Recent BTS Articles

How to Do Clamshell Lighting

There are lots of lighting techniques to learn, some simple, some complex, and they all offer something a bit different. One of my personal favorites is clamshell lighting and in this video, learn how to do it and when it will work particularly well.

Portrait Photography in Bright Midday Sun

Natural light portraiture is forever popular, but as us photographers know, more light isn't necessarily better. In fact, like half-breed vampires, we shy away from the sun at its brightest during midday.

Using V-Flats for Background and the Perfect Lighting

Are you looking for an easy way to achieve great lighting with minimal gear? Regardless of whether it's because you are starting off and have to stay within a certain budget or you simply do not want to carry and set up a lot of gear, here's an easy way to get perfect lighting.

How to Take Beautiful, Backlit Portraits at Golden Hour

Golden hour is the holiest of times for photographers of many genres, however, it takes some technical understanding if you want to get the most out of it in your portraiture. In this video, Irene Rudnyk takes you behind-the-scenes of her beach portraiture shoot at golden hour to give you some tips.

Is the Nikon Z9 the Best Wildlife Camera Ever?

The last few years have seen a slew of new and impressive cameras. Nikon's newest mirrorless body has been turning heads, so one veteran wildlife photographer takes it into the field to give an honest review.

Canon R3 Versus Nikon Z9: Hands-on First Impressions

Canon and Nikon, after a slow start, have both been consistently releasing excellent mirrorless bodies. Their respective newest cameras are more or less direct rivals, so how do they compare?

Behind the Scenes of Failed Photoshoots: Learning From Mistakes

It is a truism that you learn far more from your failure than you do your successes, and photography is no different. In this video, esteemed portrait photographer, Irene Rudnyk, goes through some of her failed shoots that never quite made the grade.

Behind the Scenes of Bird Photography in the Jungle With Great Tips

Bird photography is tremendously difficult and so is photographing in a jungle. So, it follows that photographing birds in a jungle will require a lot of skill in patience. Watch as two veteran wildlife photographers go through recent shots and offer some tips and mistakes to avoid.

Behind the Scenes Photographing Huge Waves Crashing Into a Lighthouse

The sea has so many different styles of photography that can be conducted with it that if you live near an ocean, it can be a brilliant source of both imagery and practice. In this video, one photographer sets out to capture huge waves crashing into a lighthouse.

2 Landscape Photographers Go Head-to-Head With a 70mm Challenge

One way to test your skills and to improve your creativity at the same time is to set yourself a shooting challenge. In this video, Nigel Danson and James Popsys go head-to-head with the challenge of shooting landscapes with only a 70mm focal length.

Beautiful, Minimalist Photography on a Scottish Island

Scotland has some stunning natural beauty, but the islands surrounding it are often neglected. In this video, one landscape photographer goes to the Isle of Harris and Lewis to conduct some stunning, minimalist photography.

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.

Classic Lighting Setups That Every Photographer Should Know

There are many ways to light a subject, both complex and simplistic, and while you might be always tempted to go for the most complicated setups, knowing the classics is important too. Classic lighting is classic for a reason and you may find yourself using it more often than you expect.

Learn From a Veteran Photographer Working With a Model on Her First Shoot

Working with a new model can be a brilliant way to practice and help someone else with their aspirations, but it's undoubtedly tricky. In this behind-the-scenes video, a veteran photographer works with a model on her first shoot and walks you through some of the difficulties and offers some tips.

3 Rare Gimbal Shots That Can Improve Your Videos

Gimbals are now as much of a consumer item as they are a high-end professional one, which means far more videographers are using them. Although stabilized footage is the goal, you can get extra creative with how you use it, and these three techniques can really help you stand out.

A Full Edit Walkthrough of Light Painting a Porsche

Light painting might be a staple technique most photographers try and learn early on in their time with their first camera, but it has occasional commercial applications. One of the best examples of that is automotive photography. In this video, see an edit of a light-painted Porsche from start to finish.

How to Add Motion to Your Fashion Shoots

Fashion photography has created some of the most iconic portraits ever taken and it's a revered genre of the discipline. However, it's easy to fall into static shots, leaning on familiar poses. In this video, Lindsay Adler walks you through her techniques for adding motion to fashion shoots.

Lighting 101: A Three-Point Lighting Tutorial

If you are looking to step beyond basic, one-light setups, it can be a little daunting at first. In this behind-the-scenes video, learn how effective a simple three-point lighting system can be.

Testing the Google Pixel 6 Pro for Landscape Photography

Mobile phones have been hauling gains in usability for photography and videography year on year. It's comfortably to the point where a cutting-edge smartphone in the right hands can create images — particularly those that do not require a narrow depth of field — that is indistinguishable from interchangeable lens cameras.

