Michael Belcher is a young New York-based cinematographer who is creating beautiful and compelling work, with a rich and varied visual vocabulary. Come behind the scenes on his latest shoot with this Fstoppers exclusive, and find out what we can all learn from his philosophy, experience and insight.
You would have to be from Mars not to know who Peter Hurley is at this point. He was one of the first photographers to let Fstoppers into his studio, and together we produced the wildly popular The Art Behind The Headshot tutorial where he shares all of his secrets. Today Peter is publicly sharing perhaps his most important tip for making people look good in front of your camera, and it is appropriately named "squinching."
Cheryl Dunn’s visceral documentary of New York street photographers “Everybody Street” is now available for rental or purchase online via Vimeo. The 90-minute film debuted in April at Toronto’s HotDocs International Documentary Film Festival, traveled to several international festivals and continues to be screened. Featured photographers include Boogie, Bruce Davidson, Bruce Gilden, Elliott Erwitt, Jamel Shabazz, Jill Freedman, Mary Ellen Mark and Joel Meyerowitz among others.
In this video tutorial, learn how to perform an interesting video shot without expensive rigging or accessories. Stock music website Premuimbeat has an a whole collection of videos on their Vimeo page with information on cinematography, motion graphics, and lighting, all for helping out the budding video shooter or editor.
Phlearn has something ridiculous like 500 free photoshop tutorials to help you polish your images. This tutorial series, so far, has been one of my favorites. Aaron Nace, the founder of Phlearn, shows us a new technique with custom brushes for giving your subjects a unique corporate head shot look. This tutorial is a 4 part video series, enjoy.
There is something magical about having your 2D photos seem like they're actually 3D. It brings them to life in a way none other method can. The depth, the complexity and the subtle movements give your regular 2D photos more meaning and context, and it makes the viewer focus on the image much more than normal. Joe Fellows is a master of the 2.5D (Parallax) Effect and in this short video he shows you everything you need to know to make this effect yourself on your own images.
I’m calling it. This commercial for Volvo Trucks that came out today is the best commercial of 2013. What makes it – or other commercial shoots - so successful? Beautiful, simple ideas, a great concept, seamless execution, a bit of good old nostalgia and a pinch of the unexpected all mix beautifully to give us 70 seconds of pure brilliance. With four eight twelve twenty four thirty million views and counting, let's take a look and see why this ad has been so successful.
Martin Schoeller is one of my all time favorite portrait photographers. In this behind the scenes video we go on a journey with Martin in one of his campaigns for one of my favorite Italian coffees, Lavazza. I'll go so far as to say this is my favorite BTS video of the last six months. Below is another BTS video from Lavazza and a link to more.
For the opening of the new Tate Britain art gallery, Miles Aldridge set out to reimagine the painting 'Merry-Go-Round' by Mark Gertler. The painting was originally created in 1916 while photography was still pretty much in infancy and hardly considered an artistic medium by many. Aldridge's approach was to take elements of the painting and create a series of photographs that hold the true form of the original while still delivering something definitively Miles Aldridge.
With the November 22nd anticipated release of the newest installment of "The Hunger Games" series upon us; Lionsgate has just released a brand new four minute behind the scenes b-roll video that shows a small glimpse of what we can be expecting this Thanksgiving season in theaters. I always find these b-roll videos to be especially interesting and seeing how much effort goes into creating these blockbuster films.
Philadelphia-based photographic artist Isa Leshko turned her camera onto aging farm animals, horses and dogs to create a powerful study of mortality and aging. The body of work, captured with medium format film, is currently exhibited at the Corden Potts gallery in San Francisco and was inspired by the caregiving process she underwent with her parents.
This shoot combines two things that I really love as a photographer: motorsports and incredible shoot locations. This comprehensive behind the scenes video captured by Ron Risman really gives you a great idea of how photographer Gregor Halenda put the campaign together. The resulting images were crisp and clean, showing off the bikes and locale.
In choosing how to style a dish, there are many decisions that you have to make. What color background will you shoot on? What props will you use? What camera angle will you shoot from? These are just a few of the questions that you will have to decide. Let me show you why styling with the final layout in mind is something you should always consider.
Tonight on the National Geographic channel, they are premiering the movie Killing Kennedy, which is a movie based on Bill O'Reilly's New York Times best seller. If you've ever wanted to be transported back in time to be able to witness a moment in history, this is your chance. We have an in-depth behind the scenes view from Joey L. and Andy Baker, the Creative Director at National Geographic.
Be it with a camera or with a gun, a girl who shoots is unquestionably sexy. So what's that make talented commercial fashion photographer Dixie Dixon as she takes on the role of Director of photography for Magpul's 2014 Calendar? Hot, no doubt, but more importantly she adds professionalism and class to a genre that is traditionaly little more than string bikinis and thongs. Dixie's sophistication and style is a refreshing departure from a genre typically shot far too often through the male lens.
