5 Good Habits for Photographers Starting Out
Great photographers are not born, they are developed. The habits we form as beginners play a huge role in that development overall.
Great photographers are not born, they are developed. The habits we form as beginners play a huge role in that development overall.
One of the curses of modern photography is that nearly every breathtaking place on Earth has been photographed. And while many, many places continue to offer new angles, conditions, and compositions, some of the most famous have been so well documented that it can be tough (if not impossible) to create something truly original. This video explores the idea of photographing in such locations.
Sometimes you might not have time to take every photo you’re editing into Photoshop but you still need to make significant changes to make an image look great. This tip can make your photos stand out without spending a lot of extra time in your editing suite.
Landscape photography generally requires an above-average amount of post-processing to get to the final results, but the upside of that is that you can take a single image in many different creative directions. One popular style is the painterly look, and this great video tutorial will show you how to create it both Lightroom and Photoshop.
Today, Fstoppers has teamed up with NiSi filters to launch a brand new, free tutorial series with landscape photographer Elia Locardi. Not only are we releasing new video lessons every week, but we are also giving away over $600 worth of free gear with every video. Welcome to our long exposure adventure in Puerto Rico!
Creating compelling compositions in landscape photography can be a bit of challenge that requires a nuanced touch and an eye for subtle geometry. This great video will give you nine tips to create more effective compositions in your landscape imagery.
Landscape photography may not involve photographing animals or people, but that does not mean it does not come with its own set of ethics that creatives should consider each time they head out with their cameras. This fantastic video essay features an experienced landscape photographer sharing some of the most common ethical considerations creatives should be aware of and some examples of how violating them can have detrimental effects on the surrounding environment.
One of the more difficult landscape scenes to photograph are woodland environments. Many landscape photographers find these locations challenging to photograph, myself included. This video has several tips on how to improve your woodland landscape photography.
When it comes to landscape photography, the ultimate goal for many is to capture that next stunning shot, one worthy of being printed and hung on a wall, or shared online to be applauded by thousands, right? But do we truly appreciate the process and adventure that goes into securing these shots?
What urges you to travel, hike, and camp out for landscape photography? How do your emotions affect what you shoot and how the output turns out?
Lightroom is full of powerful tools for all types of photography. None of them are as effective as radial filters to create dramatic results like these.
What inspires you to pick up your camera? For Ivan Agerton, it’s people – and for all the talk about convergence between the worlds of stills and motion, Ivan is doing it. His ‘stills from motion’ portraits are both a visually gorgeous treat with their sublime use of slow motion, and thought provoking in the connection with the subject Ivan has captured. Not just creating eye candy, Agerton is a fascinating character and provides a great example of the life we can all construct for ourselves – if you decide to take the plunge and go for it.
Photographing sand dunes can be a very productive photographic endeavor if you find a stretch of desert remote enough that not every inch of it is covered in footprints. In this article, I show you my favorite place to photograph dunes, and I give tips on how to get the most out of this sandy subject matter.
It used to be that full frame was the largest sensor size most photographers could reasonably afford, with medium format reserved for rental houses and a few rare creatives. However, in recent years, we have seen an explosion of relatively affordable medium format options that open an entirely new system to many photographers. Before you take the plunge, check out this great video that answers some common questions about medium format and illustrates some problems you might encounter.
With modern HDR-blending algorithms making exposure blending so quick and easy, manual exposure blending may seem like an outdated skill for landscape photographers. However, automated software doesn't always produce the cleanest results. In this article, we'll discuss a foolproof workflow for manual exposure blending that will give you total control over your images and ensure results of the highest quality. The good news is that this workflow doesn't require any third-party panels or difficult luminosity masking!
Nine-time Emmy award-winning TV producer and writer John Marshall found himself on Maine's Frye Island with too much time, talent and imagination. The result photo series, which he calls Sunset Selfies, is creative, whimsical and inspiring. I'd be ridiculously surprised if this doesn't spawn a whole slew of creative projects within our community, as enthusiastic shooters start cutting out their own cardboard silhouette to use during magic hour.
