Fstoppers Original Articles

Being good at photography or filmmaking doesn't automatically lead to a successful business. You have to make yourself known to the world. Making that possible doesn't always require a lot of money. In this article I will share my personal approach to marketing my photography and filmmaking business.

It doesn't matter if you work for an employer or run your own business, having one eye constantly on the jobs market will change your perception of the industry and help your career going forward. Your future self will thank you for this.

Instagram's popularity with photographers is incomparable. What is essentially a free portfolio building app disguises itself as a powerful marketing tool to connect with prospective clients, but it suffers at times due to its sheer size and scope. Maybe you're bored of sieving through lame #goals and #inspiration posts, and want to know what mobile friendly alternatives are out there? Well folks, I'm here to tell you.

Masking plays a crucial role in the quality of your retouching. There are so many tools available to create and refine masks, that’s often times we forget the most basics and useful ones. One of them is a bit hidden and it seems like many don’t even know it exists! However, it’s probably amongst the most useful options to refine a mask and make your adjustment shine through in a more natural and convincing way. It’s the feather option and I’m going to show you how you can use it with a real-world example.

Photographers today are the first generation of image makers who are entering an industry completely dominated by social media. Over the course of the last decade, social media has utterly surpassed virtually all other forms of marketing and has quickly become a dominating factor in lives of a huge part of the population, especially photographers. Social media use, however, suffers from some pretty severe implications that can have a limiting factor on the quality of work a photographer creates.

I'm taking a second to reflect on the lessons I learned from working with the legendary Art Streiber. Part one in the series is the benefits of preparation.

As a full-time freelance photographer, we often ask ourselves why we should work for free, especially at the start of our careers. Are we being taken for a ride, or is it worth investing in our client for possible future returns?

As the number of people interested in wildlife photography continues to grow, and the capabilities of modern equipment expand the boundaries of what is possible, many of us are seeking new ways to produce work that is fresh. This has meant exploring new techniques and searching for untapped frontiers in wildlife photography. This trend has led to a rapid increase the number of people interested in using camera traps.

I was 14. After a year of mowing lawns and shoveling driveways I had finally saved up enough money to buy my first real camera (a Canon S30). At the the time, online stores like Amazon barely existed. Still growing in their late-90s infancy, the global online marketplaces we have become so accustomed to (like eBay) were barely a blip on the retail radar. Instead, I got in the car, and my mom drove me to an amazing place that felt like the center of the photography universe. Housed in an old bank (vault and all) was this incredible, gear-packed mecca called Milford Photo. My visit that day changed my life forever.

If you are like me, and many others, you love photography. It is something you think about constantly and wish it could sustain you full time if at all possible. So you set out to become a photographer and then…

As one of our site's regular film shooters, I naturally tend to post a lot of articles on the subject. Without fail, I'll get a few comments to the effect of digital being so much better than film or vice-versa. I've always laughed off such remarks, but since they keep on coming I figured I'd address them. Maybe the mediums have more in common than some would like to admit.

One thing I’m sure all band photographers, like myself, question all the time, is the necessity for the Three Song Rule limit at live concerts. Is it still as necessary as promoters and agents make it out to be, or is just because it’s become the norm over years?

Mike Kelley and Fstoppers have teamed up once again to produce the third installment of Where Art Meets Architecture. Over the past few years, creating images for realtors, architects, interior designers, and property management companies has become a booming industry for professional photographers. In this tutorial, Mike focuses on how to photograph the hospitality market including how to shoot hotels, resorts, and rental properties. For the first time in his career, Mike also shares everything he knows about the business of commercial architectural photography including pricing your work, creating bids and contracts, marketing your business effectively, and building licensing fees for residual income. We are excited to finally release the most thorough tutorial we have ever produced on architectural photography and have a special offer inside.

