Fine Art Photography

Back in March, Fstoppers writer Zach Sutton featured Fabian Oefner's "Black Hole"  series, high shutter speed images of paint being spun and flung quickly to produce some amazing art pieces. In this TEDxWarwick 2013 presentation, Fabian shows his passion for bringing art and science together to create his surreal and colorful work, and explains the process behind it all.

Have you ever found yourself thinking: “If only I had <insert expensive camera body/lens/lighting gear>, I would be shooting better images/be winning bigger jobs/get better and higher paying clients”?

If you’ve never had this thought, congratulations, skip this article and move on because you’re already part of ‘The Enlightened’ few.

The phrase “go big or go home” seems to take on a special significance with photographer Dennis Manarchy. Obsessed with the concept of scale and the possibilities of working with massive negatives to create portrait images more than two stories high, he and his team have created a 35-foot view camera, the world’s largest film camera. The project, nicknamed “Butterflies and Buffalo”, aims to use the traveling view camera as a conduit for documenting more than 50 of the unique cultures in America.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to stare down the barrel of a gun? Well Toronto-based photographer Peter Andrew teamed up with art directors Simon Duffy and Derek Blais to show us. The series, “Point Blank”, features iconic handguns in high-resolution "portraits", some of which are printed as large as 4×8 feet. In order to achieve the incredible detailing in these shots Peter used

Salience is the name of the five minute short that will probably be remembered as one of the most innovative, experimental (and beautiful) short films of the year. If you do one thing today for your inspiration, please spend the next few minutes checking it out and you'll see what I mean. 

"VICE Meets: David LaChapelle" goes inside David LaChapelle's studio in Los Angeles and sits down with him to talk about his early days in New York, what he did in art school and why photography is the parameter that prevents his head from exploding. It's always amazing to get a glimpse into the mind of a great artist and begin to see what makes them tick.

In this episode of the (always) fantastic "Capture," supermodel Helena Christensen and photographic legend Mary Ellen Mark sit down with Mark Seliger and discuss their unique approaches to making their images. Mary Ellen Mark talks about what it was like to photograph Mother Theresa and how every circus in India was more imaginative than the last. Helena Christensen's love of photography began when she hitchhiked around the world as a teenager,

Ten thousand miles, ten cities on a coast to coast ramble in a 1977 vintage VW bus all for the sake of promoting photographic art. From April to June of this year, gallerist Jennifer Schwartz was behind the wheel of her microbus on a two-fold mission: to promote photographers and create collectors. Working with five photographers in each city on the tour, she orchestrated pop-up events and curbside photo exhibits designed to educate and engage communities regarding photographic art and the value of starting a collection.

In 1983, the BBC aired a documentary series called "Master Photographers" interviewing and showcasing some of the most influential photographers of all time - from Alfred Eisenstaedt to Bill Brandt to Andre Kertesz. In this episode, the great Ansel Adams and his penchant for cowboy hats and bolo ties. Adams was unquestionably brilliant. It's one thing to read his thoughts from a book; it's another thing entirely to hear them.

Alright, So you've made it past the hard part, making contact and getting the ok from the agency to work with their talent (As discussed in Part 1).  Now what?  Well now you book your first model!

If you are into photographing people, the idea of working with professionals has probably been on the agenda at some point in your career. Whether an editorial photographer, fashion and beauty shooter, or just someone who likes creating awesome fantasy composites, the use of professional models will invariably improve your work.  So how do we go about working with these gatekeepers of the people photography industry?

I'm glad you asked!

What draws us to portraits? In this video from PBS's 'Off Book,' photographers Matt Hoyle, Bex Finch, Jamie Diamond and Ethan Levitas offer their perspective on portraiture and why it is important to us as human beings. At the core of portrait photography, it is a documention of our existence, but it often surpasses that and becomes art.

Photographer Lukas Renlund shares with us the second installation in his "Steal My Photograph" series. I was very impressed with this idea when I posted his Copenhagen Exhibit last August but Lukas has added a humorous new twist to his Barcelona installation by hiding a GoPro camera behind his photos to capture the reactions of the unsuspecting, would-be-thieves. I got a chance to catch up with Lukas and asked him a few of the questions that have been on everyone's mind.

The mega online retailer Amazon just launched a beta version of it's new online photographic print marketplace.

The website is in beta and is currently selling over 5,000 photo prints through Amazon.com. A signed Silver Gelatin Print of Rauchender Mann by Dieter Blum is fetching whopping $120,000. 

