BTS

It's truly incredible what they can do with film today, especially with the advancement of visual effects and motion graphics. When I first heard they were remaking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I was incredibly sad; all those years growing up watching the original live action films featuring the puppets crafted by Jim Henson's. It was brilliant and really well done for a movie of its time. Then came the almost 100% CGI filled epic by Michael Bay himself, yet it works and it's fun.

Going from A-list celebrity headshots in Hollywood to swimming with sharks in South Africa in 72 hours, photographer Michael Muller seems to balance his commercial work with his personal work quite well. In this behind-the-scenes video, we get to come along with Muller as he attempts to capture a great white shark breaching the water — while being lit by strobes.

In my last article, Adventures in Large Format: A Beginner's Perspective, I talked about some of the things I noticed upon purchasing and attempting to use my first 4x5 large format camera. As fun as fiddling with some knobs and taking a photo of a stool was, it was time for me to point my camera at some actual people. After lugging the camera upstairs and taking portraits of some of the awesome characters that work at the bar, it was time to see how I did.

Last year, we shared Andreas Varro's popular photo series 'The Condom Challenge' here on Fstoppers. Varro has now pushed the limits, or in this case, the deep depths in his latest project. He was called for a commercial shoot for one of Sweden's most exclusive restaurants. How he came to his final composition is something you need to see to believe!

Flying a drone indoors is always a challenge. You have to remain absolutely calm and collected, and generally, I highly recommend not flying a drone indoors, especially if you're new to them in general. That's also the warning that Filmmakers Guillaume Juin and Joris Favraud give anyone wanting to recreate this feat. They are a pair of rather brazen drone operators if I've ever seen any, coming together to form their company BigFly. Normally, the risk of flying a drone inside of a structure is already high, but usually, the highest risk is to the safety of your equipment, as the ease with which your drone could come into contact with any number of disastrous endings is increased exponentially.

Light painting is a rite of passage in photography these days, like landscapes, macro, or starting a shoot with your lens cap on. In fact, it has become such a trend in the photography world that it has already become jaded and stale to a large extent. That's not to say there aren't still fantastic light painted images, but rather that it has become so easy to do that there's an abundance of very similar results. A natural consequence of this is people trying to forge a derivation that's fresh and unique, which is exactly what FilmSpektakel has done.

I remember seeing this video when it first came out and it stuck with me. Then, while planning a shoot with some lion cubs this coming weekend (you may launch jealousy fuelled insults my way for that), I looked it up again. When photographer Chris McLennan attached a DSLR to a remote control 4x4 car and then drove it across the plains of Botswanna in to prides of lions, it yielded — rather expectedly — unique and beautiful results.

There are few shoots where everyone involved gets to have a great time, but this is one of them. Sony Electronics teamed up with Tony Hawk and Aaron "Jaws" Homoki to conduct a photo shoot of skateboarding in zero gravity. I had to take a moment when I first read the video's description to quash my simmering jealousy at how unthinkably enjoyable some people's lives are. The official press release doesn't hold back on inciting jealousy of both the content of the shoot and the tools at hand (for both Sony shooters and camera nerds with less allegiance).

As long as I can remember, I've adored summer and heat, and when the season comes, my head starts exploding with ideas that I can realize outdoors without the limitations the cold weather brings. The usual scenario is generating an idea and seeking locations to make it real, but my most outstanding shots were done when I got inspired by the location. I have already described how that inspiration happens in my previous post on my "unLimited" shoot. It was the same was with "Summertime." When my sister moved to her new apartment, I started looking around, and the moment I looked down from her balcony, located on the 5th floor, I knew something would happen there.

Alexis Cuarezma is a San Francisco – based sports photographer, who specializes in both on-location and in-studio portraiture. In this video Alexis walks us through his photo shoot with IFBB Bikini Pro, Ashley Pfaff, providing a great sense of the process. He begins with the mood board and guides us to the final result, explaining his lighting choices and techniques.