Recent BTS Articles

[Workflow] Three Pro Shooters Share Their Workflows

Having a professional photographer explain exactly how they made a photo from start to finish is something that will always interest me. Having three photographers do this is obviously even better. In this short interview series we get to peak over the shoulders of photographers Romain Laurent, Raïssa Venables and Mat Baker as they explain their individual workflows. Starting with their capture process and continuing on to their post production techniques.

Behind The Scenes Of Kate Upton's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Cover [NSFW]

Everyone remembers the 2012 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Cover. It brought a lot of discussion for the wrong reasons. If you don't, you should refresh your memory here. This time around, the 2013 cover also features Kate Upton. Although it is much better, it seems that some people are still unhappy with it because she's the cover model again. At least the focus went away from the processing of the image.

Wedding Photography: Behind the Scenes

The thought of a full day of wedding photography, with its many layers, can surely be overwhelming. And with that said check out this behind the scenes, wedding day tour to place your mind at ease.

5 Underrated Items in My Camera Bag

With all the discussion of the best camera on the planet or the most powerful lights, there’s a lot in a professional photographer's bag that goes overlooked. So today, I’m going to take a short look at what’s in my own camera bag.

Explore These Hiddens Gems In Photoshop With This Video From Adobe MAX

Photoshop is such an elaborate program that it takes years to figure it all out. Then when you finally think you know everything, they add more features or you discover features that you never knew were there this whole time. This video by Photoshop Product Manager Bryan O'Neil Hughes explores a variation of methods and techniques.

Why I Quit My Job To Do What I Love, And Why You Should Too

I just quit my full time job of six years as a video producer at a local college. A decent salary, good benefits, and the security that came with it… all gone. I'm now focusing on my dream project called Ascending India (our film trailer is what’s featured) and I might go broke trying to make it. Read on and I’ll tell you why I couldn’t be more excited, and why you might want to consider trying to make your dream project happen too.

7 Quick Tips for a Positive Change in Your Photography

A new year is here and with it comes the opportunity to reflect and make plans for how you will spend the next 12 months. If you're looking for inspiration on how to improve, here are seven quick tips to change your photography for the better.

How To Shoot "Bullet Time" Video With a GoPro and a Ceiling Fan

I've seen a lot of DIY setups over the years, but every now and then one comes along that's so unstable it's scary and yet way too cool not to try. You can tell by the title that this isn't going to be some amazing setup with a hundred cameras arrayed. This is what it sounds like...A GoPro on a ceiling fan whipping around your subject while

The Results of Our Puerto Rico Cave Shootout Are In!

Last week, we continued our exploration of Puerto Rico with our second shootout challenge. This time, we mixed it up a little bit with a guest photographer, and the results were pretty interesting.

BTS: Photographing Jennifer Lawrence for Her Foundation on a Time Crunch

Clay Cook recently photographed Jennifer Lawrence for the Jennifer Lawrence Foundation, which "assists and empowers charitable organizations that fulfill children's vital needs and drive arts awareness and participation." In what's perhaps the most unique twist, Cook has always wanted to professionally photograph Lawrence, who he and his family actually grew up with in another lifetime. But he describes wanting to earn it, and finally did.

How to Shoot Behind the Scenes Videos for Your Business

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.

Inspiring Video on Fighting for Your Passion

Devin Graham creates Youtube videos for a living. Not just any Youtube videos, but breathtaking videos that not only leave you in awe-inspiring wonder, but are obviously made with tediously hard work, amazing creativity and most importantly... passion. Devin takes you behind the scenes in this motivating video about exactly what he does for a living.

Creating Three Different Portrait Photo Lighting Setups in One Second

In this video, Daniel Norton of Adorama takes you into his studio, showing you how to set up for three different lighting scenarios, with the ability to change from one to another at the flip of a switch. This is great for if you have extremely limited time with models or actors and need alternate looks or options between them.

