If you've got a drone, you know that it opens up a near-infinite number of new possibilities, but with those also come a unique set of challenges. This quick and helpful video will show you six tips to get more cinematic looking aerial footage.
Shooting high-quality video has never been easier and cheaper than it is today. Most digital cameras offer at least high definition 1080p quality and considering the applications of video from a business standpoint, it seems foolish not to offer this service as part of your photography business.
If you're a Hitchcock fan, you're no doubt aware of the dolly zoom, also known as the "Vertigo effect." It's dazzlingly disorienting, but it also requires a zoom lens and the physical ability to move the lens in space, things that aren't always simultaneously possible, such as if you're shooting with a drone. Here's how to fake the effect in Premiere Pro.
If you work in Lightroom quite a bit, I'm sure you've encountered a situation in which you wanted to compare two images or keep one open while working on another. Lightroom offers a few ways to do this, but using the Second Window function might be one of the more helpful ways to do it, particularly if you're working with multiple displays.
Ah, the 90s, when if you wanted to jump a bus across a freeway in your movie, you didn't use CGI; you jumped an actual bus. Go behind the scenes of one the most famous stunts in action movie history and learn why we it keeps us on the edge of our seats despite its absurdity.
After working in Adobe Premiere Pro for several years now, I've learned a number of useful keyboard shortcuts. These shortcuts help me with a variety of things, from navigation, trimming, and organization, just to name a few. It was only recently that I found my favorite shortcuts, the powerful Q and W keys. You can perform a variety of useful trims with these two keys.
The traditional workflow to edit a portrait from start to finish usually requires a few different apps. But why complicate things and not just try and rely on one single software to get to the final result?
You may not realize it, but your brain is waging a battle against itself every time you watch a film. Every film is its own universe with its own laws, and how those laws compare to those outside that universe determine how your brain interacts with the film and evaluates it against reality. But if you're making your own work, it might be worth stepping outside the norms.
Successful video editing is a confluence of creative vision, technical skills, and practical problem solving, so it's no wonder that it takes a lot of dedication and practice to become skilled at it. To help you jumpstart that process, here are five skills you need to have to be a successful video editor.
If you struggle with self-confidence before or during a shoot, you know it can have a very real effect on how you perform and the images you take. Try these positive affirmations specifically for photographers and videographers to help you get control of your thoughts.
One of the main reasons why I love photographing dogs outdoors is the challenge of creating beautiful backdrops from the natural surroundings. One of my favorite ways to photograph dogs on location is to use a wide-angle lens to allow the sky to be the dominant background feature.
B-roll is important stuff. It keeps your viewer's experience from becoming stagnant, and it can be used to explain or elaborate on the main footage. It's entirely its own art to shoot, and this helpful tutorial will give you great tips to get more and better b-roll footage for your video work.
You've fired up Premiere Pro. You've watched the entire JJ Abrams repertoire... twice. You're ready. Here's how to add convincing and tasteful lens flares to your videos.
Perhaps no single photo is more symbolic of America’s troubles during the Great Depression than Dorothea Lange’s “Migrant Mother.” Depicting an itinerant farm worker, Florence Owens Thompson, and five of her children apparently in the grips of despair on the side of the road, this single image came to surmise an entire era. Of course, as photographers, we know that a single image can rare
Adding to your arsenal of camera movements is always a good thing to do. If you just bought your first gimbal, this great tutorial will show you 13 essential movements that will add more visual interest to your work.
Cleaning hair in post-production is without a doubt retouchers’ and photographers’ worst nightmare. It takes up a lot of time, energy, and precision, but more importantly, there are so many techniques out there that often we forget about even the most basic ones. In this very comprehensive video, Aaron Nace from Phlearn shows how to retouch hair in the most simple way possible.
Even if it's not your normal genre, shooting still life photos can be a great way to practice lighting, composition, and building images with compelling stories. This helpful video gives seven quick tips for shooting better still life images.
Photography, especially some of the more niche genres, can be an exceedingly hard thing to stay motivated in. Hear from a large format landscape photographer on how he stays motivated in a tough-to-make-it world.
Whether you are a photographer or a videographer, special effects are one way to separate your work from the crowd. Not everyone is willing to put in the time or effort, and many don’t know how to get it done.
It took me several years of editing video before I became comfortable venturing out to use some of Premiere Pro's editing tools. The problem is that you can accomplish almost everything you need with the Selection tool, and some editors are comfortable doing just that. You can perform simple trims, move clips around, and add transitions all using just the Selection tool.
Sometimes the who, what, and how is surpassed by the when. Timing can be everything.
When you're first starting in filmmaking, the veritable plethora of techniques, equipment, skills, and the like you have to have can seem like an impossible bunch to conquer. Being younger is yet another challenge. This video gives some helpful tips and advice to younger up and coming filmmakers.
Some photographers are lucky enough to work large shoots that have directors or production managers who manage the logistics of the shoot, leaving the photographer free to focus on creating images but, often, photographers are running large scale shoots without the benefit of a production manager.
Last year, right around this time, Patrick and I booked a flight to Mexico to film Mike Kelley photographing the most expensive house ever sold in Playa Del Carmen. It certainly had the potential to be an incredible trip. The day before we were set to leave I decided to go out kiteboarding and I ended up breaking my tibia internally at my knee.
