I recommend watching this very interesting (and brief) interview of Ramit Sethi on how to charge more for your work. Whether that work is photography, videography, graphic design or anything else, he has some interesting things to say including why charging what others in your territory are charging is a bad idea.
Every once in a while I come across a photographer or project that blows me away in terms of content, just in time for Independence Day weekend, B&H released this video of Stacy Pearsall, US Airforce Veteran and combat photojournalist, telling the story behind one of her latest and largest project, photographing veterans. Take a look.
After spending a fair amount of time looking through the best images that the Fstoppers community has to offer, it's pretty easy to see what sets them apart. Not only are the shots themselves exceptional, but the post processing is world class (Julia Kuzmenko McKim and Michael Woloszynowicz, Photoshop extraordinaires, hold a few of our top spots). Photographers often take on their own post work either because of budget or wanting to maintain their full creative vision. Sometimes, even great photographers call on the retouching gods to lace their images with a bit of perfection. Marina Dean-Francis is one such retoucher (and photographer) with that incredible power.
Auxiliary Magazine is all about the alternative. They go against the mainstream to bring you the beauty of sub-culture which they have been proudly doing for 5 years and through 32 issues. I sat down with the Editor In Chief for Auxiliary Magazine, Jennifer Link, to discuss what it takes to run a popular independent magazine as well as their recent Kickstarter campaign to help the magazine go to print.
Stijn Verlinde is boarding a flight home to Belgium from a shoot in Las Vegas. “The one piece of advice I would give to anyone starting out is 'be dedicated'.” Stijn, who started out a few years ago with some basic gear has lived by that advice. He is constantly working and is revolutionizing dance music festival videos across the globe. His success is not elusive or down to luck – it’s the result of three very clear factors we can all apply.
Photographer Karen Glaser is best described as a photographer of water. Declining to be “pigeonholed,” Glaser pulls from the genres of landscape, underwater, fine art, street, and documentary photography in her approach to capturing the complicated, beautiful, and diverse aquatic landscapes of Florida.
thinkTank's ongoing series, "About A Photo," is a tremendous peek into the process of some amazing photographers. The series has the featured photographer narrate the story of one of their images. In this episode, William Albert Allard speaks about his photograph of a cowboy named Stan and why he doesn't take a photo of someone - but into them.
Lindsay Adler launched her new company this spring, Dream Shoot Rentals to provide couture dress, accessories, and props to give photographers a source to execute their visions and build their portfolios. Lindsay explained her new vision for this company: “While teaching across the United States, photographers are always asking how they can get a hold of gorgeous clothing for their shoots. Often pieces are too expensive or difficult to attain.
Sarah Ann Loreth is a fine art photographer who creates thought provoking, eye catching images that are reflective of her innermost feelings. She strives to develop beautiful, emotive photographs that tell a story of whomever it is capturing...
Josh Newton is all too familiar with shooting under pressure as a professional wedding and musician photographer. Recently though, he had a wedding shoot that's gotten him national press for it's high stakes and unbelievably gorgeous results. Josh was able to take some time out of his busy schedule for a brief interview to talk about his now famous forest fire wedding shoot.
We get stuck, we fall into these positions where we call ourselves photographers and think that's all we'll ever be. That's not a bad thing, but the truth is there are so many different outlets we can flow into being photographers. For some of us, that means using our knowledge and abilities to help others. Thats exactly what Jose Rosado did with his new company, Zēro.
Thirty years after their original collaboration for Koyaanisqatsi, filmmaker Godfrey Reggio and Philip Glass are at it again with documentary where the audience is placed in an unusual situation: watching the varied expressions of others interacting with technology. This video, an Fstoppers exclusive, gives you a look into the mind of Godfrey Reggio while making the film.
Israeli photojournalist Ziv Koren is one of the most successful photojournalists in the world and mostly known for his unique/striking Arab-Israeli conflict images. In the past 25 years he won multiple prestigious international awards and captured some iconic news photos we all know and appreciate. Recently Jared Polin sat down with him in his studio in Israel for a very interesting 45-minute video interview that you won't want to miss. [Interview starts at 1:16:30]
Jonathon Keats is an American conceptual artist based in San Francisco. This year Jonathon began a new project he calls Century Camera in which he (and the people of Berlin) hide 100 pinhole cameras with the hopes of creating the first series of century-long exposures. Jonathon was kind enough to make time to speak with me and share the details, inspiration, and process behind this ambitious project — you don't want to miss this.
The whole idea of what a camera strap should look like and how it should perform changed when the MoneyMaker hit the scene just a few years back. Gone were the days of tactical black nylon. A new era of stylish form and function began when Tulsa, Oklahoma based wedding photographer turned entrepreneur Matthew Swaggart founded HoldFast – a luxury line of leather camera gear and accessories.
Only the rare few of the millions of selfies taken have mass appeal, and an even rarer few get their pose/selfie named after them and their own hashtag. Kendrick Brinson and David Walter Banks are the husband wife photography team behind brinsonbanks.com and, not insignificantly, the main subjects and namesake of a style of pose and photo that has now become known as BrinsonBanksing, equipped with its own Instagram hashtag.