What if you woke up one morning and found yourself unable to come up with any good ideas on what to shoot next? You spend the entire day scouring the web, reading books, or talking to people and yet you still can’t come up with anything good? You’re so desperate, in the end, you just grab the camera and start shooting, but nothing good comes from it. Everything you shoot feels like it's only halfway there and doesn’t quite meet the standards of your photography or that of your peers. This happens to all of us, and before you think this is just another guide to getting you out of this rut — it isn’t.

My background was in design and web development before I was a photographer. So in my eyes, it's easy to see a connection between design and photography, and how that should translate to a photography website, however I am still surprised at how many photographers’ websites are very much behind the times. Mostly because most photographers are not designers or programmers. I see them using flash, or splash (intro) pages, saying “click here to enter website.” I want to talk about some basic practice that is absolutely essential in today’s world of websites.

Last week, I posted an article about how to create amazing portraits with on-camera flash. My hope was to help anyone who was on the fence about shooting with flash feel more comfortable and confident in their ability to shoot with flash. Granted, shooting with on-camera flash has its caveats, so in this article, I am going to go over some of the benefits of shooting with off-camera flash.

Alongside the highly-anticipated a9 announcement, Sony also introduced the FE 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 G Master telephoto lens. After the initial buzz and excitement over something shiny and new being announced subsided, I began to question why Sony released this lens at this particular time of intense market expansion.

Sharpening to enhance detail is a critical process to finishing any image, especially when preparing images for print. As a photographer who specializes in creating large wall portraits of dogs, I routinely apply a strong degree of sharpening prior to printing. There is one specific technique that I use for sharpening that is especially effective when editing portraits of dogs and other furry subjects. Here is my best tip for enhancing detail in fur and hair while maintaining a soft appearance.

Two things converged for me recently: an increase in questions sent to me regarding my commercial photography and the unexpected popularity of my bite-sized Photoshop tutorials. Both occurrences are born from the same inquiry of understanding how certain things are achieved. I used to bother people constantly with questions on how I could attain a certain look in post-processing, or how an image is so sharp, and so on. From time to time, I still do. So, I'm going to do my best to make the answers to the most common questions readily available with this mini series.

We've all seen the Instagram feeds where people post a daily painting, photo or post that displays their art. I've attempted it and lasted about a month before I missed a day or didn't have the time to post. As inspiration I follow the people who make it though, like the woman who made a paintings for ants and posted them to Instagram every day, and the guy who made a movie poster every day for a year, and then the daily vloggers like Casey Neistat who once posted a video once a day. The determination is what inspires me the most, and seeing the development of that person's skills and the following grow and the success coming from that.

Makeup artists are an invaluable part of the creative team for many photographers. In fact, there are certain genres of photography that rely so heavily on makeup artists that we simply couldn't work without them. Unfortunately, there seems to be a few serious problems cropping up between makeup artists and photographers.

The past few weeks I have been driving up the parkway here in New Jersey for work, my eye kept getting drawn towards this one specific railroad bridge between exit 136 and 137. Every time I passed by it, my eyes would follow it until I had to turn to see the road in front of me again. It was one of those things that I had to remember so I could go back and photograph it when the time came. Today was the day that I set out to photograph it, but before anything, I had to put a little bit of planning into it.

Shooting events with a ton of people can always be a bit overwhelming at times. There are thing constantly happening all around you, pulling your attention in every direction. Add to this being in another country and at an event such as the Holi festival, and you have a recipe for mass mental chaos. In order to combat this, I went to India with a pretty deliberate plan on how I wanted to shoot.

We're pleased to announce that today, the Fstoppers Community reached the milestone of 100,000 photo uploads. As our group of talented creatives continues to grow, we're thrilled to share your work with the photography world.

A spectacular shot of a bride in her gown can be one of the most enduring images in the spectrum of bridal photos. I’ll state up front that I am not a wedding photographer, but as a fashion photographer specializing in bridal fashion, I’ll wager that I’ve shot more bridal gowns than the average wedding photographer. Along the way I have picked up a few tricks that wedding photographers might find useful when taking a bride’s formal portrait in her gown.