There are many great photography books out there but this is a list of five of my all-time favorites, the ones routinely jockeying for space on my nightstand even though I’ve read or pawed through them numerous times. Each is a continual source of inspiration and provides welcome insight into the thought-process behind successful imagemaking at the highest level.

"40 years ago [William Eggleston] dragged color, kicking and screaming, into the world of art photography." In this fascinating documentary from BBC's Imagine, we get a small glimpse at a photographic icon. William Eggleston was born in Tennessee in 1939 and raised in Mississippi. Inspired by Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson, Eggleston is credited with being the first photographer to give serious artistic credibility to color film.

Whenever I take a moment and look at landscape photography it's like a tiny escape. An escape from the busy commotion of the cities that we live in and the chaos of the people in those cities. Most landscape photography is calm and serene with a beautiful array of colors acting as a canvas. Photographer, Benjamin Edelstein known for his stunning work sits down with us to talk about what it is to be a landscape photographer.

Not since Matthew Brady’s work documenting the Civil War has the tintype photographic process been used on the battlefield. Staff sergeant Ed Drew, an aerial gunner in the California Air National Guard, brought tintype back to the theater of war to photograph his fellow soldiers during his deployment from April to June in Afghanistan’s Helmand province.

Before we even get started on this video be sure to hit the closed captioning option on the Youtube video because the interpreter doesn't get it all. For those of you that don't know, Liu Bolin is also called "The Invisible Man" due to his series of images where he is painted to match his surroundings. In this video he talks not only about his process but also about his motivation. Like most great artists Bolin starts off by coming to an understanding of what he is trying to say. Not only

Maybe it is because I live in the dust bowl of Phoenix AZ, but seeing the ever-growing empire of buildings in Hong Kong strikes me as quite a remarkable sight. Photographer Romain Jacquet-Lagreze visited Hong Kong in 2009 and became obsessed with its marvel. As he began to explore the unique city, he realized each part he visited had an atmosphere individually unique. Wanting to show what it's like to be on the ground in each special place, Romain pointed his camera upward to share the awe one feels when gazing up at the sky between the huge buildings.

Pierre Carreau shot at high speeds to freeze the moving ocean waves, creating sculpturesque photographs of natures powerful movements.

Carreau works intensively on his project "AquaViva", a study of wave shapes. ​"I like the fact that this energy comes from far away to be revealed on our beaches." His facination with the waves started at a young age.

“These new ways might be found by men who could abandon their allegiance to traditional pictorial standards—or by the artistically ignorant, who had no old allegiances to break. There have been many of the latter sort. Since its earliest days, photography has been practiced by thousands who shared no common tradition or training, who were disciplined and united by no academy or guild, who considered their medium variously as a science, an art, a trade, or an entertainment, and who were often unaware of each other's work…

David Stephenson used multiple techniques to photograph the night sky in his series Star Drawings. The lines and shapes created by the earth's rotation make for interesting views of the stars and dark sky above.

His technique is a blend of interval exposures and multiple long exposures giving each of the photographs in his series a unique look. Stephenson says he is drawn to the awesome vastness of time and space, referring to his practice as a search for a photographic sublime.

A photographer and digital artist by the name of Terrence Blanton has released a new website and photo series called "Eagle Faction" that is explosive and very influenced by Call of Duty and Battlefield. Terrence got ahold of a local Airsoft team to help create a fictional series about a team of former military and outdoorsmen that band together to help salvage their local territory of America after a collapse and invasion in the year 2023.

Social media has progressed to a point where anyone can personalize their online experience. Through your own network of friends and filters, "Likes" and "Shares" now prioritize funny or relevant content for you and those you share commonalities with. Talenthouse now seeks to utilize that method of content sharing to popularize your artistic capability. The site is designed to set apart the best of the best in any category of art through popular vote.

London based artist Nick Gentry manipulates reclaimed film negatives to create beautiful works of art. His body of work places an emphasis on recycling obsolete media and the reuse of personal objects as a main theme. Gentry also creates amazing paintings on old floppy discs

Well-known wet plate artist Ian Ruhter has just released the fourth installment in his 'Silver and Light' series, which chronicles his trip to Seattle to meet with Chase Jarvis, his journey to becoming an artist, Chase Jarvis' very frank thoughts on what being an artist

A good photographer or videographer depends on good lighting to create a shot. Lighting creates the mood of any scene and sets the stage for the story you're trying to tell. In an unusual but entrancing method, Nacho Guzman creates a dramatic scene and shows how quickly light can change the mood and expression on a woman's face. Although the woman in the video only moves her face subtly over time, the rotating light around her causes striking mood shifts in the image.

