It can be difficult enough to photograph adult models, but using children as models is a new level of challenging. There are a few tips to remember to make your shooting process a bit easier.
Smart Objects in Photoshop are a fantastic tool to avoid working in a destructive fashion when filters, such as Camera Raw, need to be used in the retouching process. In this video, Greg Benz clarifies three common misconceptions to save you useless worries or precious time.
Shooting portraits might become monotonous if you are only capturing what is obvious in front of you. A little imagination and technique can help you spruce things up. How about creating an intentional angelic lens flare?
While most of us here have been through the experience of your first paid photoshoot, there are definitely a lot of users here using the content of this site to further themselves to a professional level.
If you’re new to photography, you may be wondering what’s the big deal with lens hoods. Here’s a quick two-minute breakdown of why exactly you’ll find them attached to lenses everywhere.
During the conceptual stages of a portrait shoot, when deciding which color palette to incorporate, could less possibly be more? This brief video from Adorama TV features small home studio savant Gavin Hoey showcasing for us how to create effective portraits in studio within a limited color range.
The in-between stages of fashion photography can be knowing which ideas for stories serve best as test shoots and which are worth pushing forward as a full editorial. Do the benefits of a cohesive editorial outweigh the efforts required to make it? This article breaks down the steps required from idea to execution.
A few months ago, Fstoppers released “Photographing The World 3” with Elia Locardi. This 18-hour tutorial covers everything you could want to know about landscape and cityscape photography.
The Blend-if feature is easy to miss if you're not looking for it in Photoshop, but it's one of the most useful tools you can have in your post-processing kit. This great video will show you what Blend-if is and how it works as well as some useful examples.
Half of creating a landscape image is in the editing process. This is where you shape the photo to match your personal style and to make whatever statement or evoke whatever feeling you'd like it to. This helpful video will show you how to add depth and drama to a landscape shot using Lightroom.
Landscape photography can be a fickle thing, particularly since you're very much at the mercy of the light and elements. That's when patience becomes an important virtue from which you'll reap the rewards, as this great video talks about.
A lot of us love freelance life simply because it's not the corporate grind. And while that's a great perk, one benefit of the corporate life is a (normally) clear delineation of where work ends and life begins. This great video examines finding that same delineation as a freelance photographer or videographer.
If you're just starting with film photography or are interested in it, processing your own film can seem a bit daunting, but it's really not that hard, especially with black and white film. Furthermore, it can be immensely satisfying. This great video will show you everything you need to get up and running as well as the entire procedure.
One of the most fundamental skills you can have when it comes to artificial lighting is learning to balance the ambient and strobe. This great video goes behind the scenes of a sunset portrait shoot to show how to do just that to get both a properly exposed subject and background.
Minimalism in any art form is a deceptively difficult thing to pull off successfully, as the increased importance of every element shrinks the line between profound and mundane to a razor's edge. Nonetheless, the practice of minimalism — even if only ars gratia artis — can be a sort artistic sieve through which a clarity of your own expression emerges.
Ever wondered how people created those "impossible" photos of them sitting off the ground? Here I teach how to make a levitation photo in just under 10 minutes using some simple tricks in camera and finishing it off with Photoshop.
Have you ever tried to remove an object from a photo, but just couldn't get it to look right, whether it be because of the lighting, color, or actual selection? This tutorial provides a handful of tips for perfectly removing objects in Photoshop.
When I talk to a lot of photographers, they seem to think that business and creativity are at odds with each other. Being a salesperson and an artist just don't go together, right? I think we've just been mislead on what it really means to sell.
Photography in its pure, abstracted state is generally a happy pursuit for those who are passionate about it. In its practical implementation, there are lots of things that can make us grumpy or even disillusioned. This great videos talk about five ways to be a happier photographer.
When someone mentions Rembrandt in connection with photography, you almost certainly think of the lighting of portrait subjects. It turns out, however, that we can take quite a bit about how he treated light and composition and apply it to landscape work as well.
Artificial lighting can be a bit daunting when you're first starting out, with a range of modifiers, setups, and techniques to learn. This great video will introduce you to grids and show you both why and how they're used in artificial lighting scenarios.
I'm a firm believer that there are two types of fatigue, the good tired and the bad tired. The bad tired is when you feel stressed and/or unsatisfied, but the good tired is when you feel accomplished. This great video explores the latter.
The word portrait often comes associated with studio and lights. But let us not forget the fun in shooting with natural light. This quick article is about the importance of understanding the light when you are making natural light portraits.
Quick Masks in Photoshop are used while making selections within your image and can help speed up any local adjustments needed. Here’s a jump start at getting familiar with the tool and its potential.
Portrait photography (or any genre involving people) is difficult because no matter how good your technical skills are, there's a prominent human element, and your success hinges on being proficient at working with your subjects. This great video will examine five common portrait photography mistakes to avoid.
Some nice bokeh balls can be a great way to add a little something extra to a portrait. This quick tutorial will show you how to take almost any nighttime photo and create your own bokeh overlays using Photoshop.
Every genre from landscapes to fine art macro shots of insects of the southern United States has its clichés. And while there's nothing inherently wrong with them, doing something different can help you distinguish yourself. This great video will help you create your best portraits and stand out more.
YouTube's relationship with its creators is notoriously shaky, with seemingly arbitrary decisions and poor communication often having very real effects on the bottom lines of those who use the platform and leaving them upset at the lack of consistency and transparency. In this great interview, Casey Neistat sits down with YouTube's Corporate Business Officer to discuss recent controversies and the future of the platform.
