Recent Opinion Articles

What Are the Best Things About Being a Photographer?

There are a lot of downsides to being a photographer: a shrinking industry, companies that do not respect copyright, demanding clients, etc. And while it can be therapeutic to vent about all those things, sometimes, it is also a good idea to take a moment to appreciate all the good things about being a photographer. This great video examines five of the best aspects of the job.

10 Things to Consider Before Starting a 365 Project for 2017

January 1 is time for new beginnings, and the Blue Riband event for amateur photographers worldwide is the 365 Project. For the few of you who this doesn’t sound familiar, the name of the game is to try to post a picture a day without fail for a whole year. It has developed the skills and talents of many incredible photographers, but it’s not for everyone. Here are 10 things to consider before you decide to embark on your own 365 project.

5 Reasons Why Photographers Like Sony Cameras

When it comes to choice of camera, we have more options than ever, each with an array of powerful and useful features. Sony offers some of the most capable cameras on the market. This video takes a look at Sony's offerings and discusses five reasons why they are worth shooting with.

girl-portrait-colors-light-flare-soda-pop-ice-glass-creativity

Being creative or simply having the ability to create on demand is one of the biggest assets you can have in this era. The question is "how do we unlock or keep creativity flowing?" The main steps you need to keep in mind are simple.

Miss World Competition Offering Exposure as Payment to Make Up Artists

"Looking for professional makeup artists to work on set for ASOS. This is unpaid, but will create opportunities for exposure and portfolio development" - it took no more than two minutes to locate a commercial casting call for an unpaid makeup artist online. Money will be made from product sales, so why isn’t the team also being financially compensated?

The Power of a 365

The commitment to do anything every day for a whole year is a difficult one. So difficult in fact that the very concept of a New Year's resolution is a joke to most. It's no surprise then that for a photographer to commit to a 365 project takes some serious dedication. Doing so means that you will create and publish something new, every single day. The question is: Is forcing yourself to be newly creative every day really worth it?

Seeing The Light - Shane Hurlbut’s Philosophy On Success

What sets you and your work apart? Having a clear idea of this is critical if you want to develop your work but when was the last time you actually thought about it? Shane Hurlbut is a veteran Director of Photography and today shares his thoughts on his career and success. Whether you work with stills or motion, his approach sets him apart and we can all learn from him.

What Camera Should You Buy In 2022?

There hasn’t been a bad camera released in the last few years. But, still, some cameras are better than others. In this article, we will see what cameras are the best ones to pick up in 2022. Some are cheap, while others are expensive, some are made for fast shooting, and others capture stunning detail in the studio.

The Best Video Combining Stills and Motion We're Going to See All Year

It’s interesting times for those of us shooting photo and video. I enjoy highlighting photographers or videographers who are utilizing elements of both stills and motion work, and are pushing the creative envelope by integrating them so that the end result is more than just the sum of the individual parts. I'm going to go all in and lay my cards down here and say that the video in this post is going to be the most innovative, creative use of combining stills and video together that we’ll see in 2013.

How Makeup Can Improve Your Photography in Ways You Never Thought Of

When I started out in portrait and beauty photography, I tried to have a makeup artist for most of my photo shoots. Why? Because I had always been told it would help my retouching. This is true in most cases. As long as you work with talented makeup artists, you will shorten the time spent in front of your computer. However, this is not the only advantage. Since I learned to do the makeup myself, I have discovered how having makeup done can help your photography reach another level. Noticing these benefits, I do everything to upsell my clients to get makeup done at the studio rather than having them doing it themselves. Here is why.

Concepts of Beauty, Biology and Aesthetics For Beauty, Fashion and Portrait Retouching

When I first attempted to retouch the photographs I took in 2006, I had no idea what I needed to do and how. Today there are thousands of video tutorials on the web on how to retouch, but nobody explains what it is that needs to be retouched to make a female face look more youthful, healthy and beautiful. It took me some time to figure out what the common problems that I needed to remove from my subjects' faces and bodies were, and what I had to alter to make them look more attractive.

Why Many Photographers Don't Work on Projects They'd Love

I will speak from a perspective of a non-American here. I find lots of U.S.-based photographers who are working on projects they hate, and they admit it. I tried to dig into the reasons for that, and here are my conclusions, and my advices.

The End Of The Line For The Family Album?

I grew up as part of the generation of photographers that developed film (or had a lab develop it) and mounted photos in family albums. At the time, I would remember thinking it wasn't a particularly special exercise or the photos themselves weren't particularly amazing. But how many of you remember the feeling - often years later - of finding those same 'mundane' shots and nostalgically revisiting the past? Wasn't that a powerful and often wonderful feeling?

