Let’s face it. From the first moment we decide to pick up a camera, call ourselves a photographer, and try to make some money at what we do, we are constantly trying to find ways to stand out from the billion or so other photographers in our our who are trying to do that exact same thing.
One of the most fun things about being a creative individual is seeing the reaction people have when you finally publish your work. In just two days my Taser Photoshoot video and photo series has gained viral status with over 2 Million views on Youtube alone. After reading hundreds of comments, replying to an overflowing inbox, and talking on the phone to more organizations than I could imagine, tonight the Fstoppers crew took a break to watch the coverage spill over to CNN. Enjoy a laugh with us!
The popular show Downton Abbey just released a set of photos to help advertise for Season 5 and this morning Darren Bell on Twitter pointed out a rather large mistake in the photo. If you haven't seen it yet already it might be helpful to understand that the show takes place in the 1920's back when water didn't come in plastic bottles. Have you spotted it yet?
Photographer Suzanne Heintz has spent the past fourteen years “playing house” with two mannequins-her fictitious husband “Chauncey” and their daughter "Mary Margaret". Her fantastically elaborate “Life Once Removed” series, featured previously on Fstoppers, stemmed from a frustration with the stigma she faced as a single adult woman. A continuation of Heintz’ series, “The Vows” was recently released, and features Heintz and Chauncey renewing their vows in a satirical-but very real- ceremony.
Noted conceptual photographer Benjamin Von Wong has been captivating his audience for years with his imaginative imagery. So when Von Wong showed up to Australia gift-wrapped in box to surprise one of his biggest fans for their birthday, was it really so strange? Nevertheless, the tale of how Von Wong ended up meeting his super fan Tyler Grace is actually more thoughtful and heartfelt than one might expect.
While in Macedonia shooting video and stills for the company Petzl, photographer Keith Ladzinski was capturing aerial footage in the village of Prilep with a DJI Phantom II. The unexpected happened and the quadcopter got stuck on a church steeple in the middle of a shot. How they got the Phantom back was even more of a spectacle. Check out the first few minutes of this video to see footage of both the crash and the climb to get it back.
Don’t believe everything you see or read on the internet, guys. Case in point, "We Still Coming." There has recently been a photograph allegedly supported by a text message screen-capture making the rounds online. It alludes to a wedding barbecue being crashed by a group of strangers because the bride-to-be sent out an invitation to the wrong number. Although the final communication shown, “We still coming,” is hilarious when viewed next to a photograph of a white wedding party surrounded by a group of young African-American men in casual attire. The thing is... the whole story is a lie - sort of!
Pentax has had a long fall in the industry since the digital era of photography. Once a major player in the film industry, Pentax now only touches on about 6% of the entire DSLR market and under 2% when you account all digital camera purchases in the last few years. But they did get one thing right, and that is the Gunmetal-Grey Pentax K-3 Prestige Edition.
The guys from Film Riot catch ‘Guy Ritchie Disease’ and in the process teach you how to create the "Guy Ritchie" freeze frame effect. Whether you need an awesome intro title for your film or even a great effect for your own behind the scenes photography vlog, this Film riot video shows you how to create it in Adobe After Effects. If you’re more comfortable in Photoshop, you can put it together in there and then animate it in After Effects.
What started out as a couple of school girls playfully creating a video ends up as an ad spot for Suntory's C.C. Lemon. This is not an educational video so much as another good demonstration of how low cost gear and some skilled editing can turn out pretty awesome, that is, if the camera shakes don't make you nauseous.
Photographer Lukas Renlund recently traveled to Cape Town, South Africa where he had his "Steal My Photograph!" photo exhibition. This is the forth show/exhibition of its kind, in which he asked random people who passed by to try and steal his work. He decided to create value (or at least perception of value) for his art by making it worthy of stealing. And of course make it into a fun exhibition people will share with their friends and will remember for a long time. Check out his short BTS video of his most recent exhibition, and read his exclusive interview about the whole project.