How to Find Beautiful Natural Light in Ugly Locations

It's easy to look around at local locations and think that you have no chance of creating beautiful, natural light portraits because of them. However, with the right positioning and knowledge, you will be able to create stunning images with great light.

Behind the Scenes of a Medusa Halloween Photoshoot

Halloween might not be my favorite "holiday", but it does bring with it some fantastic photoshoots. In this video, watch as Lindsay Adler creates some stunning Medusa-themed portraits using LEDs.

How I Got the Shot: Lighting Studio Portrait With Photo Backdrop

We are not always fortunate to have the perfect background that matches the total vision of a shoot. The same goes for having a huge budget to build the set, which leaves a few options. Spend the time with compositions or use a printed backdrop to complete the scene. To save time, at least in my case, I opted to go with a printed backdrop for the shoot since there would be multiple images.

How to Fake a Sunset With Flash Photography Using Gels

You can't control the weather, but you can control what the weather looked like. In this video, go behind the scenes of this shoot with a beautiful Porsche 911 GT3 RS and how one photographer made an overcast day look like an epic sunset.

Traveling 1,000 Miles for a Single Photograph

Scotland is home to some of the most beautiful locations in Europe and too often goes under the radar. In this video, one photographer travels to the far north of the British Isles to see some stunning landscapes.

Creative Lighting Techniques You Can Recreate at Home

The best place to practice photography, if it's possible, is in your own home. However, with few of us having acres of space to roam around in our own property, you need to get good at utilizing the space you do have. In this video, learn creative lighting techniques with speedlights even in smaller spaces.

Behind the Scenes of This Paint Explosion Image

If you want to try something a bit different, how about creating some high-speed flash photography of colorful paints? Here's how Karl Taylor created this enticing shot.

Taking Strangers' Portraits on a Large Format Camera

If you enjoy watching portraits taken then this video will be a rare treat for you. One photographer takes an 8x10 large format camera on a number of portrait shoots of strangers and acquaintances.

Behind the Scenes of Three Bridal Portrait Sessions

If you are photographing weddings, going to start photographing them, or are interested in trying it out, bridal portraits are crucial to your success. In this video, watch behind-the-scenes of three different bridal portrait sessions and see how these excellent images were made.

How to Use Speedlights for Music Photography

Photographing live music is a difficult but rewarding genre and can require a masterful understanding of settings to get the best images. If you can use speedlights, however, you not only gain more control over the results, but it allows for greater creativity too.

How to Use Dry Ice to Make an Epic Product Commercial

Adding special effects to shots can turn a nice but rather plain image into something truly memorable. In this video, what behind-the-scenes as a commercial is made for a brand of flash-frozen coffee using dry ice.

How to Photograph Layers Within a Landscape

One endlessly enjoyable inclusion in any landscape photograph is layers. Not only does it give the difficult-to-convey depth of the real scene, but it's also often pleasing to the eye. In this video, watch how these beautiful layered landscapes of mountains were created.

24mm Versus 200mm Lens Landscape Photography Shootout

Wide-angle lenses are the go-to for most landscape photographers, but longer lenses are often seen as underrated. In this video, two professional landscape photographers take either end of the lens spectrum to see who can produce the best shots in the mountains of Wales.

A Look at One of the Most Insanely Difficult Shots in Movie History

Brian De Palma is well known for movies like "Carrie," "Scarface," and "Mission: Impossible." His 1990 film "The Bonfire of the Vanities" was panned by critics and was also a box office bomb, but within it is one incredibly cool shot that took an unbelievable amount of planning and technique to pull off, and the result was well worth the effort. This awesome video will show you the scene as well as what went into making it.

What Does Photography Mean to You?

A great deal of ink is spilled on these interwebs talking about the latest in photography gear and what you should or should not buy. But photography means more than just technology.

13 Tricks to Master Your Gimbal

Consumer-level gimbals have changed the quality of videography for smaller productions for the better. Now, everyone from indie film enthusiasts to vloggers can have smooth, dynamic footage in their work. However, using a gimbal is more of a skill than it might first seem.

Behind the Scenes of a Beautiful Landscape Shoot in Iceland

Watch as one photographer returns to Stokksnes in Iceland to try to better a shot he had taken of the same place some years prior. Iceland truly is one of the most beautiful countries on the planet and this quiet, relaxing video does a great job of showing some of its allure.

Go Behind the Scenes of My Food Photoshoot

The landscape of all businesses looks different, and store after store keeps closing because of online businesses. The type of business we see consistently is the dining establishment, and their need for content is immense.