Photography is a complex thing that takes a combination of technical skill, creative vision, and (if you are a professional) business savvy to find success, making it easy to fall prey to traps that can derail you along the way. Here are five subtle mistakes photographers make that can negatively affect their experience, images, or careers.
It might seem strange to work in a studio only to use it to replicate the look of natural light, but it is a classic style that can be quite effective for a wide range of applications. This useful video tutorial will show you the technique behind creating the look as well as some helpful tips you can use to make it your own.
Street photography can be a very challenging and intimidating genre, particularly when you are a beginner, but if you persevere with it, it can seriously benefit your skills across quite a few genres.
Photographing at a fairground can be fun to do. It’s a fun place to go to, with lots of people, bright lights, and action. It can also provide some challenges for capturing great photos. I have some ideas and tips if you plan on photographing at a fairground.
A reflector is one of the cheapest and most effective tools for shaping lighting for portraiture, and it can easily replace the need for another light in a lot of scenarios. If you have not been taking full advantage of your reflector or you are new to working with lighting, check out this helpful video tutorial that will show you how to use one for portraiture work.
Along with shutter speed and ISO, aperture is one of the three fundamental exposure parameters that give you technical and creative control of your images, and mastering it is crucial to growing as a photographer. If you are new to photography and a bit perplexed about how aperture works, check out this fantastic video tutorial that will show you everything you need to know.
When you are new to working with artificial light, it can be a bit overwhelming trying to balance all the technical and creative aspects while also posing your subject and controlling the camera. If you are a beginner and looking to improve, check out this great video tutorial that will show you three flash techniques every portrait photographer should know how to employ.
Converting an image to black and white is one of the most fundamental yet powerful editing techniques, but there are no hard and fast rules that dictate when you should do so. If you struggle with knowing when to edit a photo in black and white, check out this excellent video tutorial that will show you five things to consider when deciding whether or not to do so.
Group photos and video of the wedding party are some of the most shots you will need to get at a wedding, but posing a mass of people under significant time constraints can be a real challenge, even for experienced creatives.
One of the biggest mistakes in landscape photography is to think that the best light appears just around sunset or sunrise. You could get the best light you have ever seen in your life straight around noon, as well. This is what you have to consider.
While Photoshop and Capture One are still the most popular choices for retouching work, in the past few years, several alternative programs have made major advancements, giving photographers quite a few viable alternatives. One such program is Affinity Photo, and this excellent video tutorial will show you a complete portrait retouching workflow in the application.
The high-key portrait is a classic look that has retained its popularity over many decades, but it requires good knowledge of lighting to execute it properly. If you are new to portrait lighting and wondering how to create the high-key look, check out this fantastic video tutorial that will show you everything you need to know.
Visual weight is an often overlooked but essential component of your photographs. It influences how your pictures are viewed and is what drives your compositions.
Over the past six weeks, I've photographed more sunsets than I can count along the coast. As someone who primarily shoots on land, I had a lot to learn about shooting the sea and have put together a few of the most important lessons I came away with for your next seascape location.
Portrait photography is a popular but challenging genre that requires you to be at the top of your game in handling a camera, creating lighting setups, post-processing, posing, interacting with a subject, and more. If you are new to the genre and looking to improve, check out this great video tutorial that offers some helpful advice sure to improve your images.
One of the most fundamental skills every portrait photographer should learn is using flash for lighting their images. However, flash is not just for working in a studio. This helpful video tutorial will show you how to use flash for outdoor portrait photography.
This article is about two traits you need as a landscape photographer if you want to take photos that stand out. And I'm not talking about a good eye for composition, love for the outdoors, or an adequate fitness level to reach the photo locations you want to photograph. Those are also important. But there are two key characteristics you need as a foundation.
One of the most fundamental principles every photographer should learn when it comes to post-processing is how to edit nondestructively. If you are learning the ropes in Photoshop, this is something you need to pay careful attention to. This fantastic video tutorial will show you to ensure that you are working in Photoshop in as nondestructive a manner as possible.
When you are new to editing images, it can be a bit overwhelming learning all the various methods and tools professionals use to create the final photos they are known for. This fantastic video tutorial will show you a variety of helpful tricks you can use to create better and more compelling images.
If you watch videos of professional landscape photographers in action, you will probably notice that they often have to hike miles through often unforgiving terrain to get the shot. However, for many of us, such hikes simply are not possible or desirable.
Summer is just about upon us, and it brings with it a myriad of blooming flowers and plants that make for wonderful subjects. If you are interested in capturing some of that beauty, check out this excellent video tutorial that will show you some helpful tips and techniques for photographing flowers and plants along with some creative ideas for doing so.
Creating an even, flattering light in the studio doesn't have to be difficult. In this tutorial, I will show you three simple parallel lighting hacks to make portraits that everyone from the boardroom to Broadway will love.
We are used to traveling to the most beautiful places with the aim of getting outstanding photographs. But when we import our images to Lightroom, we have often to accept that our photos are no more than the same old story that was photographed there already by thousands of others before.
