10 Ways to Do Good With Your Camera
Photographers have a special skill that allows them to capture the world in ways others can't, and your images can make a big difference in a lot of ways. Here are 10 ways to do good with your camera.
Photographers have a special skill that allows them to capture the world in ways others can't, and your images can make a big difference in a lot of ways. Here are 10 ways to do good with your camera.
The vast majority of the time, we talk about the dangers of over-editing your images. However, just as much as you can over-edit an image, you can stray too far in the other direction and under-edit them as well. This excellent video discusses five signs that you may be under-editing your landscape photos.
One photography technique I've always been interested in learning is how to photograph ink in water. The resulting images are beautiful on their own, but having a library of ink clouds and paint explosions for use in composite work is also super valuable. In this video tutorial, I'll show you some of the best tips and tricks I've learned capturing ink in my own studio.
At the end of a hard days shooting, it is easy to make mistakes, which is why I have this four part check list that I follow obsessively to make sure that I have everything I need before calling a wrap on the day.
Lightroom offers a ton of useful features, but some are pretty well hidden. Want to see some of the best editing tools you might not be using?
Macro photography is one of those genre staples I'd like to see all photographers try at some junctures. Here are five quick and useful tips if you're looking to dip a toe in those close up water droplets.
Photographers often love to throw money at problems. We think if we are not getting the photos we want, that new lens or body will do the trick. And sure, new gear is fun, but rarely does it solve the problem. Rather than spending money, try out this technique to improve your photos.
As a commercial photographer who shoots predominantly for print, I need a very well-calibrated monitor and camera profile, but does anyone else need this?
Whether you’re a photographer who carries a heavy camera kit or an image editor that spends all day hunched over a laptop, these seven gentle exercises can help alleviate pain and keep you feeling fresher for longer.
Go behind the scenes on a promo shoot for the Canon 5D Mark IV.
For the normal person, blue skies make for a lovely day, but for the landscape photographer, they can be pretty drab and boring. That does not mean you can't take great shots, though; it just means you need to try for different images than you would otherwise. This great video discusses how you can turn monotonous blue skies into fantastic images.
Long exposure photography is a highly popular technique, one that is a ton of fun and an excellent way to create stunning images. If you want to improve your long exposure work, this fantastic video will give you lots of great tips for better images.
Many parallels can be drawn between being in the military and being a photographer. Both have their high pressured moments and require extreme concentration at times. Here's one technique that the Navy SEALs have adopted that photographers should too.
Photoshop is a tremendously complex program with all sorts of hidden features and techniques. This excellent video features five tips for enhancing images using some techniques you might not have seen before.
In this great video, Brandon Woelfel takes us through photographing with natural light at golden hour and dusk. Explaining his ISO, shutter speed and aperture options at every stage makes it nice and easy to grasp the secrets he's sharing.
Last year, Unmesh Dinda of PiXimperfect produced an excellent tutorial on how to remove harsh shadows from an image using Photoshop. In this new video, he reveals a much faster way to achieve equally good results.
When the dynamic range of a scenery is very large, it might be necessary to use some kind of trick in order to keep it inside the histogram. At least, if you want to prevent pure white or black in the picture. Some use filters, others use bracketing. But why not use both?
Contemporary landscape photography is dominated by the same 20-50 locations. We have all seen specific locations being reproduced and reinterpreted repeatedly, and only a few stand out from the crowd. The key to making unique landscape photos is very simple: find something new to photograph.
When you think of landscape photography, you likely think of vividly colorful images. However, there is an entirely different world of black and white landscapes that can be just as entrancing in their own way, and this great video will show you how you can create them using Lightroom.
In a world of hundreds of film cameras to choose from, there is a continuum of value for cameras. In this article I list out cameras ranging from most overrated to most underrated.
A lot of us struggle to find great landscape photography locations, and it can be frustrating trying to find opportunities, particularly during this time, when travel is very limited. If that is something you struggle with, this great video will show you how you can find better locations for shoots.
It happens to all of us: you take some fantastic photographs, get home, and realize a camera setting was insane. Use these five checks every time you start a shoot, and you'll avoid making those mistakes.
With many of us unable to work or even practice right now, it can be both difficult and frustrating trying to keep our skills sharp and the creative juices flowing. Would you practice lighting within a virtual studio? This fantastic video shows you how you can learn about lighting and create setups you can use in the future without ever touching a light.
One of the greatest tools you have at your disposal for creating mood within a portrait is controlling the contrast through your lighting setups. This excellent video will show you how you can use lighting to control the contrast in portraits and create more dynamic photos.
No, you can't have the raw files. Go away.