It's been a while since we've released an Fstoppers original video, so today we want to take you behind the scenes with Mike Kelley. If you've been following Fstoppers then you know he's been a writer with us for a while and is also one of the most talented architectural photographers in the country. Mike's workflow and style is truly incredible and the amount of hours he spends on creating just one image is - as cheesy as it sounds - a work of art.
Last year Patrick and I were invited out to Dubai to attend Gulf Photo Plus, a photography workshop unlike anything else on the planet. At the time the only thing I knew about GPP was that they did a shootout with 3 big name photographers. I never expected that attending this event would become one of the most memorable experiences of my life.
Amy Lynn is a 24 year old photographer from Nebraska who wanted to do an institutionalized themed shoot for a long time. Right before Halloween, she decided to finally make it happen by heading to local thrift shops in search of the right materials to match her vision. The BTS video captures the whole process and the final results are more than awesome.
Today, tomorrow, and Saturday RGG Photo will be teaching a commercial photography workshop LIVE on creativeLIVE. We will be giving away ROSCO Lite Panels, a 2 day workshop to the Fstoppers Bahamas workshop, a hard drive from OWC, and a lot of other stuff. Tune in and like us on Facebook to win.
An LED light kit for video is something I've always wanted to own. After years of using hot ARRI and Lowel lights, and renting LitePanels when the budget allowed, I discovered a company called Zabolight that was making LED panels and other fixtures at a much cheaper price. I purchased a kit of these, and did some testing to see how they compared to other more expensive brands.
I thought this was a cool retrospective video that DigitalRev put together using clips from their old episodes of Cheap Camera Challenge. This piece essentially shows how some veteran shooters keep composed when faced with on-set challenges. Everything from face-planting onto concrete while trying to take a photo to dealing with deadly snakes just inches away
A few days ago Creative Live posted this video of Benjamin Von Wong explaining the importance of creating meaningful behind the scenes videos and how they can help shape your career. It's no secret that I do post Ben's videos to the site often. His videos are not only educational, but fun to watch, as well. You too can go on to create your own informative and noticeable BTS videos with these tips.
In my filmmaking career, I’ve had the opportunity to film some pretty unique events. While shooting I often come across other event shooters and realize that we’re a unique breed. Essentially, we're people willing to sacrifice food, rest and comfort to tell an amazing story. Even though we accept the stresses that comes with event shooting, there are a number of ways we can plan ahead and minimize headaches.
This is it. By now, You will have been inspired, honed your ideas, found the perfect location and booked your talent. You will have taken that little bit of inspiration and nurtured it into a full fledged shoot. If you are anything like me, you will have tossed out far more ideas than you kept and you will have spent hours upon hours solidifying the few that stuck with you. It is safe to say that the hard part is over.
Here is a look at a 4 day photo shoot my studio PRO Photo did for Bailey's Irish Cream through Brand Content in Boston. This job was especially technical due to the bottle's reflective and concave properties. This called for an extra technical and precise lighting setup. The slightest move in any of the lights drastically changed the light shape on the set and bottle. Take a look.
Hopefully I can stop the negative comments before they start and tell you that yes, this video is a giant Broncolor ad. However, if you can get past that and look at the lighting and resulting images there is definitely stuff to learn. That said, let's dive into the story behind the session. Swiss pop-star Seven wanted to have a piano in unusual location for this newest album images. That unusual place ended up being the “Grimsel Pass” on the Swiss Alps at over 2100m above
The [Framed] Network recently teamed up with photographers Brooke Shaden and Lindsay Adler for a very interesting show - "The Concept". In this show, they give Lindsay and Brooke the same missions, and they together have to decide on the concept and location. Both Lindsay and Brooke are leading names in the industry and both are amazing photographers, so it's very interesting to see how each one of them tackles the concept in a very different way. Both results are epic yet so different.
Most of the multiday workshops are $150 or less on creativeLIVE which is a really great deal as it is but for the next 3 days, everything is on sale. Many of the workshops are as much as 50% off. Head there now to check out this incredible opportunity.
On Saturday we threw another incredible party with Peter Hurley during Photo Plus. As always we had an abundance of pizza and alcohol but more importantly we had an incredible photobooth. In fact, it was probably the most expensive photobooth ever created.
On November 7th, 8th, and 9th Rob Grimm of PRO EDU will be giving away a 2-day pass to the Fstoppers Bahamas Workshop in May of 2014. It's free to enter, just tune in live for your chance to win on CreativeLIVE next week where we will announce the instructions for how to enter. The pass we are giving away is for our liquids, liquor, beer, and splashes workshop that will cover everything we know about shooting liquids.