Weapons of Choice is a powerful visual series that demonstrates, through painfully jaw-dropping imagery, the damage verbal abuse has on a person. I found myself saddened yet amazed while looking through the photos. Richard Johnson takes the power of a photo to a whole new level by eloquently illustrating the invisible and eternal scars victims of emotional, sexual and verbal abuse endure.
When you’re backed by the likes of Silicon Valley superstars like Youtube co-founder Jawed Karim, Y-Combinator, and a half-dozen or so other techie entrepreneurs, you know you’ve got something good. That something good is Lumoid, which rents photo gear at unheard-of prices, especially when you add in a few perks...
Tom Atwood, a photographer and professor of broadcast journalism at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, went about taking photographs of models for a project he described as a series of “industrial landscape portraits” near the Phillips 66 Wood River Refinery in Roxana, Illinois. His shoot put him up against resistance and alleged serious threats.
Anyone who reads Fstoppers knows about Peter Hurley and his successful headshot business. Aside from being a great photographer, Peter is also a respected educator and speaker. We always see him in action in the different videos, and see his working techniques and creative direction, but we never really had the chance to hear the story of how he became the successful photographer he is today. Check out this very interesting video where Peter talks about how he went from being on the Olympic team, to being a headshot photographer.
What happens when two filmmakers get together, fill a suitcase with camera gear and hop on a plane? In the case of Preston Kanak and Brent Foster, a great work of digital cinema. With only a rough idea of what they wanted, much was left to chance as these two spent 8 days in Havana, Cuba. Read on for the final film and some insight from the creators.
SPOILER WARNING. Listening to Vincent Laforet might leave you forever changed, never able to watch film or TV the same way again. The silver lining is he can also change the way you shoot, and engage, with your audience. With that disclaimer out of the way (you can't say I didn't warn you), join me as I talk to Vincent for this exclusive as we venture down the film and motion rabbit hole. How deep we go is really up to you...
Michael Ash Smith is a commercial wedding, portrait, and lifestyle photographer based out of Barto, PA. As a hybrid photographer, much of Michael's work is done on 35mm and medium format film with some instant film here and there for special occasions. He recently shared images from a wedding he shot over on the Junebug Weddings blog. The difference? Everything he shot that day was with instant film.
The iconic Windows XP wallpaper "Bliss" is widely considered to be the world's most viewed image. Though most of us are familiar with the beautiful image that has graced our computers at one point or another, not many are familiar with the story of how it came to be, and fewer yet that it is in fact a real image captured on film! Photographer Charles O'Rear shares with us the story behind how he created the image with nothing more than his Mamiya RZ67 and a roll of Fuji Film.
Brandon Cawood, from Dalton GA, has taken appreciating first responders to the next level. What began as a personal project to photograph local EMS personnel, soon blew up and went viral. Cawood captures priceless moments in the daily lives of firefighters, police and other public safety personnel. He has a movie poster style and pulls it off in a flawless manner.
Cinescapes Collective is a Saskatchewan, Canada based production group that has been putting together unique documentary content that has a dramatic and cinematic aesthetic. Their most recent short tells the story of Kessler, the creators of popular video production gear like sliders, cranes, and now motion control products.
Peter Menzel is an award winning photojournalist whose work has appeared in many national and international publications such as: National Geographic, Time, Wired, Geo, Stern, Paris Match, Life, Le Figaro and Forbes. Today his new project: Waste in Focus. A documentary project that profiles eight families in four different cities with one weeks worth of trash.
The brand new book from commercial photographer David Molnar "iPhone Only Photography" is FREE for the next week, so grab your free copy right away! I had an interview with David this week about the launch of his book and I was thrilled to hear his responses! This book is put together so well, and would be a great gift idea as well!
Merely two years ago, Stanislav picked up his first camera: a Lumix G3 for $600. From that point forward his inspirational journey began. The majority of his mind-blowing work was taken in his attic using friends as models. Now he is known as Sean Archer - a natural light photographer who specializes in female portraits. His work is proof that it’s not about gear. It’s about the photographer; it's about the vision of the artist.
Corey Rich just released his new film, "Dedicated," which reveals the hard work and perseverance of 3 professional photographers. Each shooter profiled has their own version of what it takes to perform at the highest level and produce great work. A behind the scenes video is in the full post.
Adam Elmakias is one of my favorite live music photographers so I did my best to reach out to him for an interview. He was more than happy to answer a LOT of questions I had for him and left us with one of my favorite interviews I’ve ever done.
Actors/celebrities Kristen Bell And Dax Shepard are on a mission to make paparazzi stop taking photos of celebrities’ kids. They know it will be hard to make it illegal, so they are trying a different approach: make magazines and media outlets stop buying celebrity children photos from the paparazzi.
Here at Fstoppers, our goal is to hire some of the very best photographers and educators in the industry to provide some insight on how they work, and what they've learned within the industry they're a part of. Recent Fstoppers Writer and Lifestyle Photographer John Schell recently met with Framed Network to show them, and us, what it's like to work on one of his photo shoots.