Change is one of the hardest things people will have to deal with during their life time. Some people love it, others hate it, but there’s really no way around it. And one of those big steps that can really alter your path is a career-related change. Most people spend a third of their day at some sort of job. Maybe it’s temporary, maybe it’s a means to an end, or maybe it’s an amazing career with a path for growth that you find favorable. But most of us have to work the majority of our lives to get by.

Shooting fashion can be a whirlwind of activity as you try to corral a team of creatives into constructing an amazing array of images. More than with any other type of shoot, I find that things have tendency to go wrong during the course of the fashion shoot. As the photographer, it is your job to not only be prepared for these things to happen, but also to be fully equipped to solve the problems as they come up. Below you will find a series of things I like to keep in my camera bag that are often saviors during a shoot that seems to be going belly-up.

I recently moved to Paris from Cape Town, South Africa. I don't speak French yet, but I have made some friends here due to the photographic industry mixing with the fashion and beauty industry quite a bit. I decided that I needed to get out and meet some photographers and maybe learn and share what I know while having a good time. So as any person would do, I went online and searched the Facebook groups focused on photography in Paris, but it didn't give me anything I felt I wanted to join. What I did find, however, was insight into a photographer's life in a big First World city, so I joined an event and had an epic day.

Earlier today, Sony released the a9, which basically reads like a dream list of specifications. It's a clear shot across the bow of Nikon's and Canon's professional bodies, but as much as I'd like to pick one up, I won't be buying it.

When you’re planning a trip to visit Iceland’s majestic countryside, chances are that you are probably following the ring road in one direction or another. And with good reason. Almost all the major sights are dotted around this single road. Or are they? Should we even be chasing these well-known compositions to get a copy of our own on the wall?

Everyone has what they would tell you is their favorite photo. The measure of why has changed quite a bit over the years and I think I might like the old way better. I only say this because Social Media is the main source of validation for a number of photographers today. Applying modern day metrics of likes, shares, retweets, and views creates a score of sorts that someone can use to justify why a photo might be their favorite. This score didn't used to exist. The old equivalent might have been a photo placing well in an art show or being used in a print publication.

There’s a big trend in the business of weddings. In the old days, when venues had to walk to the bus stop uphill both ways in the snow, they also designed and printed their own wedding brochures. These handouts are given to every couple who comes into the venue. They typically feature some nice photos of the space, sample menu options, and a list of their “preferred vendors.” Lately, venues have started to contract out their brochure design process, and most of them are using the advertising firm Hawthorn Creative. Let's try and figure out if it's worth it for you to advertise in these handouts.

Ever since I was young, I was interested in photography and being able to create awesome things that I could appreciate. At first, gear wasn't something that really mattered to me, as long as I could take photos and video and somehow edit them to create what I envisioned. As time went on and I began to get more serious, I realized my gear was sort of important and I do think that having the best gear you need for the field you are in is one of the most beneficial things you can do for yourself. I know not everyone is a huge gear head and may not want to invest in new gear, but I will share some of my reasons for upgrading my gear to benefit my work.

There are a lot of variables to consider when discussing the income we generate from our photography. Aspiring professionals often site a lack of work when defending their status as either hobbyist or part time photographers, but the truth is often a little more complicated than that. When times get tough, many creative photographers use the skills they’ve collected to generate income in other ways.

Have you ever gone to the see a romantic comedy and absolutely fallen in love? Have you ever gone to a romantic comedy and spent the majority of the film’s running time politely sneaking peeks at your watch? Have you ever realized that both movies were essentially the same story and wondered why you couldn’t get enough of the first, and got way too much of the second?

Landscape photography is all about patience, preparation, and planning. Here are five simple tips to help make sure your next landscape outing is a success.

If there was one thing I wanted to know when I first became interested in shooting editorials, it was "How do I do this?" That seems like a broad question, and it is, but it goes to show what a mysterious subject this was for me. I wanted to know how to get started, and what steps I should take. In this article, I would like to pull back the curtain a bit for people who are interested in getting into editorial work and share what steps I go through to conceptualize, build a team, schedule, and shoot a fashion editorial.

