Understanding the basic concepts of studio lighting is equally important to the seasoned professional as it is to the aspiring new photographer. In this episode of a series on lighting, photographer Mark Wallace explains how the size and position of your light can change the quality of light.
Where studio portraiture often lacks in external interest and bokeh, it makes up for in image quality, clarity, and full light control. However, always shooting on a black or white backdrop is wildly limiting but having a whole host of different backdrops and changing them can be a pain in the proverbial.
Light moves fast — like really fast. 299,792,458 meters per second in a vacuum, to be exact. Capturing it might seem like a pipe dream, but one MIT professor has done it by doing something remarkable: creating a camera that shoots at 1 trillion frames per second.
Recently I bought a new Vizsla puppy named Leo. I decided to take a few portraits of Leo in the studio and I put them on Facebook. They became my most liked images of all time. Yesterday I went back to the studio to create a video on how I did it.
Point and shoot. That's how many people think about modern photography. A lot of things we take for granted today developed in the 1800s, including photography. Exposures took days until Louis Daguerre invented his daguerreotype process, which reduced days to minutes and produced clearer, more detailed images.
It took some amazing minds to send astronauts to the moon, and of the many ingenious ideas they came up with, one involved some pretty neat optical tricks.
Awakening your creative mind can be a challenge, but from my previous article "Fstoppers Creative Photography Challenge (Part One)" I hope that these challenges are helping you overcome your creative rut. Sometimes it's hard to spot simple things and sometimes you just don't have that drive to take that photo.
Landscape photography is the often stigmatized genre of it not communicating anything other than display of beautiful imagery at best. In this epic arc series, I strive to provide an integral resource for working on your own landscape images. We’ll cover planning, shooting, and post-processing, and talk about anything from composition to colour theory.
If you want to get paid for your photography, it goes without saying that you need to put together a great portfolio showcasing your best work. That's a universally accepted given. But what works best for each photographer depends on a lot of factors, such as digital or hard copy? Or both? Most would agree with the latter.
Photography is a game of emotions. Think about some of the most powerful images that you’ve ever seen. The ones that have left a lasting impression on you. Sure, they might have gorgeous tones, light, or composition, but the reason they have stuck with you for so long is probably the emotion or mood that the image evokes.
Freckles are in. As more and more brands and publications start opting to hire models with realistic “imperfections,” we’re bound to see more and more ads with speckled skin. Score one for realistic expectations! However, lighting freckles isn't easy, as most broad light sources will flatten the tone in the skin.
Like I've said before, being creative or simply having to create, is one of the biggest assets you can have in this era. Being creative doesn't mean you always have the juices flowing in your body. Sometimes, we get into a rut. I know some of you have fallen into that black hole where it feels like you can't seem to get out.
The graduate program in photography at the University of New Mexico's College of Fine Arts has been recognized as one of the top five programs in the nation for more than 20 years. Once again, for 2016, U.S. News & World Report's annual ranking of Best Grad Schools, puts UNM's program tied for fifth place with New York's School for Visual Arts.
Visiting an art museum is so interesting but also so intimidating for the non-expert public. Masterpieces can be seen as very ordinary work when the story behind it is left unknown or is misinterpreted. Fortunately enough, there is at least one curator per exhibition, and they are the persons you want to turn to to get the most out of your visit.
Four years ago I purchased my first set of studio strobes in an attempt to learn how to shoot portraits like the ones I saw in my favorite print magazines. Having shot most of my portraits using available light at f/2 and under, I thought this would translate over easily when I switched to shooting with strobes.
I stumbled across this video that was posted by B&H back in 2012 and was quickly amazed by the amount of information I was able to gather in terms of composition techniques. When starting out in photography, most people learn the rule of thirds, take off running, and never look back. Give this video a watch, and you will open an entire new world of tools for your image creation.
Whether your subject is wildlife, landscapes, sports or some other type of distance-related photography, using a tripod is a must for stable, clear images. Yes, there are workarounds, and some photographers insist they don't need a tripod.
I attended the Canon Roadshow, held once a year, where Canon gets to show off their latest gear. We got to have lunch with the Canon people, and we also had great keynote speakers who told their story and presented their work and how they do what they do. One of the speakers, Laura McCullagh, shoots live music events.
The Cooperative of Photography (COOPH) teamed up with Switzerland-based Street Photographer Thomas Leuthard as he hits the streets of Salzburg to demonstrate some of the techniques he uses to be a true ninja street photographer.
One of the most commercially viable careers as a photographer can be fashion or beauty photography. In fashion photography, you are mostly shooting people, and you have details like clothes, makeup, and mood that you can capture in creative ways.
Chase Jarvis is always putting out content that aims to push the boundaries of your thought process. Whether he is showing you how to creatively tackle projects with inspirational behind-the-scenes footage, or he is interviewing top creative minds to gain their insight on a variety of matters, Jarvis wants to make sure we have access to the information you don't even know you need.
As a British person, I have an innate talent for moaning, queuing, and observing humour about our ever-changing weather. One spring morning last month, while wiping the snow off my sunglasses and mopping the sweat off my brow with my thermal gloves, I began to ponder the first of this talent trifecta.
I’m sure most people have been in this situation: You are going through some old images of you when you were a child and come along an image that you absolutely adore. Maybe you want to share it across social media, or display it on your desk at work. The problem though is that after years of sitting in a box in the attic has taken its toll on the image.
It is not a coincidence that so many creative types suffer from depression. It seems elemental to the process of creativity that one must suffer internally to give life to art completely unique and beautiful.
Working with a team may be a blessing or a curse. Having a task delegated to a professional may sound relieving — assigning team members control of specific portions of a production, thus reducing headaches for you. It sounds like a great plan, and usually it is, until things go wrong.