When I was in High School, I took, among other things, an introduction drawing and painting class. At the beginning of the year, our teacher, Mrs. Yantz directed us to draw a landscape using either crayon, charcoal, pen or pencil. At the end of the session, she told us, excitedly, that we were going to tape our finished pieces to the chalkboard and our classmates would critique our work.
I don't know about you guys, but I sometimes get some pretty questionable packing from Amazon, but this far exceeds anything I've ever encountered. Youtuber Ottar Gilason works for a camera store and the amount of packaging DHL included on an order for a single camera battery charger is downright hilarious.
New Orleans, Louisiana. If you’ve been following along, you may remember me mentioning at some point that starting around the beginning of July, my girlfriend Holly, our dog Olive, and I, will be giving up our apartment, putting almost everything we own into storage, and hitting the open road for at least two to six months.
Jared Polin, aka FRO from FroKnowsPhoto, is teaching a free low-light photography course today through Wednesday on CreativeLive. Using a mix of live shoots and lectures, Jared's course will be a tremendous resource for beginner photographers seeking to confidently approach difficult low-lighting situation such as tight spaces, dark halls and live concerts.
If you're a wedding photographer then you're all to familiar with Uncle Bob photographers: people with a camera getting in your way, breathing down your neck asking about settings and gear, and otherwise making your life dificult. This parody instructional video teaches Uncle Bob how to get the best pictures he can at a wedding while also being a huge annoyance to the wedding guests and photographer.
As part of the Selfie generation, we (sometimes) find ourselves posting photos of ourselves in weird poses, or photos that make us look a little douchey in general. It's time to stop, reflect and change our habits - which is why this video above was created. This video shows us some of the most annoying types of posts we see (or contribute) on Instagram on a daily basis, and actually makes the selfie craze look.. well.. crazy. Hopefully it will make people think twice before they post a mirror selfie. Amen.
Have a creative urge to create something but have no time to execute it? Or maybe you feel you don't have the right location and atmosphere? I think you should consider getting stuck at the airport. Richard Dunn did just that. The Georgia man got stuck overnight at Las Vegas' McCarran International Airport, alone, and decided to use do something useful with his time. By useful, I mean create a Celine Dion music video.
At some point or another we've all been heckled by the man for our photography but this is taking it to an extreme. Turns out photography based t-shirts aren't even safe. Jared Polin, of Fro Knows Photo recently had a run-in at a Six Flags amusement park because of his signature "I SHOOT RAW" t-shirt.
If you watched the Fstoppers "How To Become a Professional Commercial Wedding Photographer" DVD, you might remember a scene where Lee Is shooting by the water. He later told us he was too concerned for the structural integrity of a dock to put a wedding party on it, stating he didn't want to be "that photographer." Well, Lee might have avoided it, but this group sure didn't.
Here is another lighthearted video for you to enjoy on this lazy Sunday or to help you ease into your Monday morning. I really don't know where DL Cade dug these guys up from but I'm glad he did. If you haven't already seen this video over on Petapixel then watch now as The Chaser's War on Everything try to convince an unsuspecting stranger to shoot 40 different pictures. They even add a few hilarious curve balls in towards the end.
I've always been a Lowepro fan. I own pelicans, Think Tank, ONA, swag backpacks... the works. But for some reason I keep gravitating back to Lowepro. I currently own both the old and new versions of the Pro Roller bags. In an attempt to show how well protected your gear is inside the new Lowepro Pro Roller X-Series, Lowepro decided to do the ridiculous.
The guys at DigitalRev are at it again! They've created this video about how one is guaranteed to look like a true pro photographer. A lot of it is meant to be silly and humorous, but there are actually a couple of tips in there that will actually help you be a better photographer.
Brought to our attention by Photography Bay, Amazon has patented a most ingenious invention: a completely revolutionary way to get a "true white" background on an image in-camera, without any post processing. We didn't understand how it was done, but now the US Patent Office has helped us all by posting this granted patent complete with plenty of diagrams supplied by Amazon's brilliant inventors.
