Recent Education Articles

Common Mistakes Landscape Photographers Make With Telephoto Lenses

Most landscape photographers turn to wide angle lenses for the majority of their work, but there is an entirely separate world of great images waiting to be made with telephoto lenses. That being said, telephoto lenses come with their own challenges and pitfalls, and this great video will show you some of the most common mistakes landscape photographers make with them and how to correct those errors.

Stop Paying So Much Attention to Other Photographers: The Case for Using Inspiration Sparingly

What do you do when you hit a creative roadblock? What things do you do to promote new, creative ideas when you're fresh out? For a lot of folks, that means heading to Instagram, YouTube, or any of the thousands of repositories for creative works that exist. Look through your favorite photographer's latest book, or find an artist you like and get inspired by someone's travel vlog. I'm here to tell you there is another way, and I think this type of inspiration should be used sparingly.

Registration for Adobe MAX Is Free This Year

It's going to be virtual, but for all of us based in different places in the world, this is great news. They're showcasing everything new, so you can be an early adopter and work more efficiently and learn something new. Keanu Reeves, Annie Leibovitz, and award-winning filmmaker Ava DuVernay will be participating too, so it's going to be interesting and entertaining.

The Power of V-Flats for Negative Fill

When you work on building a lighting setup for a portrait, you likely think about it from the perspective of adding different lights and modifiers. But as important as adding light is, knowing where and how to take it away is just as crucial to shaping your subject. This great video will show you how to use v-flats to create negative fill and improve the look of your portraits.

Should You Use an HSS Flash or an ND Filter?

If you want to shoot outdoor portraits with a shallow depth of field using artificial lighting, you are going to run into issues of overexposure due to the limitation imposed by the sync speed of your camera. There are two solutions to this: high-speed sync or using an ND filter, and this great video shows you the workflow using each as well as their respective pros and cons.

A Comprehensive Guide to Canon FD and K35 Lenses

Modern lenses are technological marvels that can often offer spectacular image quality, but they are also very expensive. With the advent of mirrorless cameras and the usage of manual focus by filmmakers, vintage lenses have seen a resurgence in popularity. This fantastically comprehensive video will show you everything you need to know about Canon's FD and K35 lenses.

Are You Making Time for Photography?

Whether you are an amateur or a professional (surprisingly), it can be difficult to actually find time to just photograph things for yourself. If that is something you struggle with, this great video will help you get on the right track to get more time behind the camera.

Learn How to Blend Exposures in Lightroom

Learning how to properly and convincingly blend exposures will enable you to have much more versatility in your process, particularly when you are dealing with scenes with a high amount of dynamic range. This great video will show you how to use Lightroom for exposure blending and how to ensure your edits are smooth and convincing.

It’s Ok to Not Always Feel Ok

The creative industry is a tough one. We are absolutely passionate about what we do, which is different to most jobs out there. I mean, the jobs might be good, be interesting and satisfactory, but the running of your own photography or visual arts business has entrepreneurship, art, traveling, meeting other creative industry types, and the process of making something creative all combined into one job that you consistently spend time on building out, learning, and growing.

Outdoor Portrait Posing Cheat Sheet

If you have ever wondered how to pose your subject for headshots but are stumped at the first hurdle or perhaps you're photographing someone who is not used to being in front of the camera, then these handy techniques will improve your outdoor portraits.

5 Helpful Tips for Sharper Eyes in Portraits

No doubt, it is crucial to get your subjects' eyes in focus in any portrait, but that can be a bit difficult, particularly since a lot of photographers love to shoot at very wide apertures. If that is something you struggle with, this great video will give you five helpful tips for getting sharper eyes in your portraits.

The Relationship Between the Foreground and the Background

Using something in the foreground of your landscape image can add a lot of depth, but placing a foreground in your composition without consideration is not the way. It can be smart to give it a little thought. In this article, I will give you a couple of things to consider that may lead to a better composition.

Don't Overlook the Power of a Long Lens in Landscape Photography

No doubt, when most of us think about landscape photography, we think about using wide angle lenses to capture a lot of a scene in one shot. However, long lenses can be quite useful for landscape work as well, and this great video explores why you should consider using one for your own photos.

Sony Kando: A Free Virtual Event That You Won't Want to Miss

Sony Kando is an event that mixes experience, community, and education in order to create a world-class event like no other. But due to COVID, they are taking it virtual and giving it to you for free. And you don't want to miss this opportunity.