B-roll is supplemental footage that provides alternate angles, tangential storylines, or just filler for a voiceover or to help set the pace of a film and provide you with extra footage in case something isn't working in post. Although it's a standard thing, one filmmaker thinks you should stop shooting b-roll.
We often draw inspiration from several mediums; art, music, and film to name a few. These inspirations are blended together and found within our work. This article digs deeper into what may give our work moody undertones and makes us feel exactly how we feel when looking at it.
Concert photography is probably one of the most appealing genres to shoot for any photographer. When I first picked up a camera, the only thing I wanted to photograph was my favorite bands as they played live. Our good friend and Canon Explorer of Light ambassador David Bergman is launching a pretty unique live workshop called Shoot From the Pit that will not only let you work side by side with David himself but also shoot a variety of artists as they perform live.
There are few universal measures of success in photography, but surely, one of them is having a readily recognized style. Finding yours can be a bit difficult, but this helpful video talks about what it takes to get there.
Getting started in freelance photography can feel like getting on a road you've never taken before and hoping if you drive on it long enough, you'll reach your destination. This great video examines how to deal with the anxiety and expectations you'll experience on your way.
When you're working in Photoshop, it's easy to stare and stare at an image for hours and somehow still miss some little detail; we get tunnel vision, our eyes get tired, etc. This is when check layers can be an incredibly useful way to ensure you don't miss a thing.
Lightroom tips are a lot like puppies: you can never have too many of them. And while I can't offer you a puppy (likely because I'm keeping them for myself), I can offer you this great video that will give you 25 helpful Lightroom tips in just 2 minutes.
Despite the veritable multitude of options offered by the program, most photographers can get through their entire careers only using six or so of Photoshop's blending modes. Nonetheless, there's a lot of hidden power in the lesser used modes, and this great video shows you how to take advantage of two of the quirkiest of all: color dodge and color burn.
Portraiture is all about bringing out the character of your subject. This great video goes behind the scenes of a shoot, showing you how lighting was designed to match the intended portrayal of the subject and the resulting photos.
Portrait photography can be a tricky genre, as it relies very heavily on your ability to interact with and bring the best out of the people in front of your lens, making it just as much psychology as photography. This great video will give you some tips for working with subjects as well as some helpful career advice.
Of all the focal lengths, I personally think wide-angle lenses might take the most getting used to when it comes to creating compelling imagery that takes advantage of their unique properties and avoids their pitfalls. This helpful video will give you some great tips for taking better shots with them.
Some days, the light just doesn't cooperate to give you that beautiful blue sky in the background of an image. But your subject may be so compelling, you know you have to fix that sky to make elevate your image from mundane to impressive. You could always replace the sky in Photoshop, but there may just be an even easier way to do it using the Black and White Filter.
I have always loved shooting in ugly places such as gas stations and abandoned buildings, but it took me a while to learn how to make these places look magical in my images. You can't just put a beautiful woman in front of these places and expect it to work.
Newborn babies tend to have different skin than their older counterparts and thus different retouching requirements. This helpful tutorial will show you everything you need to know about retouching newborn skin quickly and effectively in Photoshop.
You book a commercial job and the client wants a beautiful face to grace their next ad. The client relies on you, the photographer to help with the process of hiring the model. The crew you hire rely on you to select the right candidate for their needs. That's great, right? Get the most radiant face, possibly the one with the highest social media numbers for that extra bump and you're set! Is that how it works?
Baber Afzal is well known for his dramatic looking fine art cityscape and landscape pictures. In this 12-minute long tutorial, he’ll show you how to achieve the same look on your pictures by taking you through one of his edits in Capture One and giving precious tips along the way.
Love it or hate it, drones are becoming more and more commonplace in all areas of photography. See how Canadian-born photographer and director Joey Lawrence uses drones to film war zones and learn what challenges shooting in such a difficult environment can bring.
Workflow can be a make or break situation in how your business is run. Spending all your time with file naming, culling, or unproductive backup techniques can create not only time constraints but also a negative relationship with your images after your shoot. Following some quick and easy workflow tips will get you back on track and more importantly back to shooting.
It happens all the time: I see a post from a friend or in a forum with a desperate plea for help because someone's hard drive failed and they have no backup of their work. It's absolutely crucial that you back up your files properly, and this helpful video will give you an overview of how to do that.
I'm no painter. In fact, if we ever play Pictionary together, do your best to get on the other team. So, when I wanted to make my own custom backdrops, I knew I was way out of my depth. Like many photographers, I've drooled over Sarah Oliphant's hand painted backdrops for years. When I saw Jeremy Cowart draw his own backdrop on an iPad Pro, I thought I may have something within reach. While I continued trying to decide exactly what Oliphant backdrop I want to start with, I thought maybe I could experiment with some digital painting of my own.
It's no secret that we all have to start somewhere. Usually, that place is not very good. At the very least we all start out in the “room for improvement” category. Assuming that progressing with our work and improving our images, style, brand, knowledge, and skill set is the goal, how to we go about getting better at a quicker-than-a-snail pace? The answer is straight forward, but requires deliberate action. Intelligent investment of time and money is the fastest way to get improve quickly.
One of the trickier things about photography is that our various skills and taste may develop at different rates, leaving images with a lot of potential that are held back by one specific issue. If you experienced this when you were still learning, now might be the time to take a look at your catalog and consider reviving old images.
