Recent Commercial Articles

How To Build A Business Plan As A Photographer - Part Three

In our first two segments of building a business plan, we’ve talked about defining your product and forming a long term vision. In this final section we will talk about some of the practical steps you need to take to take those hypothetical concepts and put them into action.

[Video] Toshiba Sends A Chair Into Space With A Balloon

I am shocked that I've never seen this amazing commercial before. I actually overlooked it a few times because I thought it was fake. It wasn't until I saw this BTSV that I found out that this really did happen. The camera had to endure temperatures down to 90 degrees below 0 and a massive fall once the balloon finally popped. Luckily the gear survived with the help of a parachute and they were able to create this amazing commercial. Check out the finished commercial in the full post.
FAA Releases Long-Awaited Update for Commercial Drone Operators

Today brings great news for commercial drone operators. The FAA has finalized the Part 107 rules, which bring with them relaxed requirements. Experts estimate the new rules could generate $82 billion and 100,000 jobs for the U.S. economy in the next 10 years.

Mike Kelley's BTS Episode 3: How to Photograph From a Helicopter

The third episode of Mike Kelley's Behind the Scenes series from his architectural tutorial is now live. In this episode, Mike shows you how you can turn an overcast day into a sunny afternoon, how to photograph a resort from a helicopter, and also teaches you an effective way to make a hotel lobby look more inviting. You can also watch as the Fstoppers crew goes night diving with massive manta rays off the coast of the Big Island of Hawaii.

[BTS Video] Victorinox Fragrances's 360 Degree Underwater Ad Campaign

Now this is clever. Victorinox makes a few fragrances and wanted to create an interactive video that shows just how fresh their perfume makes you feel. So they sent a crew up to Cauma Lake in Flims/Laax, Switzerland to film a 360 degree video UNDERWATER! To capture 360 video footage they used the new Yellowbird camera which works a lot like the Google streetview car. After watching the behind the scenes video, click the full post to see the final interactive campaign and you yourself can smell like a clean lake from Switzerland.
[Humor] A Trick Any Fashion Photographer Needs To Know

Doesnt matter if you're a pro, semi-pro or a beginner - you can always learn new things. Check out this great trick for all you fashion photographers out there. This might save you some post processing time and more importantly, people wont judge you for retouching the models in your shots. Do you have secret tricks of your own? share it with us below.
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Behind The Scenes Of A Stylized Tennis Portrait

Mike Tittel takes us behind the scenes of his most recent photoshoot at Salt Lake Swimming and Tennis Club. This video is beautifully filmed and edited and I'm sure you will take away some great concepts and lighting ideas.
How To Film A Rock Climber From Every Angle

Videographer Jeff Newton is most well known for his work shooting war zones. When he wasn't being shot at Jeff decided to take up climbing as a hobby and through that heard of free climber Alex Honnold. After meeting Alex, Jeff was hired to film one of his giant free climbs. In the quick video below Jeff takes us through his setup for his segment for 60 Minutes in which he filmed Honnold climbing without any sort of safety gear on a massive rock face. The setup alone took 2 days and a huge crew of people to pull off.
Being a Pro Photographer and a YouTuber

I had been a photographer long before I wrote for Fstoppers. After a few years writing here I decided to give YouTube a crack. What was very interesting was the response from photographers and agents to seeing me on the platform.

Scott Wright Shoots Composite for McCann

Go behind the scenes with beauty photographer Scott Wright as he creates a print ad for McCann. There is no talking unfortunately but you can see that the lighting is fairly straight forward and I'm sure lots of work goes into the retouching afterwards. Check out the final image as Scott combines all the elements which make a typical ad you may find in a women's magazine.
Breakfast Interrupted: Smashing Food In Super Slow Mo

Bruton Stroube Studios sets up a beautiful breakfast only to throw it into the air and film it in super slow motion. It's obvious that a lot of planning went into such a simple concept but it was worth all of the effort. Check out the full post to see the finished video.
BTSV of Air Canada's 75th Anniversary Commercial

Director and designer Karmin Zariffa was hired by SpaFax and AirCanada to turn out their promo videos in celebration of AirCanada's 75th anniversary. The spots showcase air hostess uniforms and airplanes used over the years. Karmin used a lot of in camera effects and object building to pull these off and we are thankful to be able to see how he and his team did. Enjoy this BTSV. You can see the final videos in the full post.

Pixels.com Lets Photographers Set Their Own Prices for Digital Image Licenses

Yes, you did read the title correctly, Pixels.com has launched a new image licensing marketplace, and you're in control. Pixels.com is an online image licensing marketplace that enables artists and photographers to self-manage their images, prices and licenses. Take a look at how Pixels.com is structured, works, and proves to be a major game-changer for our entire industry.

The Hidden Joy of Delayed Gratification as a Photographer

Even as the corresponding shifts from film to digital and from print to online have brought with them an expectation of instant feedback, sometimes you gain more as a photographer from being forced to wait.

How To Photograph/Film A First Descent

Many photographers claim that they will never shoot a wedding because there is too much pressure. If you miss some of the key moments, you will never get another chance. I agree with this to an extent but at least weddings have hundreds of "moments" over the course of a day. If I miss a couple, it's usually not a big deal. A first descent is another story though. In the video below, Lucas Gilman shows us all of the work that goes into capturing just 5-10 seconds. When it comes to something like this, there is absolutely no room for error.
Hang Out With Vincent Laforet And Other Creatives In Europe At FREE Events This Month

This month I'll be traveling to 5 European cities with Vincent Laforet to shoot and edit video for him as part of Project AIR, his new night aerial stills project. We have been working hard to offer something pretty unique – a totally free, direct first hand social event open to anyone who is interested in photography, video or the creative process, where we can share skills, technique and project support for your own projects as a result of what we’ve learnt with AIR. If you live in London, Barcelona, Berlin, Paris or Venice, we are throwing the doors open to you all.

