Recent Education Articles

BTS: The Intriguing Process of Creating a Conceptual Image

When getting started on a conceptual image, it can be hard to figure out where to even begin. For conceptual photographer Thomas Brown’s new image entitled “Tunnel Vision,” it all began with an idea from his imagination and a rough sketch on notebook paper. Check out this cool behind-the-scenes video showing how his concept was creatively shot and developed into the final image.

Common Street Photography Myths Debunked

Street photography is full of opinions, and you've probably heard advice that can hinder your progress. By the end of this video, you'll know some of the most controversial advice you can get and what to do instead to boost your creativity and take better photos.

Some Helpful Tips for Photographing Fireworks

It's that time of year when the sky is alight with exploding colors, and it's a great time to break out your camera and take it to your local fireworks show. This helpful video will give you lots of tips for getting the best possible shots of fireworks.

Model Testing with the Broncolor Siros Monolight

A couple of weeks ago I had a chance to shoot with the Broncolor Siros Monolights for the first time. Until now, my light of choice has been the Profoto D1. I, like many of you, have seen reviews on Broncolor's new monolight, and like many of you as well, have been a bit skeptical about their delve into competing with Profoto's D1 and B1 Series for the high-end monolight market. The Siros is available in two models, a 400W/s monolight and an 800W/s monolight, and for this shoot I used five Siros 800s. In this article I will give you my complete lighting setup, gear list, a retouching preview, and complete review of my experience with the Siros Monolight and BronControl app.

Five Quick and Helpful Tips to Improve Your Wedding Photography

Weddings are a very difficult genre to be successful in, and it takes a lot of work to become a skilled and consistent photographer. This great video will give five quick and very helpful tips to improve your wedding photography.

How to Replace a Sky Using Photoshop

In many, many genres, you'll often take a shot that's great save for a rather bland sky. When that happens, you can turn to a sky replacement in Photoshop. This great video will show you everything you need to know to make it convincing.

How to Whiten Teeth in Photoshop

By far, one of the most common retouching tasks you will undertake is whitening someone's teeth. Luckily, unlike some other editing requests, whitening teeth is a fairly straightforward and quick process. This excellent video tutorial will show you how to do it in Photoshop.

Five Tips for Better Macro Photography

The world of macro photography can look complicated to a beginner but it’s really not and in these five tips for better macro photography I’ll show you how you can improve your macro photography.

How to Eliminate Audio Noise with Adobe Audition and Premiere Pro

A huge part of shooting video is audio. No one wants to look at footage with poor sound with distracting background noise. But thanks to Steven Oakley from MiesnerMedia, if you are reading this article, poor audio will be a story of the past in your videos. Oakley gives us a handy trick to eliminate almost any background noise using only Adobe Audition and Premiere Pro.

Creating Stunning Fine Art Portraits with Minimal Equipment

Creating fine art portraits in a small space can be challenging, but it’s achievable with the right tools and techniques. Using minimal equipment, such as a single speedlight and a versatile backdrop, you can produce stunning results. Here’s how you can do it.

What It's Like to Go Full-Time on YouTube

For many photographers, videographers, and creatives, the dream career is something along the lines of being paid to fly around the world and create content while maintaining an active and successful Internet presence. This landscape photographer seems to have achieved that, and in this video, he talks about the process, his daily life, and his sources of income.

How to Blend the Night Sky and Foreground in Photoshop

A nighttime landscape shot with the Milky Way over the earth below can be dramatic and eye-catching, but they almost always require two separate exposures for the foreground and the sky to get the best image quality. Once you have your two images, you will need to blend them to create a single final frame, and this great video tutorial will show you how to do it using Photoshop.

Photography Pricing for Beginners

Many visual artists have extreme talent, but no idea how to even charge. What's too much? What's too little? In too many cases, they stop the debate and don't charge for their services altogether. My goal is to start the wheel and get your business in motion. This post and video will give you a starting point.

Setting Up and Shooting Headshots Inside a Studio

A lot more goes into a headshot session than what it looks like on the final output. And it takes the perfect marriage between the photographer and the subject to arrive at the best headshots. In this video, Vanessa Joy shares her thoughts using a behind the scenes video and explains the process.

5 Tips for Capturing Stunning Forest Scenes

Photographing forests isn’t always straightforward. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the dense trees, tangled branches, and layers of textures that can make it difficult to find a clear shot. The forest can seem chaotic, but with a few simple techniques, you can transform a seemingly complex scene into a captivating photograph.

How Even Humble Speedlights Can Create Stunning Photos

Artificial lights and modifiers can quickly add up in cost, but you might be surprised by just how much you can accomplish with only speedlights and basic modifiers. This excellent video tutorial will show you how you can produce professional-level portraits using just speedlights.

Using Speedlights Versus Monolights for Location Portraits

Using artificial lighting for on-location portraits can go a long way to balancing out the exposure of your images and improving the look of your photos. But are speedlights or monolights the right choice? This great video examines the usage of both to help you decide the right one for your work.

Keep Your Eyes and Mind Open: Finding Unexpected Images

It can be easy when you have a certain image in mind to get locked into attempting to get it, causing you to end up missing other great shots because you're either focused on the one in your head or frustrated that you missed it for whatever reason. This great video reminds us that it's important to keep our eyes and minds open when that's the case.

How to Add Depth to a Landscape Photo Through Editing

Rarely is a landscape photo finished when you press the shutter; almost all images require some degree of editing to produce a fully polished result. One of the challenges of editing a landscape image is bringing a sense of depth back to a two-dimensional photo. If that is something you are struggling with that, check out this helpful video tutorial that will show you everything you need to know to do just that.

How to Add a Glowing Sun Effect Using Photoshop

A warm sun glow effect in portraits is a highly popular look that can create a lot of interest in an image if done right. This great tutorial shows you a quick and easy method for adding the effect that produces a nice result.

5 Beginner Tips for Photographing Models

The first time you photograph a model can be extremely daunting. Here are five tips to help you make sure that the first shoot is a success and you and the model get the most out of it.

How to Copy a Movie's Color Grade to Your Photos

If there is one thing big-budget movies know how to do well, it is color grading. If you have a favorite movie in mind when it comes to color grading and you would like to apply that style to your photos, this helpful video tutorial will show you how to take it and apply it to your own photos using Photoshop.

The Versatility of a 5-in-1 Reflector

If there is any basic accessory almost every photographer should own, it's a 5-in-1 reflector. Versatile, portable, and cheap, I have one in my bag at all times. This excellent video will show you the many different uses for a 5-in-1 reflector and how you can employ one to improve your shots.

Fstoppers Releases Elia Locardi's 'Photographing the World 3' Tutorial!

I am excited to announce the release of one of the most epic projects Lee and I have been working on this year. As many of you know, Fstoppers teamed up with Landscape Photographer Elia Locardi back in 2014 to produce two separate tutorials on landscape and cityscape photography. This year we caught back up with Elia and followed him around his favorite country and some of our favorite mega cities for "Photographing the World 3." If you have been anxiously waiting for the next installment of PTW, the wait is finally over!