If you were on Fstoppers at all last week you probably read at least one of my articles about the Panasonic GH5 and the debate over its autofocus. Although we are no closer to a fix, this story keeps getting more entertaining.

The Fstoppers Community is home to the many talented readers of this website where we share images and video in our portfolios as well as talk shop in the Discussion Groups. The other day I was going through and watching some of the incredible videos the Community has shared in their portfolios, and here's a selection of some of my favorite travel videos that will have you craving adventure and inspire your own creations.

One of the beautiful things about film is the variety of cameras out there. You could shoot a different one every day and seemingly never get to the end of them. With that variety, though, comes a lot of quirkiness. A new generation of photographers has embraced one of the quirkiest cameras of all: The Nishika N8000. Although no technical marvel, its resurgence in the photography community is because of one unexpected trick, creating 3D animated GIFs.

The somewhat flawed auto focus system on the Panasonic GH5 has claimed plenty of attention since it's release, but if there is one feature which is undoubtedly five star, it's the dual stabilization technology, and here is the proof.

I stepped into photography world over 10 years ago and was lucky enough to have a wide variety of clients from different parts of the world. This made it essential for me to be flexible while negotiating or taking jobs despite cultural differences, from Armenia to U.S., from Mauritius to South Africa, Singapore, various European countries, and more. Usually you will get hired based on your portfolio, but sometimes there are clients who don’t understand much about photography. This is where the danger is. Everyone wants to get top results for the money they spend by hiring you, but what is considered the best for such clients?

It doesn't matter what stage your career is at, having a non-photographic job could increase your chances of getting better clients and earning considerably more money.

The Zhiyun-Tech Crane is our favorite gimbal for mirrorless cameras but it has one small problem: each time you remove the camera you'll have to balance the gimbal again and again. We've found a way around this by adding our own quick release plate.

A lot of people came to visit when I shared why most of us are not exactly the best at Instagram due to lack of hustle and effort. When someone takes the time to comment or like a few photos I will usually take the few seconds to go see their profile and immediately judge it. We all do it. Sometimes it is a good impression, but often since the majority of us don't plan the posts much, it is not. There are people out there doing it much better than us though. Let me show you some profiles that have a stunning first impression.

I spend a couple days a week inside a rock climbing gym when I’m not traveling. So when I got the opportunity to photograph Rock Spot Climbing's Boston Boulder Brawl, one of the bigger local bouldering competitions, I got really excited. As an adventure photographer I've photographed climbing in all sorts of environments but this would be my first attempt at shooting indoor climbing. Of course indoor gyms come with a completely different set of difficulties compared to shooting outdoors.

Over the last two years, I have been traveling quite a few times for a personal project involving the last remaining tribal-tattooed faces of Asia. The results of that project are finding a home at Tattoos of Asia. I still have five or six more trips to make before I can consider the project complete, and I wanted to share my experience so far with finding help for a project like this. Finding the right guide or fixer for your project isn't easy, and can be a lot like hiring a new employee. Let's go through my process for finding and hiring the right person for the job.

Shooting with flash can seem daunting at times, but it also opens up a whole new world of possibilities to take some truly epic photos that just wouldn't be possible with natural light. As a minor control freak, I was drawn to shooting with flash pretty early on in my career because I wanted to have control of the elements that made up my image. I didn't like the idea having to rely on what the sun was doing to determine whether or not I would be able to create the image that I envisioned. I wanted control so I took it. If you’re on the fence about whether or not you should start shooting with flash, this tutorial is for you.

Here at Fstoppers we use exclusively Manfrotto tripod heads and in the past we used two different types of plates. For still photography we used the 200PL plate on ball heads and for our videos we used 500 plates on pan heads. I have always hated the longer 500 plates and today we are finally getting rid of them.