Richard Tuschman is a fine art photographer, whose works has appeared on a number of book covers. His latest project, Hopper Meditations, has him recreating famous Edward Hopper paintings in an unconventional way.

When I first saw his images, I was struck by the quality in them. They appear to be a composites, but it also looks like he may have been using a tilt-shift lens. Even if they were composites, I was fascinated by how he found locations that perfectly mirrored the original paintings. Tushcman's secret? Dioramas.

Sight. It is everything for a photographer. We nitpick over which camera body or lens is the best tool for the job, but no lens or camera sensor has yet to come close to what the human eye is capable of.

What so many of us take for granted, fine art photographer Julia Fullerton-Batten has chosen to focus on in her new project, "Blind". Her subjects ranged from those who were born blind to those who went blind later in life.

There is something really beautiful about Alejandro Guijarro's ongoing Momentum series. It is not big and bold and in your face, it's quite simple and surreal.

At first the photographs present themselves to be mundane classroom blackboards with scribbles across the surface, resembling notes left behind from a previous class. The difference is that these chalkboards house the notes to some of the biggest brains in quantum physics from around the globe.

Warning: The following interview contains adult language, adult situations and nudity.

Michael Donovan rules. It says so on his website. It also says so on his Tumblr. It says so anywhere you’d find his name. And to be perfectly honest, believe the hype. Michael Donovan does rule. This is why I’m here, in a Lower East Side bar that never left 1982, having a drink and trying to hold a conversation while Asian fetish porn plays on TVs that I’m sure were taken from the dumpster behind a Motel 6.

There are a few contemporary photography websites that make me immediately stop what I am doing and look through the work being featured each month. One of my personal favorites is Fraction Magazine. Each month Fraction brings a handful of emerging artists to their viewers, showcasing some really amazing contemporary photography in each issue.

Fraction Magazine is as an on-line contemporary photography magazine that features diverse bodies of work by established and emerging artists from around the globe.

Here is a gorgeous photo from Miss Aniela. She was commissioned by the Kai Mayfair restaurant in London to create a photo that embodied Chinese culture. Upon first inspection, she has nailed the topic wonderfully. But closer look shows the amazing level of detail, with hours of editing, spanning hundreds of years of ancient Chinese paintings.

A few weeks ago Eric Pare released the 24x360 project which included 24 cameras taking a long exposure picture of a single subject. It's difficult to explain but once you see it you will understand. Eric was kind enough to write up an article just for us on how these incredible video clips were made.

There is one site that I consistently go to for inspiration . No matter how stuck I may feel or how many projects may demand my attention when I visit this dark and ominous page of collected brilliance I always leave refreshed. It may not always be safe for work, that part is pretty tough to predict as the work is always changing, but in my opinion the risk is worth it for the ideas and executions there. Not lighting diagrams, no explanations, just photography...lots and lots of amazing photography.

Joshua Chuang, associate curator of photography and digital media at the Yale University Art Gallery, created a photography exhibit 'Best of 2012' list for Art in America magazine. While many of these are over, some can still be seen (but hurry, some end as soon as Monday!). Check to see if they're in your area...

Alright, just when I thought he couldn't do anything more amazing, he proves me wrong, way wrong. If you have seen any sort of sports portraits, they usually do something different then your normal portrait. Adding cool lighting effects, lots of post work ect, not Wyn. His story for this shoot is a must read and great advice for anyone wanting to blow away their competition in their town. The way Wyn went about getting this all organized, shot, and edited is a pure masterpiece.

Tara Minshull is a rather successful fine art photographer based in Los Angeles who specializes in conceptual and cinematic images, oftentimes utilizing mixed media to realize her vision. Tara was kind enough to give us some of her time for an interview, in which she discusses the merits of art school, her motivations and the constantly evolving themes of her work.

The incredibly young and talented, Joey L. has released a new documentary that was shot while shooting his intimate series of photos, 'Holy Men'. Set in the breathtaking backdrop of India, the documentary filmed by Cale Glendening shows Joey while at work with his assistant Ryan, but more importantly proves that capturing an amazing portrait isn't just about the latest gear or technique, but truly the subject.

Vinny Picardi is a successful fine art and advertising photographer based in Los Angeles, CA, who has exhibited work all over the country and around the world. I recently came across Vinny's work and I have to say that I'm a pretty big fan, so I thought it would be interesting to share not only just a photo series with our readers, but also to take some time to ask a few questions to get inside the head of a successful fine art photographer.