Brian Smith Talks About Making Your Own Photo Breaks

I can't tell you how many photographers I encounter think being successful has to do with being at the right place at the right time. Sure a bit of luck on your side always helps, but if you are looking to quit your day job to become a professional photographer, increase your photography income over last year's earnings, or catapult your career as one of the industry leaders then you need to work hard and work smart. The guys over at Photoshelter sat down with professional photographer Brian Smith to talk about what it takes to push your career to the next level. You simply can't wait for your big break, you need to create them.
Basketball Never Stops: Filming A Nike Commercial With Only One Light

If you were approached by a big client and asked to only shoot with one light, would you freak out or would you make the most of the situation? In Nike's latest basketball commercial Basketball Never Stops, they only used one single hard light to tell the story how the game and fans go on even after the court lights turn off. I think videos like this are a great reminder that sometimes less is more. Sometimes a simple setup can still produce dramatic results (even if you have you substitute a helicopter for a lightstand). Check out the video below and click the full post to see a short Behind The Scenes video on the making of this latest Nike Ad.
Behind The Scenes Video And Virtual Tour With Larry Perez

We here at Fstoppers are all about 'Behind The Scenes'. We are dedicated to finding the best behind the scenes content for your viewing pleasure. Most photographers usually have their videographer buddies film their shoots for videos, but Larry Perez and the people over at Kanga Marketing went a step further. They created two virtual tours of their shoot for the 2013 Pinch a Penny catalog.

Surrealistic Light Painting Video Animation

It's all about light painting today. German collective group, Lichtfaktor took what we normally see in photographic form and made a dreamlike video animation for the brand dENiZEN™. Taking only five nights to film, this crew spent many hours planning and rehearsing the story line and, incredibly, no post production was needed once they were done filming.

EA Sports:  FIFA 2010, Fans, And A Lot Of Paint

Earlier in the week I posted a video featuring commercial photographer Monte Isom photographing comedian Colin Kane. We'll it turns out Monte has been filming great behind the scenes videos of his photoshoots all along. In this video Monte shows you not only how he created the fun ad campaign for the EA Sports FIFA 2010 video game but also how he secured the job in the first place! It's really great to see photographers like Monte having a good time on their shoots and also showing exactly how they took a concept, pitched some images, and ultimately won the bidding war to secure a high end project. If only every photographer would be so open with sharing their success stories we might have more videos like this. Monte gives some exclusive insight on the shoot and the final image on the packaging in the full post.

Monte Isom EA Sports FIFA World Cup 2010 behind the scenes advertising photo shoot from monte isom on Vimeo.

Mirage Boardshorts' Bullet Time Ad

FS reader Luke Avery just sent this video over to us and it's a great one. Check out all the work that goes into creating this 1 minute ad. View the full post to see the finished product. <
[BTS] The Wade Brothers Film "House Of Fly 53"

This is a pretty cool time lapse of the production of the Wade Brothers shoot "House Of Fly 53". It's a pretty interesting concept that incorporates both a 10 minute video and a series of images used for print and web advertising. The incredible part of all of this was that both the video and stills were shot at exactly the same time, which saved production and talent costs.

BTS Of Barbie's 2012 Fashion Collection Photos

Last year we posted a behind the scenes video of the 2011 Barbie fashion shoot and it was a massive hit. This year Mattel has once again teamed up with designer Robert Best and photographer/videographer Paul Jordan to create another amazing collection. The attention to detail in the clothing, set design, and lighting is staggering. Check out the full post for the images.

Behind the scenes with the "Matrix" look

George Chatzakis is an advertising and fashion photographer based out of Greece. For the last Porcelana ad campaign, George used a bunch of small point and shoot cameras to get that "matrix" style effect where multiple camera angles are capturing in the exact same moment in time. It's a really cool, and expensive, trick you have probably seen on MTV or on the big screen. The little bit of talking in this video is in another language but I think there is still a lot to be taken from watching this short video. Hope all our American readers are having a good holiday weekend!

Porcelana - Making Of from Real Creations on Vimeo.

Lakai Blows Up Skateboarders To Sell Shoes

You may remember a post that we did months back of Lakai shooting a video with skateboarder jumping over huge flames... Well I believe this video is actually older but I like it more. This time the shoe company used explosives to ramp up the excitment and I love it! Usually we post the BTS on the front page but the finished product is so cool I'd rather you watch it first; then you can hit the full post to see all of the "mistakes" that actually made it into the finished product.
How To Liven Up an Office Interview Shoot

At some point, we will all end up shooting in a boring conference room. It’s not always easy to get a good shot when the space isn’t made for it. So, these tips from Epic Light Media might just be the trick.

DCP Productions Puts the Geico Money Man into HDR Video

If you watch TV shows through any medium, there's a decent chance you've seen Geico's new Money Motorcycle Man. DCP Productions was kind enough to give a little behind the scenes on how they utilized 3D capture technology to video the money man and give him an HDR look. While the HDR effect has been explored extensively in the arena of stills, using it in video with 3D technology is quite innovative.

A Photoshoot at the Edge of Space

A number of years ago, while still an ambassador for Hasselblad, I received a fateful phone call from a gentleman asking if he could pick my brain about the newly released Hasselblad X1D. I agreed, and we proceeded to talk about cameras, both past and present, along with the photos we had taken with them. It was a jovial conversation, but it wasn't until we were talking about the Hasselblad 500 that he said the line: "That is the camera I used to photograph the Mir Space Station."