Sometimes technically perfect does not translate to visually appealing. We've been taught since our photographic infancy to follow the "Rule of Thirds" to save yourself from making beginner mistakes. But the photographer from Denmark, James Allen Stewart, has gone against the grain and questioned the "Rule of Thirds."
Slowing down while taking pictures is not always an easy thing. For those of us that learned with digital, the idea of shooting only a limited number of frames per session seems unthinkable.
Hey there, Ben Sasso here! Learning new things is one of my favorite parts of what I do, and I want to be able to pass that on. If you're looking for some quick and basic natural lighting tips to play with on your next shoot, you're in the right place. Check out five easy tips! Hope you enjoy!
The choice of colors in a scene can be one of the most influential factors in giving a film its signature identity. Whether you're looking to recreate an iconic look or simply seeking new inspiration, Cinema Palettes is making it incredibly easy to replicate your favorite films.
This is by no means a new topic, but a recent poster in the Fstoppers Wedding Photography group lamented that they felt they were stuck in a creative rut, and it got me thinking about the problem of trying to be experimental within an industry.
In this video, Filmmaker Matt Mangham runs down five important traits that every great director of photography should have. A director of photography (DP or DOP), also known as a cinematographer, directs the camera crews and is responsible for determining the overall artistic and technical aspects of a film.
Fauxtographers. Everyone knows what that means, commonly associated with Mom-tographers and GWC's.
In this Film Riot video, actor and director Ryan Connolly gives us the rundown on how to create a blind eye effect, similar to what we see happen to Arya Stark in HBO's, "Game of Thrones." Film Riot pulls this off in Adobe After Effects (although this tutorial can be applied to your compositor of choice) and without the use o
SLR Lounge founding partner, photographer, and retoucher, Pye Jirsa, walks us through a quick Lightroom tutorial on how to adjust a photo that has mixed light.
For those of you may not know, we recently created a 20 hour photography tutorial with the incredible Joey Wright on all things swimsuit photography and retouching. We've been posting a weekly behind the scenes series of the creation of this tutorial. This is Episode 4.
With little exception, every time you agree to provide raw images to your client, you are hurting your own brand and doing that client a disservice. Although it might be easy to feel, it may be hard to understand exactly why this is.
In this recent video from The Slanted Lens, host and photographer Jay P. Morgan explains the benefits of having a mentor during the early stages of your photographic career. He then goes on to provide usable examples of how just about anyone can go about making a connection with professional who could fill that role.
I bought my first camera on a whim. It was a secondhand Canon 350D, and I bought a 50mm f/1.8 to go with it. It wasn’t expensive, but I couldn’t believe the pictures I could take. It was as if I had opened a secret door and revealed this beautiful landscape awaiting exploration; I was hooked.
If you own a top-notch DSLR, your shutter might be as fast as 1/8,000 s. Some mirrorless cameras top out at 1/32,000 s. So, what do you do when you need to photograph action using a shutter speed 3,000 times faster than even those blazing mirrorless cameras? You use an entirely different kind of shutter.
As a new writer on here, sometimes, it is hard to come up with new content to write about. I really have to put my brain to use. Sometimes, I randomly come up with ideas and topics to write about, and that is definitely one reason I'm glad I switched back to the iPhone. Whenever I come up with a thought or idea to write about, I hop into my Notes app and start writing some ideas down.
Some people use social media platforms as their emotional outlet, some for vanity purposes. I use social media to brand my photography business. This approach may not fit every photography niche, but I would like to explain how it fits mine, and I am sure you will note a thing or two that you could use as well.
In some ways, working with clients is a lot like the dating scene. So how do we get that second date? Wouldn't life be easier if you didn't have to look for new clients all the time? What if you could retain the best clients you've worked with before?
Matt Workman is a cinematographer and the founder and host of the Cinematography Database Show. On this particular episode he offers an in-depth analysis of the cinematography of Quentin Tarantino’s "The Hateful Eight," shot by Director of Photography Robert Richardson.
Photography is an art and a wonderful hobby to get yourself involved in. There comes a point where many hobbyists decide to turn that passion into a full-time career, and when that happens, it is imperative to have a solid strategy in place to be financially stable.
In my journey to separate my family life from my work life, as detailed in my last post, a change in my work environment has been key. Namely, my wife was tired of seeing my hard drive sitting on the kitchen island and I was handily kicked down to the basement. I took this opportunity to switch up my workflow from using a local external hard drive to a NAS (network-attached storage).
When I wrote "Seven Things About Being a Photographer I Wish I'd Known Earlier," I wasn't expecting such a strong response. I had far more than seven things I wish I'd known, but I tried to trim the fat and keep the article lean. Well, I liked the fat.
Take a look behind the scenes as Photographer, Producer, and Marine Gunnery Sergeant Joseph DiGIrolamo documents the work of Photographer Matthew Callahan. Callahan is a U.S.
We just can't seem to get enough of New York City-based Photographer David Bergman. Whether he's touring with Bon Jovi, shooting for Sports Illustrated, creating a 20,000-megapixel image, or just popping in with a quick tip from his "Two Minute Tips With David Bergman" series, David never fails to show us something worth our while.
The Hitfilm crew, Kirstie Tostevin, Josh Davies, and Simon Jones take over Film Riot to bring you a kick-butt tutorial on how to create an Iron Man heads-up display effect with their free HitFilm 4 Express software. This eight-minute video takes us all the way from pre-production to post-production.
Branding yourself is probably one of the most important things you can do as a photographer. It is important to showcase your work, whether it is your best work at the time, your best work overall, or even some of the work you just like most.