Creating Winning Photos: 3 Steps to Optimize Your Images With Photoshop

There’s more to creating a good photo than just moving the sliders. A huge part of wowing your viewers can come down to just a few settings that many forget. Before you export or save your next image, make sure you check out these options for the best results.

Using the NPF Rule for Photographing Night Skies

If you look into the night sky long enough, you will see the stars move. Because it is dark at night, you will need a longer shutter speed to capture the beauty of the stars and constellations. But don’t expose too long, or they will turn into trails.

7 Common Landscape Photography Mistakes

Landscape photography has a lot of potential pitfalls to it, and it takes the confluence of a variety of techniques and creative ideas to make a successful image. This great video details seven common mistakes landscape photographers commonly make and how you can avoid and/or fix them.

Learn How to Use Focus Stacking for Sharper Images

Landscape photographers often want to maximize their depth of field to get everything from front to back entirely in focus and sharp. If you want maximum sharpness, employing focus stacking can be the key, and this great video will show you how it works.

How to Selectively Expand the Background of Your Photo

Who hasn't had a photo that you wanted to print or post, but it wasn't quite the proportion that you needed? Even if you're not a Photoshop guru, Photoshop's Content-Aware Scale feature can help stretch a photo to fit perfectly without disturbing your subject.

How to Make Your Own Low-Budget YouTube Studio

If you have ever said to yourself that making a YouTube video looks easy, you aren't wrong. If you want it to look good, though, there are some steps you should take to ensure your video is up to par and pleasing to the viewer.

5 Quick Tips for Photographing Sand Dunes With Michael Shainblum

Michael Shainblum creates some breathtaking landscape work and is kind enough to share his knowledge with those looking to up their game. Watch this video for some helpful tips on capturing one of his favorite subjects, the challenging yet beautiful sand dunes.

Bird Photographers: Avoid These Rookie Mistakes

Getting started in bird photography is a path of making many, many mistakes before finding out what works and what doesn’t. Here are a few valuable tips to save you time from learning the hard way.

A Comprehensive Guide to Photographing the Perseid Meteor Shower

The Perseid meteor shower occurs from July 17 to August 24, and peaks on the night of August 12. In order to make the most of this spectacular meteor shower, I've put together a complete list of everything you need to know in order to get great astrophotographs of the event.

Background Basics for Wildlife Photography

One of the most desirable qualities in a wildlife photograph is having good separation between the animal and the background. Here’s a simple breakdown on how to achieve this with any camera and lens.

Hiking on Your Own for Landscape Photography

Instead of waiting around for friends, or groups to go out on a photo walk, why not take matters into your own hands and try hiking alone to capture landscapes. After all, without anyone else around you can make the decision on when to shoot, and when to pack up.

How to Give Skin a Golden Glow Using Photoshop

Giving skin a nice golden glow can be a great finishing touch on a portrait to put the image over the top. This fantastic video tutorial will show you how to add the effect to a portrait using Photoshop.

How to Get In-Focus Images When Shooting at Wide Apertures

A lot of us love to shoot at very wide apertures, but with that extremely narrow depth of field, you also have to be very careful to make sure you do not miss focus. This great video will give you some helpful tips for ensuring that you increase your keeper rate when you are shooting wide-aperture photos.

How to Use Photoshop to Deal With Noise in Wildlife Photography

Wildlife photographers do not get their choice of conditions and often have to work with rather difficult backgrounds and exposure settings. This great video will show you how you can use Photoshop to reduce noise and create more pleasing wildlife images.

How to Shoot in Manual Mode in 10 Minutes

If you've just bought your first camera or have shot on your camera for a while but want to get off automatic modes, you can move to full manual mode in just 10 minutes.

5 Common Mistakes Beginner Photographers Make

We are all unique people, but there are some mistakes that almost every new photographer makes at some point. Here are five common mistakes to watch out for in your own work.

How I Select my Lighting Modifier

Choosing the right lighting modifier can seem like an endlessly daunting task. In this video, I break down my thought process and show examples of how I use different modifiers for varying types of images as well as explaining the key differences in my equipment.

The Myth of Manual Mode Photography

It is a fairly commonly perpetuated myth that professional photographers only ever shoot in manual mode, but you might be surprised by just how often even top shooters use semi-automatic modes. This great video discusses the myth of always using manual mode and why it can work against you.

From Pinholes to Digital: A Look at the History of Photography

The history of photography is long and quite storied and something that almost any photographer would enjoy learning about. This great video will give you a look at the history of photography from its beginnings all the way to the modern digital age and is a great watch for your Sunday afternoon.