This article will probably seem like a giant “duh” to a lot of you out there. Hell, even most avid selfie-shooters have figured this out. This is geared more towards the photographers who lust after huge, expensive light modifiers and overlook the amazing light source that is probably staring them in face. I suggest you start staring back!
During a two-day trip to the magnificent city that is Rome, photographer Milán Rácmolnár came up with the brilliant idea of photographing Rome in infrared. The result is a different and pink perspective on the cityscapes.
It's been going on for decades. Film chemicals that coat the film and react with the various colors coming through the lens weren't made to cope with a diverse set of skin tones.
I haven’t seen much on this topic, but a brief conversation with another photographer recently illuminated to me the fact that photographer anxiety is not at all uncommon. One of the reasons I believe it isn’t discussed a great deal is the general image of today’s top photographers.
If you are in the wedding industry, then I'm sure you have heard of Fearless Photographers. But in case you haven't heard, Fearless Photographers is a wedding directory that specializes in photographers that are not afraid to push their limits. Like most directories, they have awards for the best submitted photos as well as top photographers of the year, but they also do so much more.
You may have purchased your first DSLR camera, you may have already fallen in love with the art of photography, you may be thinking about taking your work to the professional level, but what would my best piece of advice be to an aspiring professional photographer? My advice may surprise you.
Something Thomas Heaton does a lot of us taking incredible and breathtaking landscape photos. Something he doesn't do a lot is show the full creation of a photo from conceptualization to presentation, including post processing.
Full-time photography is a dream many of us have considered fulfilling. What could be better than to get paid for what you want do? A pursuit of passion is often a difficult start, but there’s one critical aspect that I think you should consider immediately: specializing.
In the wide world of video, one of the most important aspects of production is the sound quality. Sound sells the realism behind your favorite movies and TV shows. In fact, a lot of what you hear when you watch the latest blockbuster or HBO hit series isn't "real." It's created by Foley artists in a studio and mixed in later.
Capturing emotion is not an easy task. It requires being in the center of the action and perfect timing to press the shutter. But that is not it. Creating moving images are more demanding than just placement and synchronization.
The first time I saw streaky clouds and silky smooth water, I knew I needed to learn how to do that. However, after buying my first neutral density filter, I realized it wasn't so easy to do. It was really hard to focus, and some photos were too dark, while others were too bright.
One of the best ways to achieve a nice soft light on your subjects is to use a scrim. These scrims can range from large reflectors to giant sheets, but they all perform the same task, and that’s diffusing hard light. The problem with scrims is that while diffusing the light, they also lower the power of that light.
Image sharpness is, for the most part, a false economy. It is mistakenly believed to be synonymous with image quality; that isn't the case. One major difference is that image quality has a ceiling and once reached (if that's even possible), the image cannot be any better in terms of quality.
Video Producer Chase Kubasiak shares how to achieve exciting and impactful video through the use of slow motion scenes. In this humorous B&H tutorial, Kubasiak highlights three key variables to consider when setting up your slow motion shots.
For most beginners, distinguishing hues, or noticing over saturated areas, can be an issue. Even some most advanced retouchers still have problems color correcting their images. Reaching the point where our eyes see colors properly takes time and a lot of practice. Fortunately enough, visual help layers in Photoshop can aid us separate luminosity, hue, and saturation.
If you ever do any sort of composite work, chances are that you'll need to add shadows. They're one of the biggest aspects of making a composite image convincing, and yet, they're also very subtle and tricky to pull off. Phlearn is here with a great tutorial to get you started.
As the northern autumn draws closer, bizarre little creatures pop up all over the temperate forest. On the forest floor, underneath hedgerows and on trees, alive or the ones who have fallen. Fungi are the cleaning crew of the forest as they take care of layers of fallen deadwood and provide nutrients back to the forest. Surely they are great subjects for macro photography.
"The immediate need for results, whether it's real or perceived, is a lot of what's going on today." Inspiration and opportunity hurry for no one. In this great video from B&H, Nicholas Pappagallo outlines what it takes to be a prepared and patient photographer, so when inspiration and opportunity do finally show, you're ready and waiting.
Dodge and burn is a well-known technique amongst the retouching community. Most retouchers will use it to smooth out transitions and micro-contrast on portrait, fashion, or beauty images. However, it can be utilized for any genre of photography and broader uses than just skin cleaning.
I'll never get tired of slow motion. Things are easier to explain, and they just look cooler. Check out this great slow motion video that takes you inside an SLR shutter system.
We have all seen the amazing and dramatic images that have shafts of light streaming through a window. The look seems really easy to reproduce. You buy a fog machine, fill a room with smoke and create amazing images. But like most thing in life, it’s not that simple. In this video we see some key points in how to really make this look work.
We’re living in a visual society. Every day, we see new ways of visual advertising. Some of the messages presented without the use of words can be very powerful, as if there's some subliminal code that makes us think. As photographers, we are used to delivering messages by solely providing the image. Or are we?
There are many tips online. Five step listicles of composition, post-processing, editing, getting the model to smile more, and to capture a story in the best way possible. You can be friendlier to clients, communicate your vision to the team, client or model, use on or off camera flash, and setup your camera in a better way to enable easier ways to capture the shot.
Workflow is everything: it makes your job easier, quicker, and more reliable. Travis Harris is a Miami-based wedding photographer who has one of the better workflows I've seen, and he shares it here.
Just like writing a good story, in photography, the setting is a character that shares equal weight with your main subject. It’s the relationship between those two elements that sells and tells the story. This is why at Cooper & O’Hara we start the planning of every shoot with a question: what is the setting going to be, and how does it tell the story?
