamental skills almost any photographer needs to have in Photoshop is the ability to accurately and efficiently select parts of an image. This helpful video will introduce you to Photoshop's various selection tools and explain which to use in different situations.
Achieving soft, directional light outdoors can be difficult. Sure, you can use an overcast day for soft, natural light, but often, this will not give you the most flattering light on your subject's face. In this video, we use my largest light modifier to see how you can turn an overcast day into a professional looking catalog image.
When your shutter is open for five minutes or longer while you take long exposure photos, what do you do during that time? Today I’ll share four things I do that have helped me become a better photographer and much more productive.
Depending on the capabilities of your camera, where you're shooting, and how you want the final image to look, you sometimes should consider underexposing a portrait slightly. This great video examines the benefits of underexposing a portrait and when you should think about trying it.
What does it take to win an internationally respected photography competition? A few weeks ago, the Sony World Photo Awards announced their winners, one of whom was Fstoppers community member Mikkel Beiter, who won two awards: Open Travel and Denmark National Award. We caught up with him to find out about his work and his prize-winning photograph.
Lately, I have been loving an edgier look to light and images I have seen in a few other photographers' works. As I mainly shoot beauty, I don't really get to light like that very often, but I wanted to give it a go myself and try some edgier and harder looking light.
This video shows how to record your voice directly in Adobe Audition and then tweak it to sound like the guy you've heard with that famous movie trailer voice.
Beauty photography can be a lot of fun to shoot, and that is what keeps me eager to keep progressing in my craft. But it does come with its own set of problems!
These days you can find web-based invoicing and business management tools that are quite powerful, yet cost a monthly usage fee. The one I found used to have a $20 monthly fee, but got bought by Fiverr and is now free to use as you wish.
At some point, all creatives fall into ruts where it’s difficult to imagine new concepts. Unfortunately, inspiration doesn't always present itself. Sometimes we have to create it. Below is a list of practices I follow.
In the competitive world, marketing one's work is very crucial to the success of every photographer and professional. And if you are an introvert, it might look like one uphill task, but not when you understand the knacks to build confidence.