Cosmopolitan Magazine Uses Katy Perry Cover On All 62 Editions

Cosmopolitan Magazine has released its July issues and they all have one thing in common; Katy Perry. She will be gracing the covers of all 62 international editions of the magazine making her the magazine's first ever global cover star. No doubt that this is a landmark achievement for Katy Perry but is it also a clever strategy to further cut costs by the magazine industry?

Why Reducing Your Social Media Use Can Help Make You a Better Photographer

Photographers today are the first generation of image makers who are entering an industry completely dominated by social media. Over the course of the last decade, social media has utterly surpassed virtually all other forms of marketing and has quickly become a dominating factor in lives of a huge part of the population, especially photographers. Social media use, however, suffers from some pretty severe implications that can have a limiting factor on the quality of work a photographer creates.

Treat Yourself This Holiday Season: Things That Make Traveling a More Pleasant Experience

While some photographers stay close to home, others travel quite regularly. I’ve been traveling my entire life for one reason or another. And whether it was for a newspaper job I was essentially commuting to (living four days in Southern California and three days in Northern California every week) or a short trip on a personal photographic exploration, I quickly learned that it’s great to have some creature comforts to keep you company along the ride once whatever glamour of traveling that’s left these days fades away.

Is Leaving Your Pro Gear at Home a Mistake?

A recent trip to Disneyland had me stressing about the photos I’d capture. The experience taught me that leaving my professional cameras at home is possibly the only way I can truly enjoy myself.

App Developers: Stop Making Photo/Video Apps!

The explosion of the app development industry after the colossal growth of smartphone and tablet products in the market started out as a fantastic new tech segment worth watching. It has contributed significantly the rebirth of my beloved Bay Area and Silicon Valley. However, in recent months, this once proud and innovative space has devolved into an overcrowded, hyper competitive and absurdly redundant “look at me” marketplace. This is probably most true for apps based on taking and sharing photos and videos, and I’m getting really sick of it.

Why I Became A Professional Photographer

Having spent a long and exhausting, but fruitful and necessary, weekend going about the chore of reorganizing my overly cluttered garage, I found myself with time to think about a basic question. Why exactly did I become a professional photographer?

How to Increase Your Chances of Winning a Photography Competition

There's a huge variety of photography competitions, from your local camera club, to huge global awards and some big prizes if you win. So, how do you win a photography competition, and is there a special formula you can use to reap the rewards?

Understanding How to Adapt to the Rapidly Changing Industry Environment

If you aren't growing you are dying. Maybe it is pessimistic view or a harsh reality for our industry. If you and your business isn't growing and adapting with the fast pace of an ever changing market and technology, you will become irrelevant. I have read dozens of negative articles online about running a photography business- this isn't one of them.

True to Its Namesake, Omnicharge’s Omni 20 Charges Even Your Power-Hungry Laptop On the Go

Keeping your gadgets charged on the go is essential if you travel a lot and expect to get any work done on the road. Thanks to the millions of battery packs that are out there, charging your phone is easy enough. But what if you need to keep your laptop charged while off the grid for a day’s shoot or while on a long flight without an outlet? Omni 20 is one of the only, and most recent, solutions that will charge anything you throw at it, including that ultra-powerful new MacBook Pro.

How Photographers Become Successful

In a genre composed of so many different disciplines, there are a couple truths that cross all boundaries.

Would You Consider Re-branding Your Instagram Account?

Instragram is a great social media platform for photographers. Being primarily focused on images, the popular platform allows for talented photographers to develop a feed that provides their followers a sense of who they are and what they do. So what happens when who you are stays the same, but what you do changes?

Will Godox Ever Match Profoto?

The two brands are often the center of many photography arguments online. Some claim that their Godox flashes outshine Profoto, while others are happy to die on the “Profoto is better” hill. The two were not direct competitors, as Godox never took the rental house and powerful 2,400-watt pack and head market. However, the release of their latest pack and head system was singled out as the best thing they have ever done for professional photographers. It is fair to say that Godox is trying to break into the professional market. But are they up for the game and should they try? Let’s find out.

Why My Phone Has Become One of My Favorite Cameras

I used to always think that in order to take a good picture you needed a good camera. It never mattered how good these phone cameras were or how good they would get, I would always tell myself a photo from my camera is better. In the past few months, I've learned it's not and that the camera on my phone is the one that is always there when I need it. Though it may not be able to capture the photo exactly how I picture it, I am still able to use it to capture photos that are interesting to me without having to carry around an actual camera.

The G-Speed Studio Desktop Backup/Working Drive Flirts with Perfection

A lot of my work is on the road, which is why I spent a long time looking for the best mobile storage options before eventually landing on the WD My Passport Pro and the LaCie Rugged SSD. But when I'm not on the road, I'm at my desk editing a wide range of video. It's here that I realized I needed not only a reliable backup, but also a powerful and fast working drive to burn through edits. What I found was the G-Speed Studio, and I love it.