Do you ever think that some approaches to creating landscape photographs go too far? At what point do we stop and say it's too much?
Food photography is something you can practice at home right now, and maybe this video will be the inspiration you need to get started.
I think it is always wise to shoot in raw. The raw file format will store the maximum amount of image information. This can even be optimized when shooting with exposure to the right to make full use of the dynamic range of the camera. Although intended for JPEG photographers, a flat picture profile can have a benefit or raw shooters also.
Most of the time, we think of Lightroom as a place for cataloging and global edits, but it also has some great local adjustment capabilities that can really put the finishing touches on an image. This excellent video will show you how to take advantage of those local adjustment features to improve your landscape images.
If you are currently stuck at home and looking for something to shoot, natural light portraits are a fantastic option, especially if you do not have any strobes or monolights in your house with you. This excellent video will show you how you can use items around your house and natural lighting techniques to take stunning portraits.
Adobe Premiere Pro is a tremendously complicated program with a wide range of features, effects, and capabilities, and it can be a bit overwhelming when you are new to it and learning how to edit video. If you are struggling a bit, this excellent video will show you an eight-step process for editing a video from start to finish in Premiere Pro.
As a photographer with a decent following on both YouTube and Instagram, you start to see certain patterns in the comments and direct messages. One question I see repeatedly is about camera settings. “What is the EXIF data of X or Y photo?”. I always wonder why people want that information.
Recreating classic portraits can be both a fun creative exercise and a great way to sharpen your technical skills. This awesome video will take you behind the scenes of recreating a classic Audrey Hepburn portrait and adding a modern twist.
A wide angle lens is one of the most common pieces of gear in any landscape photographer's bag, but such focal lengths come with their own unique challenges. If you struggle with creating effective images with your wide angle lens, this excellent video will give you 10 helpful tips for working with it.
With most of us stuck at home at the moment, it can be a bit frustrating trying to exercise your creativity and keep your skills sharp. If you are looking for something to do with your camera during this downtime, this fantastic video will give you 10 great ideas for fun photos you can set up and try at home.
With Photoshop, there’s not much need to carry around a book of physical filters anymore, but there are still two that you have to make sure you have. Want to know why?
Before you finalize your images for posting or print, here are five general quality control steps in Adobe Lightroom that you should not miss.
I recently shot a new portfolio and every photographer I have shown it to thinks it is rubbish. But every art director, buyer, agent, and creative director loves it. Let's look into why this is.
Focus stacking is an excellent technique for creating ultra-sharp images with deep depth of field. This great video tutorial will show you how use focus stacking in your own landscape images.
There are many ways to utilize this isolation period well, but if you want to get more eyes on your photography, this could be one of the most effective.
Color is one of the most powerful triggers in life, and in photography, it is no different. We are irresistibly drawn to warm colors, sunrises and sunsets, the golden haze of dawn in a fall woodland, or the luster of summer strawberries.
When you hear about selective color, you probably think of aesthetically questionable decisions involving a partially black and white image, but that is not what we are talking about in this case. The selective color adjustment layer is one of the most powerful to ways to make highly precise adjustments to color in Photoshop, and this excellent video tutorial will show you what you can accomplish with it.
Shooting and editing sunsets and sunrises can be tricky with such a wide dynamic range. In this video, there are six tips on how to achieve those dramatic, attention grabbing shots.
Watch any successful photographer work, and you will notice that they are either an extrovert or very good at playing the part of one. The simple truth is that many of us are introverts, however, and it can be very difficult for us to work with people. This great video will give you some helpful tips for being a photographer as an introvert.
Lighting and shooting a good portrait is only half the work; after you have taken the winning shot, you still have to edit the image, which is where the other half of the magic happens. This excellent video tutorial will give you a comprehensive lesson on retouching a portrait using Photoshop.
Hard times ahead? It's likely and while no one knows for sure, it's inevitable that the current quarantines will affect everyone's business in the coming months. How will you change your marketing methods? Here's something that worked for me and I want to share it with you.
For those of you with a neglected DSLR camera gathering dust on the shelf this is the perfect time to learn some new techniques, like a few basics of still-life photography. Whether you have a dusty DSLR or just a smartphone, this video has some great tips to help beat the self-isolation blues.
These are tough times, and they're likely to get tougher. The virus has been spreading quickly, affecting countries around the world and causing the cancellation of many events. This article isn’t intended to be doom and gloom or alarmist for the sake of it, but rather to help.
One of the attributes of great software is that it has multiple ways to accomplish a single task. Lightroom Classic is one of those in that it has various ways to import files.
Capturing a great street photograph during the day is hard enough, let alone at night.