Few creative decisions have a bigger impact on the final look of your photos than your choice of lighting. Direct sunlight, backlighting, and lighting crafted from strobes all have their place, and this excellent video comparison will show you the different images you can achieve with each.
If you've been practicing photography professionally for any amount of time or even if you're an advanced amateur, you've been asked by friends, family, or strangers if you could teach them how to use their camera. Often, this results in the conversation devolving into bits and pieces about apertures, exposure triangles, and using manual mode, ending with a deer-in-headlights look from the unsuspecting inquisitor. Well, here's a new tool to help teach them how to use that "nice camera" to "take nice pictures" without breaking the bank. And if you're one of the people needing help to switch off Auto mode, this is the tool for you.
Do you scout out locations before you shoot them or do you just photograph as you happen upon them? This helpful video explores why visiting locations before you shoot them can benefit your landscape work.
We've all seen the incredible first image of a supermassive black hole, but how on earth do you capture something so far away and that, by its very definition, consumes light?!
Confidence is one of those important attributes that are really useful for a photographer. While too much can definitely be a bad thing, not enough can dramatically reduce the opportunities you'll have to make great work.
Drones are near ubiquitous for the capture of aerial imagery, but with their increased prevalence, their use and operation has become contentious. If you are seeking an alternative, then kite aerial photography (KAP) might be for you.
Fine art portraits often evoke a sense of emotion and tell a story through careful composition, lighting, and posing. While achieving this style might seem complex, it can be done with minimal equipment, even in a small home studio. Let's explore how you can create stunning fine art portraits using just a single light, a backdrop, and some basic modifiers.
It's always a polarizing topic even from the time a new camera body is rumored. The 4K specification brings forward the passion of the most vocal in the video community. But for all the back and forth, will it alone actually make your video better?
Needless to say how important social media is to the growth of your business. It is always good to have a clear and focused strategy when it comes to social media management.
The latest generation of Canon mirrorless cameras brings with it a nice array of features for wildlife photography, including fast continuous burst rates and advanced autofocus features. With such advanced systems, it is worth taking the time to customize the camera to your exact needs to ensure you have the best chances of getting those fleeting shots. This excellent video tutorial features an experienced wildlife photographer walking you through how he sets up his Canon camera.
I watch a lot of YouTube photography videos. Whether inspirational, educational, or somewhere in between, the videos that stand out to me all have great B-roll footage. B-roll is supplemental footage used to set mood, drive the story in a certain direction, visually demonstrate a point or concept, cover cuts between clips, and generally make a video more engaging and interesting to the viewer. This video provides excellent tips on how to capture compelling B-roll footage for your next project.
One of my biggest pet peeves is working with wedding videographers that treat their craft like it’s photography. In doing that, a lot of talented people sell their art form, and the art form of their peers, short. So what can you do to focus your videography and cinematography skills and make your wedding videos more refined? Think like a filmmaker.
Opinions are like cameras: everybody’s got one, and it should be upgraded once in a while. If you love giving feedback on photography, great, but make sure you're doing it in a way that’s right for the giver as well as the receiver.
One of the most overlooked aspects during the jump from amateur to professional photographer is the business end of contracts. You may be excited for this new adventure of creating art, but if you are asking for payment for your services, your contract is the last place you want to skimp on the details.
It used to be that Photoshop was the place to go if you wanted to edit portraits, but in recent iterations, Lightroom has implemented some powerful tools that make it easier to edit your images without leaving the application. This great video tutorial will show you how to use those new tools for editing portrait photos.
Improving your keeper rate is desirable, but it also usually plots out your growth as a photographer; the higher your skill, the better your keeper rate. However, there are tips and tricks that are developed for the sole purpose of improving your keeper rate regardless of skill.
Children are notoriously hard to shoot and most photographers generally avoid doing shoots involving them. There are ways to make it easier though!
While dedicated studio lights are much more powerful, speedlights are far more portable and can be a perfectly viable substitute in a lot of situations, especially location work where full monolights would be cumbersome and tedious to use. This great video will show you how you can use simple speedlights and portable modifiers to shoot professional headshots anywhere you go.
Have you ever held back on sharing your photos, pitching an idea, or showcasing your art? How many times have you let Impostor Syndrome hold you back?
Every genre has myths and misunderstandings around it, and landscape photography is no different. Knowing what they are can help you to avoid making common mistakes and to advance more quickly. This helpful video essay discusses seven common landscape photography myths and the truth behind them.
Understanding the impact of equipment, settings, and timing on photography is crucial for both amateur and professional photographers. This fun but informative video discusses five common photography myths and how they might be holding you back.
UK-based filmmaker, and DSLRguide creator, Simon Cade, walks us through the importance of good audio in our videos. Cade also shows us the gear he uses, how he gets his samples, and how he puts it all together in post. But the biggest take away for me was seeing the amount of creativity, and exploration that actually goes into sound creation.
It can be stressful as a photographer to constantly feel pressure to get a winning image, but it is important to remember why we became photographers in the first place. This excellent video discusses why we should remember that photos are not the only part of photography.
Waterfalls are some of the most popular subjects in landscape photography, offering a great way to add a sense of drama and motion to an otherwise still scene. They require some special considerations and techniques to maximize the quality of your images, though. This excellent video tutorial will show you a range of great tips sure to help you take better waterfall photos.
We are all addicted to tutorials; at least, I know I am. I'm also addicted to food, so I need to double up my free time. My goal was to come up with an easy way to watch all the tutorials on my iPad. Sure, you could copy the tutorial files onto your iPad, but if you are like me and have a lot more content than would fit on the iPad and don't want to keep putting on and taking it off, there is a better way!
Composition is a nuanced and subtle thing, and any single landscape scene can give you a wide variety of possible images. If composition is something you struggle with a bit, this excellent video tutorial will give you some helpful advice for how to compose your landscape images.
In this Photoshop breakdown, watch as Dean Samed walks you through his process and layers, to show you how he created this synthetic lifeform art.
Got a minute to spare? Learn how to quickly and easily enhance your subject's hair using Photoshop from this helpful tutorial.
Photoshop continues to evolve, introducing tools designed to simplify your editing workflow and enhance the quality of your images. Here's a look at five of the best.
Landscape photography is largely dictated by the weather you experience out in the field. Many times, we don't get the conditions we hoped for, which can be especially challenging after investing time and money into a photography trip. These are five things you can do the next time you're in unfavorable conditions to walk away with great images regardless of the weather.