It seems that anyone can make a camera, but it takes a true visionary to craft a truly excellent camera. It's not the camera we want, but the camera we need. the WALLEY POS-86 is that camera, and it's going to redefine what we think of cinematography from this point forward. 16-bit RAW processing, 3D capabilities, beautiful on-camera light built-in, and all in a compact and well-built ergonomic design.
One of the hardest parts of filming on moving sets such as moving cars or trains is to maintain perfect lighting in a way that makes sense to the viewer. There are many obstacles the filmmakers have to deal with when shooting on a moving set, like how to move the lights while keeping it on the same angle while the vehicle is moving and how to keep the camera shot steady and focused on the subject. Check out this great BTS video showing how filmmakers in China solved these problems.
Although it would seem like common sense, proper motivation is key toward not only getting things done, but getting things done well. This is true in any creative field and this is especially true, it seems, in the over-saturated everybody-with-a-camera-is-a-photographer world we live in.
We posted a set of videos released by Pathé News, part of their 85,000 reels released, but this one really stood out to me- it's hilarious. I'll add that I've taught and taken quite a few photo workshops in my day, but I would kill to know what that instructor was saying to his students and the models. Let's break this video down shall we?
While browsing the web for editing tips, I ran across this video tutorial that had me intrigued based on the title "How To Make A Sick Mountain Bike Edit." I normally don't watch mountain bike videos, but this one had me from the beginning.
Every year the photo community is besieged by April Fool’s Day jokes. This year's batch included a fake Canon 1D-W, a 15-foot tripod, and BorrowLenses adding a “rent an intern” option. This workflow serves as a tongue-in-cheek reminder of just how far our editing software has come since its release in February, 1990. Photoshop 1.0 was Mac-exclusive, only allowed one "undo", and even pre-dates the .jpg file.
While Minneapolis-based photographer Cameron Wittig is probably best known for his intriguing portraits of musicians like Haley Bonar and Andrew Bird, I discovered him through his humorous project, “Duluth Typologies”. The series features houses built on steep hills in the small town of Duluth, Minnesota. Using a simple adjustment of angle, the houses in “Duluth Typologies” appear to be sliding into the flat ground beneath them, creating a humorous commentary on the potential of imagery to lie.
This year has proven to be more scandolous than provocative in the fine art photography circuit. More and more photographers are coming to the realization that the same stuff doesn't sell and the proverbial bar must be raised with every shoot. The photos below are probably the most extreme examples of this new wave of photographers resorting to such fine art methods in posing, makeup, and subject matter. NSFW
It’s no secret that everyone can become burnt out on what they do. Whether we are photographers, athletes, truck drivers, or teachers. If we do something long enough, maybe unless you’re a fighter pilot, professional surfer, and/or an astronaut, almost everyone will experience a period of time in their career when they’re flat-out bored and/or they suddenly arrive at a place where they question both their work and if what they’re doing is really what they should be doing.
I know, I know. My post last Sunday also featured Zack but when you put yourself out there as much as he does, you're going to get noticed (a lesson for us all). Besides, this isn't really about him. This is about one of the greatest challenges ever conceived in the photography industry. That's right kids. It's the 2014 Gulf Photo Plus ShootOut, pitting Sara Lando against Zack Arias with cameos by some of the best shooters in the industry.
James is not one of the ordinary kids in town. James is a superhero shooting lasers from his eyes and flying around. These super powers are all possible thanks to his dad, Daniel Hashimoto, who is a DreamWorks animator and a visual effects specialist based in LA. Daniel decided to use his visual effects skills and upgrade his own home-videos of his young son James, who is now also known as "The Action Kid".
Creative writer Kendra Eash wrote a painfully accurate article for Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendencies that put into perspective what most brand and corporation videos look and sound like. Taking it to the next level, stock clip site Dissolve realized it was indeed generic, and pulled together their own stock clips cut to Kendra's writing, resulting in a hilarious edit.
Good friend (and even better photographer) Zack Arias over at DEDPXL.com just kicked out a little Q&A video on how to get your foot in advertising agencies' doors. As usual Zack delivers solid, straight forward, no-nonsense advice and as a bonus you get to meet Carl (the laconic squirrel). There's even a shout out to John Keatley from the Fstoppers' Bahamas Workshop coming up in May.