Meet Lytro Cinema: 755-Megapixels, 300 FPS, Refocus and Change Depth of Field in Post

Following the introduction of its Immerge virtual reality system, Lytro, the "light field" camera company whose consumer models we now see discounted nearly everywhere, recently left the consumer space to concentrate on and introduce its new product, Lytro Cinema. Offering a complete solution with an included server to handle the 755 megapixels of data at up to 300 frames per second (not typos), the Lytro Cinema is a new kind of too-good-to-be-true beast. But the most incredible thing about the camera? It's no lie.

Shooting Portraits With the Sony 400mm f/2.8 GM

When Sony announced the 400mm f/2.8 G Master lens, many of my sports and wildlife photographer friends were excited to add this lens to their kit. As a portrait photographer myself, I was curious to see what a lens like this could do when used for shooting fashion, beauty, and portrait work.

Apple Attempts Coming Back to Its Core

Apple's latest ad campaigns give an idea of what it is trying to achieve and who it is trying to talk to. Check out these behind-the-scenes videos that show how Apple shot these iMac Pro ads to help it re-align its focus on the creative.

Platon's Photographs Remind Us of the Importance of Engaging with Your Portrait Subject

Platon has photographed many of the world's most powerful leaders and biggest celebrities and often shoots covers for magazines such as Wired, Esquire, Newsweek, Rolling Stone and New York Times Magazine. Most recently, he captured comedian and TV show personality Stephen Colbert for the cover of Time, which you can see in the video posted above. His style of shooting proves that you can take some of the most legendary portraits of our most powerful people with nothing but a light or two and a real connection between subject and photographer. In fact, I learned that from him directly when he came to teach a couple of classes to some of us lucky photo majors back at Rochester Institute of Technology over 10 years ago. It was those classes that changed my view on portrait photography forever.

Portraits In The Snow: Some Tips On Getting Proper Exposure

Photographer and Author Tony Northrup has put together a video tutorial on how to use your DSLR's histogram and exposure compensation to get proper exposure when working with backgrounds that are too dark or too bright. He also talks about spot metering vs. evaluative metering, and discusses when and why he chooses the different modes. There are a number of good tips in this video, and if you're out taking photos in the snowy North, you might find them helpful.

Videographers Must Help One Another Out To Combat Thieves in the Industry

It seems like every week another story is circulating around the industry about one photographer stealing from another. Often the theft is done to build a portfolio of images they then use to promote themselves with and gain more business. This morning, though, I experienced a first. I learned that another company has stolen a video, put their header logo on it and is sharing this video on their site to promote themselves. Amazingly this was a video we featured here on Fstoppers and even shared how the original creator and owner of the video Simeon Quarrie put the whole thing together.

Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera Captures Breathtaking Video from Space

Keisuke Iwaya is an amateur Japanese astrophysicist. On July 20th, 2014, he sent a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera into the Earth’s stratosphere from Obihiro, Japan for the first time ever. The video captures a time-lapse view of the amazing voyage into the heavens as well as some behind-the-scenes views of the lift off and finding it after its free fall back down. If you've ever day dreamed of flying around the planet like Superman as a kid, this video will rekindle that fantastic flame from your youth! – check it out!

How I Overcame My Fear of Using Strobes

Every photographer, at some point in their career, will have an internal debate to accept or decline a job because they may feel insecure about having the right skill sets or gear to complete the job. Personally, I have found myself accepting certain jobs and a few hours later, I wonder if I made a mistake in accepting the job since I may muck up a huge opportunity. A few days ago, I was offered a job that, at first, I did not think I could execute. Luckily though, I talked myself down the ledge and remembered I was in fact prepared for it.

The Changing Shape of Cinema: The History of Aspect Ratio

John Hess From FilmMakerIQ.com traces the evolution of the screen shape from the silent film days through the widescreen explosion of the 50s, to the aspect ratio of modern digital cameras. If you've ever wondered why and how the formats we use today came to be, this is something you'll want to watch. The topic is too broad to summarize for those that would prefer to not watch his video but, there is one piece that definitely stuck out to me.