I shot and edited a narrative film in the last month. It was a first for me. I had this scene in my mind of a person burying a suitcase or bag in the woods, like it’s something he or she wanted to hide or get away from. I had a second idea about a guy walking down a long passage way and knocking on a door with no one opening for him.
Last week I showed you how you can use just a DSLR and a few accessories to digitize your negatives. However, that article wouldn’t have been complete without explaining how to convert the scanned analog picture to a positive image. The process is quite easy and only a few steps are required to achieve a great result. Let’s dive in!
With the recent flooding of the market with battery-powered monolights, it might seem as if the humble speedlight will only ever be found on top of the photojournalist's camera from now on. The Profoto B1 and B2, the Broncolor Siros, and offerings from various small brands have given us options for high-powered flashes in much smaller packages than before.
Even though technology has come a long way, you have to have some kind of lighting in order to film.
There’s a handful of people on the Pacific Island group of Pingelap who can skip this episode. But if you don’t have achromatic vision like them, I suggest giving this bountiful reference a read, because California-based USA Landscape Photographer of the Year 2015 Ted Gore wrote all about color landscape photography.
It's all in the details. Adding elements like wind is a great option to add more life and emotion into your photographs. Studio photography and natural light photography can be very different genres. In the studio, you’re in total control of your environment and surroundings, and having an industrial fan that plugs into a wall is pretty standard in most studios.
Whether you are shooting film or have a large collection of negatives, chances are you will want to scan them one day. The process to digitize your analog pictures can be expensive and sometimes even disappointing regarding image quality.
“The War In Every Portrait” is an interesting video from photographer Sean Tucker that explores the idea of capturing authentic moments in a portrait session. Tucker muses that there is a constant battle between the subject and the photographer. The goal is to find the kink in the armor of their exterior persona and expose the “real” person hidden inside.
Today, video is everywhere. Whether it be an iPhone shooting super-slow-motion footage, or a RED Weapon eating away at hard drive space in 8K resolution, capable cameras are available to almost everyone who wants them. And while we can’t all shoot on RED, it’s possible to get amazing production quality out of consumer-level cameras.
Whether you're a travel photographer or you specialize in portraits, there are different filters for different clickers. I find that using filters helps your overall mood for your photos. From protective filters all the way to UV filters, I myself have problems identifying which is which.
Portrait photography is very diverse. While some enjoy the comfort of studio portraits and the flexibility it brings, others prefer the variety of backdrops the outdoors provides.
Retouching in photography has many forms. Everything from skin work to background manipulation. With the latest software abilities to retouch and manipulate an image, there is an endless source of possibilities to create. Even with all the tools available, there is a fine line and perhaps sometimes too much is too much.
Enough is Enough
In today's world, content is generated and consumed at a faster rate than ever. The downside to this is that such a cycle makes it difficult to take the time to create truly meaningful work. In this video, Ted Forbes expounds the idea of what it is to create work of meaning in today's culture and how to do it.
We pride ourselves on being professionals who work incessantly to constantly become better photographers here at Fstoppers. Still though, we're human, and sometimes, we make mistakes. Here are some of the most memorable mistakes Fstoppers writers have made.
Jason Vinsonhttps://fstoppers.com/photo/111158
In their latest video, Film Riot's Frontman/Director Ryan Connolly comes to my backyard (Vancouver, BC) to film a truly epic bar brawl short. This entire series of videos is extremely useful when it comes to learning what it takes to film a quality short. The "Uncut Behind the Scenes" video is seriously my favorite of the bunch as you
I love color. Black and white photography holds a special place in my heart, but 90 percent of the time I gravitate toward color imagery in my own work. When I started shooting film again, I decided that I would most definitely learn to develop my own black and white film.
As someone who has spent a life in mathematics, I see a lot of attempts to ascribe mathematical concepts to real-world ideas in an overly simplistic way. The media misinterpreting a single medical study and reporting that a glass of red wine is equivalent to an hour at the gym does not mean you should forget the treadmill and buy more Malbec.
Overshooting may sound like it's a dumb thing to do, but over my time doing photography, I’ve learned how important it really is. Here, I will go over a few reasons why you should shoot more than you need to. They apply to almost any sort of shooting situation.
There was a time I used to live on a paradise island called Mauritius and the summer lasted almost the whole year round. The sun was not an issue back then, as the sun protection was a ritual. The times have changed and I relocated back to my motherland Armenia, which has very severe cold winters and really hot summers.
Mental images, dynamic range, luminosity masking... This week's article in this series is chock-full of terms that will send your head spinning. But when we want to communicate through landscape photography, it is best to speak the language first.
I'm cursed with having thin facial hair. I'll never have the lush, full beard of a lumberjack. My face must brave the brutal Cleveland winter bare and exposed to the biting cold. Luckily, Phlearn is here with a tutorial to remedy that.
It’s a common belief to think that creativity is a skill that you either have or don’t. While in reality, all creativity truly is a process through which you perceive things and situations differently than others around you. Coming up with an alternative way of seeing requires hard work but it becomes easier with time.
Storing and transferring data from a shoot is an important, yet often overlooked detail when it comes to on-location projects. When juggling multiple cameras, each with multiple cards, it becomes critically imperative to be 100 percent sure that all of your photos and videos are accounted for. In this video, Jay P. Morgan shares his workflow for wrangling data and making backups.
Have you ever been in a situation where you needed to send an invoice to a client, but you were not home? Maybe you are out on another job, shopping, hanging with family, at a friends, or in the other room watching TV. Hopefully you aren’t doing that last one, but Alto is here to help us out.
Without composition there is just visual chaos with no beginning or end, no direction or cycle, no shape or difference between dark and light. This series is the go-to resource for compelling visual storytelling in landscape photography as it provides a condensed overview of all the elements that make up a stunning image.