What happens when you combine a GoPro Hero +3, a DJI Phantom II, an actor dressed as Superman, and some clever video editing? How about one awesome simulation of what it must be like to be Superman as he flies through Los Angeles. If you were upset with our recent Phantom 2 Gopro height test last week, you are definitely not going to want to watch this video. Be sure to check out Sam and Niko's behind the scenes video
I've read plenty of articles online about the sharing of user information, privacy settings on facebook, and the creepy things that someone could do with malicious intentions. In this video, Sam Pepper uses Instagram location tagging to find girls in the area, and makes them believe they know each other by sharing information they posted online.
Ok, sure it's advertising but it's creative, entertaining advertising by global ad agency Saarchi & Saatchi and executive creative director Jason Mendes. Imagine going to your favorite local theater, plopping your butt down with your popped corn in one hand and coke in the other. And just as you settle in look up to find that you have become an advertising superstar.
Most photobombs we know are the ones of our drunk friend who walks in behind a group shot at a party, or of a random old lady who eats while walking when you take a selfie outside with your best friend. But what if Jimmy Fallon and Jon Hamm were the ones photobombing your shots? In one word - Awesomeness.
Remember when Jean-Clade Van Damme released his awesome Volvo Trucks commercial? Then, it was followed by an even more awesome Chuck Norris doing the splits between two planes video response? Yah, we do. Turns out Chuck Norris truly can be beat though!
A few weeks back, I posted a full behind the scenes blog about my Robocop photoshoot. I had such a fun time with the shoot and final images that I figured others may enjoy playing with my Phase One MF raw files as well. I posted a contest on my personal photography blog that challenged people to re-interpret Robocop using up to 8 of my supplied Phase One RAW files. There was hundreds of entries from across the globe a handful of star-studded judges to review the entries.
They are out there. Lurking in the shadows and deep recesses of the internet where common sense is not welcome and logic has yet to be invented. I am speaking of course about every small business owner’s worst nightmare. The potential client that has no potential. Nothing I had encountered before could prepare me for the hilarious email I received one fine Monday morning.
Fashion icon, model, plaything. No matter how you see her Barbara Millicent Roberts (a.k.a. Barbie) proves that she's still got it at the age of 55 by landing the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition (technically a promotional cover-wrap for the American International Toy Fair). Even though this tongue-in-cheek video was primarily created for humorous reasons you still get a good glimpse behind the scenes with legendary photographer Walter Iooss.
Kai of DigitalRev is known for his Cheap Camera Challenges where he gives successful photographers a cheap camera and asks them to create awesome images with it. Photo mogul Chase Jarvis decided recently to turn the tables and give his own challenge to Kai himself, and see how he can handle it. The challenge was to create one of Chase's most iconic images (originally shot with Hasselblad) with a GoPro Hero3+.
This morning as I was perusing through the front page of the internet, a.k.a. Reddit, I came across this 2-minute wedding video that had me laughing till my chest hurt. I couldn't help but watch it three times. The friends and family that helped plan this gypsy wedding sure know how to throw a fantastic dangerous party.
Lately we've been seeing a lot about the Nikon Df. Everything from Lee Morris' Nikon Df Hipster Review to Chase Jarvis' First Impressions, and it seems like the early popular opinion has judged the Df as lacking. Adding to the growing list of underwhelmed reviews is this video from DigitalRevTV as they compare how the D4 sensor performs in both the Df and D4 models.
I would have thought the storm trooper armor would have been twerk prohibitive but I was wrong, I was very wrong. Check out the behind the scenes of the making of this video below.
About two months ago, I posted a highly controversial post called The Nikon Df Represents Everything Wrong With Photography. Even though I completely stand behind my original article, I began to wonder if I had not given Nikon's newest DSLR offering a fair chance. Today I decided to take the Nikon Df out into the real world and not only test it's photographic capabilities, but also hear what normal people had to say about it.