While clear blue skies are happy times for many people, for landscape photographers, they can be a source of significant frustration. That swath of monotonous blue can remove a large chunk of visual interest from a scene and make it difficult to create compelling images. Before you pack up your gear and head back to the car, though, check out this great video tutorial that will show you some helpful tips and techniques for dealing with those boring skies and still coming home with effective photos.
The old sentiment that classics are classic for a reason holds in many areas of photography. There are techniques that most — if not all — photographers should know how to do, and this one in particular, will always have applications.
Have you ever struggled to get your image from the foreground to the background in focus? As photographers, especially in the genre of landscapes, the ultimate goal is to achieve sharp focus from the foreground to infinity. Have you struggled with this in the past? You can use hyperfocal distance, double the distance method, and focus stacking techniques to achieve sharp focus from foreground to infinity. While a few of these methods can be challenging, with a little knowledge, they are more accessible than one might think.
Landscape photography is made for manual mode, as you have the time to evaluate exactly how you want to expose the frame, both from a creative and technical standpoint. If you are newer to photography and feeling a bit overwhelmed by interpreting and managing all the parameters and settings that go into it, check out this fantastic video tutorial that will show you everything you need to know about using manual mode for landscape photography.
The beauty of winter is that even landscapes you have photographed dozens of times can become entirely new scenes with fresh, vibrant looks. Winter landscape photography presents its own unique challenges, though, and this excellent video tutorial will give you seven tips to help you get the most out of your photos.
Autumn is just about upon us, and soon, the leaves will gift us with show-stopping vibrant colors that beg to be captured. If you are getting ready to head outdoors with your camera, check out this fantastic video that will give you seven great ideas for fall photos.
We are quickly approaching one of the best and most popular times of the year for landscape photographers in the Northern Hemisphere, when the leaves will turn, making for vibrant, popping scenes all around. The window of best opportunity is small, though, so you will want to make sure you are ready. This great video tutorial discusses seven common mistakes photographers make when shooting fall images and how to fix them or avoid them in the first place.
No matter the genre you shoot, the world we live in often demands content churned out at a breakneck pace, and our attention spans are accordingly attuned to that speed. That can be a mistake that stops us from bringing home our best images. This excellent video essay discusses the importance of slowing down (quite a bit) and why it can bring you better photos.
Our cameras today are extremely powerful with settings and features that help us archive stellar image quality. But sometimes the images we come home with just don't capture the true essence of what was photographed and what our eyes saw. The photo is just a bit overexposed or underexposed and doesn't capture what we felt in that moment we pressed down on the shutter button. We fiddle and tweak in Photoshop with sliders and brushes, but there is another tool to add to the arsenal: masks. Specifically, luminosity masks.
Landscape photography is a genre that requires a lot of time and dedication to even the most subtle nuances to master. This excellent video will give you six lessons a landscape photographer has learned on his journey that can help you on yours.
I've lived on the shores of Lake Erie my entire life and can readily attest that it can a very unkind body of water. Photographer Dave Sandford takes advantage of this by wading into the tumultuous waves to capture and showcase their beauty.
With July coming to an end, summer in the North East is in full swing and what better time to get out and shoot than the present. Whether you are shooting portraits or landscapes, in the daylight or under the stars, sometimes the best way to stay motivated and make sure you are having fun with your photography is to keep things simple. While I don’t go bare-bones with one camera and a lens, if I am out adventuring, chasing a sunset, or on a day trip hiking through the forest, I like to keep my gear minimal. While each piece of equipment has various uses, here is a look into my camera bag and different ways you can use each piece of equipment.
How many bags do you travel with for landscape photography? Two or three depending on the trip duration? How about one carry-on sized backpack for a year of travel?
For landscape photographers, the choice of camera is one that can have a significant impact on their workflow and the images they can create. The recent surge in the popularity of Micro Four Thirds (MFT) camera systems, once thought to be too small a sensor for the genre, now presents an intriguing option for landscape photography enthusiasts.