I'm always fascinated by what makes the best photographers think they way they do. What shapes their ways of seeing? In the current climate of photography, it's easy to get lost in everything technical. We can often lose sight of the most important thing about photography...why we photograph. In this video from Steve McCurry's Youtube channel, we get a glimpse at what goes on in the master mind of perhaps the world's greatest living photographer.
Our dreams are often wildly confusing with imagery many of us don't understand and memories which seem to fade the instant our eyes open. Photographer Nicolas Bruno suffers from a condition called sleep paralysis which keeps him in a halfway state between being asleep and being awake. Through his incredible and haunting images Nicolas Bruno recreates the experiences from his dreamscape. This week we interview him to get a better idea of the struggle and the process behind his art.
About 5 years ago, when I was still in my Photography college in Australia, our teachers would regularly introduce us to the new and noteworthy Australian photographers' and digital artists' work. Among others there was one artist, whose work really grabbed my attention and I have been watching her growth and success ever since.
Garry Winogrand is considered by some to be one of the top American photographers of his, or any generation. His books "The Animals" and "Public Relations" are classics, and the number of rolls of film he took over his short life are staggering. When he died he left behind 9,000 rolls of developed and undeveloped film. I can't even imagine the costs involved in processing and scanning those negatives.
When I first came across Guilherme Brasileiro’s series “Delicadezas” on Instagram, I was pulled in by a seemingly nonsensical, quirky theme: dozens of portraits, cropped close featuring men and women, each holding a hand under their chin. The energy of the series struck me as open and full of warmth; the subject’s reaction to the pose they had been asked to assume was usually very apparent (some looked amused, a good few looked self-conscious, and some had really obviously embraced the idea).
Eric Paré is back with another breathtaking timelapse project known simply as "Windscale". Eric is best known for his amazing light-painting and bullet-time project, "Lightspin". While on a vacation journey from Montréal to Nevada for the popular Burning Man festival Eric and friend Marie-Line Migneault stopped to film this breathtaking short film.
Knowing the importance of color matching strobes indoors is crucial when combining strobes and ambient lighting. Fixing mismatched lighting temperatures can be extremely difficult in post process. Ian Christmann, a commercial and lifestyle photographer discovered a method which will change your life.
Does photography have the power to radically change and improve lives? Brooke Shaden, one of the most successful contemporary fine art photographers around today thinks so. Brooke has a single-minded goal to help others through photography - and she’s only got 23 days left to do make her plan a reality.
Thomy Keat is a photographer based in Paris. Although corporate photography makes up much of his job, Keat says street photography is “the thing that makes me want to keep doing what I do as a professional photographer.” Pulling strong stylistic influence from his commercial work, Keat’s street photography is full of contrast, bold lines and repeated colors.
Sponsored by “Hunger Free Colorado”, a recent photo series gave digital cameras to 15 woman living on food stamps in Colorado, and asked them to document their lives using the cameras in a series called "Hunger Through My Lens". The concept is simple, but what it leaves us with, is some incredibly powerful images on the harsh reality of the lives of those battling hunger in America.
The night sky is an astounding phenomenon that fascinates almost every individual. Stars have been around for thousands of years and yet, humankind is still mesmerized by their beauty. Despite the distance, we have such a strong connection and love for these great unknown entities. Capturing the magnificence of the night sky is highly rewarding and can be an exciting process as well.
Publications allowing individual photographers access to their Instagram accounts is an increasingly common practice, and helps to foster a more intimate look at a photographer’s process. For example, Time Magazine allowed several photographers access to its Instagram account after Hurricane Sandy, enabling the magazine to update its almost 600k followers in real time.
Before starting in the world of retouching, I always wanted to know more about it. Now that I'm working full time as a retoucher, I am happy to give back when I can. Julia Kuzmenko McKim of the Retouching Academy reached out to me to speak with her on retouching, inspiration, and business. If you aren't familiar with her already, she's also a staff writer here.
Few months back we featured the incredible and unique rock climbing photos of Seattle-based photographer Kiliii Fish. This week Kiliii finished his newest photo series he worked on for a long time - this time survival was the theme. The results? Nothing short of epic. In this interview he explains the whole process and reveals how he shot and edited it all.
I’ve just watched one of the best fashion shorts I’ve seen in months. It combines gorgeous color, cinematography, camera movement and Hitchcock-styled, film noir sensibility beautifully. Interestingly, after speaking to one of the directors, regardless of budget or what we’re shooting, there are real gems to be gleaned from their experiences. Read on for the full scoop.
Jeffrey Mckee is a Lawrence, KS-based photographer and a graphic designer for the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas. His colorful portraits, created with Polaroid instant film, evoke a sense of dreamy playfulness.
Like so many 20th century processes, Polaroid photography is a format far less common than its digital counterparts. However, equipment and film for instant photography have been made more accessible in recent years.
I met Brian Friedman as we were both shooting various iHeartRadio festivals and concerts around the US a few years back. Brian is a machine. He's passionate, hard working, and one of the best modern concert photographers I've ever met.