Most of the time, when it comes to photography or video of cars, beauty products, cosmetics, and even shoes, it’s made on a computer and not by a photographer. There are several reasons for this, but in this video, Karl Taylor, a renowned product photographer and educator, discusses photography versus 3D CGI and the advantages of each.
Have you been thinking about becoming a wedding photographer? If you’ve been toying with the idea of starting a wedding photography business, this article will help you figure out if it's the right path for you. Read on to learn a few steps to get started in the right direction.
When you are a landscape photographer, planning ahead is one of the most crucial things you can do to ensure good chances of success, but it is not the only way to work. Sometimes, finding a new location and exploring it without a preconceived plan can be a wonderful way to make images.
Street photography is a challenging genre that takes the combination of instinct, quick reflexes, strong technique, and creative vision. Even if it is not your primary genre, taking it up can improve your work in whatever it is you do shoot.
A little bit of competition can be a healthy thing for photographers and a great way to get the creative juices flowing. Are you ready to try this five-minute photography battle?
It can be easy to get caught up in the stresses of being a photographer, whether that is dealing with clients, vitriol on social media, or something else. And because of that, it can be easy to lose sight of your love for photography.
Creating a successful landscape image takes a combination of technique, creative vision, planning, and often, just a smidgen of good fortune. If you would like to improve your landscape work, check out this fantastic video tutorial that features an experienced photographer offering some helpful advice.
Zoom and prime lenses both have their own purposes and respective pros and cons, although beginners typically default to using zooms, particularly since most kit lenses are of that variety.
Premiere Pro is an impressively powerful video-editing program, but with all that power comes the need for a lot of effort and investment of time to get the results you want. As such, finding any little spot you can to increase your efficiency can add up to big gains in the long run.
Modern cameras are remarkable pieces of technology, able to do things that we could only dream about just a few years ago, and they only continue to get better. And while they are fantastic tools, they are not inherently necessary to create compelling images. This great video serves as a useful reminder that even entry-level tools can create professional photos.
Bird photography is a challenging genre that requires a lot of patience and skill, but when you get things right, the results can be really rewarding. If you would like to improve your work, check out this fantastic video tutorial that will show you how a photographer shot and edited an eagle photo from start to finish.
The beauty of artificial lighting is that you can create fantastically creative and compelling shots that simply would not be possible with only natural light. Using a snoot and gobo is one such possibility, and this excellent video tutorial will show you how one photographer lit, shot, and edited such images using them.
Some photographs raise potent emotions. Emotions are as much an essential element of photographs as composition. So, how do we embed them into our images?
Successful photographers follow one of two paths. Which route are you taking in your photographic journey, that of a conceptual genius or an experimental master?
No matter which genre you work in, you will encounter difficult clients at one time or another, but given the amount of stress and investment that go into weddings, you might find yourself in these situations a bit more often as a wedding photographer.
Natural light can be more versatile than you might think, and with a good understanding of how to shape it and orient your subject within it, you can create a wide variety of compelling photos. This helpful video tutorial will show you three different natural light setups you can use for portraits along with some great tips to get the most out of each of them.
So you’re trying to develop your wedding photography skills? Let’s talk through some of the photography skills you need to learn and develop. My advice is to pick one thing at a time to focus on, perfect that and then move on.
Landscape photography is challenging in that you get no control over the placement of elements in the frame, only your position relative to them, and as such, creating compelling compositions can be particularly tricky.
Learning artificial lighting can be a bit daunting for a lot of photographers, but you should not let it scare you! If you are starting to dabble in artificial lighting and looking to improve, check out this fantastic video tutorial that will show you eight common mistakes beginners make and what you can do to fix them or avoid them entirely in the first place.
Color is one of the most fundamental and powerful tools at our disposal for commanding the attention of our photos' viewers, and it does not always get the sort of attention in post-processing that it deserves.
Drones have become a powerful and versatile tool for landscape photographers, giving them the ability to reach perspectives and create images that simply were not possible just a few years ago.
Some photographers still believe that it’s important to shoot in manual mode, no matter what situation they’re in. As long as the correct exposure is achieved, it isn’t important if this is done manually or partly by the camera itself. But sometimes, manual is indeed the best choice.
The challenge of landscape photography is that unlike most other genres, you do not get control over the lighting or the placement of the elements in the frame. For some photographers, though, that is one of the most fascinating and enjoyable aspects of the genre.
Composition sometimes falls by the wayside in portrait photography, but if you want to elevate your images to the next level, it is something you need to take into careful consideration with every shot. If you would like to improve your portrait compositions, check out this fantastic video tutorial that features five helpful tips from an experienced photographer.
Most of us use only two or three view modes while working in Lightroom, but the program actually has eight in total, and they are highly useful for both culling and organizing your photos as well as editing them.
Photoshop and Lightroom are tremendously complex and intricate applications, and there are many different ways to accomplish any specific task. If you are always looking for new ways to improve and expand your workflow, check out this fantastic video tutorial that features some lesser-known tips and techniques for working in both Photoshop and Lightroom.
Spend any amount of time reading about photography on the internet, and you will probably come across the claim that professionals should shoot in manual mode. And there is certainly some truth in the idea that manual mode gives you the kind of control necessary for certain shooting scenarios, but that does not mean it is always the best choice.