A video camera is a machine that has recording capabilities that captures images through an attached lens. Whether it's your phone, DSLR, film, or a digital cinema camera, that's the basic principle. But wait. You watch a behind-the-scenes footage of a movie and you see a gigantic monstrous camera that has lots of cables and gadgets.
Effectively converting a color image to black and white involves much more than a simple “convert to grayscale” type of operation. In this video, Aaron Nace of Phlearn demonstrates how to produce a stunning black and white version of any color image in Lightroom.
It’s not a secret how much I feel the Mac OS is powerful, and most often underused.
Being overcritical of yourself can seriously hold you back in your photographic career. If you listen to those seeds of doubt too much you could end up crippling yourself to a point where you no longer feel able to create work or know what your next move should be. Let's see how three photographers manage to cope with an extreme version of that inner critic while on a photoshoot.
In an industry saturated with educational materials, navigating the minefield to find which resources are valuable, and worthy of your hard earned money, can be rough. As a photographer, I have purchased countless tutorials, books, and magazines. I have poured through blogs, YouTube videos, attended numerous workshops and endured some questionable Facebook Live sessions.
We've recently covered the knots a photographer and videographer must know. The same guy, Mark Vargo, shows us how to correctly wrap cables, rope, and cords on location. It's something I thought I didn't need to know, but the skills will be very useful when your team has one more look to shoot and the wireless trigger's last battery is done and you need to use a syncing cable.
The dramatic looks that can be achieved with strobes can very well be accomplished with natural light if utilized correctly. Understanding how to use the sources and the environment will increase the overall image every time. Using pull backs of each shot is a valuable tool in order to truly appreciate and understand how each image was shot.
If there is one thing I like about budding photographers, it's their fresh way of looking at stuff to photograph. In this analytical process of recognizing perspectives and compositions, beginners often ask important questions that seasoned photographers might find intrinsic. Questions like "How can this photo get more interesting?" or "What makes me keep looking at this picture?"
Blend modes in Photoshop are still confusing lots of us even after years of using the software. This article is about two of them: Luminosity and Color. You may start using them more frequently after you understand their strengths and cases when you should use them.
When you're first starting with artificial lighting, one of the biggest things to learn is how different modifiers affect the face. This helpful video compares numerous modifiers of different types and sizes to help you understand their effects and choose what's right for you.
We have certainly talked about this before, but it seems Gear Acquisition Syndrome is forever waiting in the wings to try to convince us that that new camera will help us make better images. This is a great reminder that skilled photographers with basic gear will do a better job than someone with a nice camera.
Colorizing black and white photos is a nuanced and skilled art entirely by itself, but understanding the basics of it gives you some good practice with editing techniques and another skill to throw in your bag of tricks. This helpful video will show you how to do just that.
Perspective Control lenses for SLR cameras were developed primarily for architecture, interior, and still-life photography applications. PC lenses simulate some of the movements and control that photographers can get from a view camera. They are great for keeping lines parallel and subjects in focus.
Instagram hit the scene in 2010 as a photo-sharing app for iOS. It didn't take long for the app to explode in popularity, gaining one million registered users in just two months and ultimately being acquired by Facebook in April 2012 for $1 billion in cash and stock.
We’ve all had one of those moments where we were in the middle of watching a video and realized that the pacing just didn’t quite feel right. It’s something that once it catches your attention can ruin the rest of the video for ourselves.
Cinematographer Matt Workman of Cinematography Database has prepared another in depth breakdown. This time he brings into focus the current box office queen, "Wonder Woman" featuring Gal Gadot and Chris Pine.
So, in the interest of full disclosure, I should probably say right up front that I don't generally like superhero movies. Like, pretty much ever.
Benjamin Von Wong's work is a tour de force of creativity, technical skill, and the ingenuity and planning ability to pull it all off. Learn more about how he began shooting, the evolution of his methods, and his advice on the creative process and working with others.
It doesn't matter if you shoot weddings, portraits, or work in the commercial world. With the smallest about of kit and a little bit of knowledge you really can dramatically improve the quality of your images. The guys over at Westcott have produced a fascinating video with Chicago-based photographer and educator Bob Davis.
Some model poses seem to pop up everywhere repeating across different mediums and across decades. Many photographers deride these posing cliches, but these cliches can be useful on fashion and other model shoots, especially when working with new models still learning how to move.
When a D1 collegiate athlete becomes a photographer, you should watch out. Zach Ancell is a commercial sports photographer from Portland and has been shooting for almost 10 years now. As any self-respecting creative, he does his own personal projects between the commercials he shoots.
If you're ever adjusting colors in Photoshop, you know getting it just right can be a bit tricky. This great tutorial from a senior creative director at Adobe will help you get it right very time.
One of the greatest powers movies have is their ability to show people the perspective of something they could never experience firsthand. That same power can also be used to perpetuate discrimination by manipulating the viewer's perspective. It's all in the choices.
You can do a lot with photographs in Adobe Premiere Pro: create and customize a time-lapse with the automate to sequence feature, import a layered Photoshop file as a complex layered video sequence, or animate your images in 2D or 3D space. These are just a few of the things you can accomplish.
If you're new to Photoshop, you may have heard of these mythical things called "Smart Objects." This helpful tutorial walks you through a very practical application of them to help you understand their role in image editing.
The dolly zoom is a mesmerizing visual effect that is immediately recognizable in use. And while it's an impressive trick, it can carry with it a lot of information that can convey emotion, important plot points, or imminent danger.