Location

When you think group shots, what lens immediately comes to your mind? Often, the initial reaction to a "group picture" is to reach for the widest lens in your bag. It's a safe option that makes sure you'll fit everyone in the frame. It could be said group shots are more about accounting for everyone who was present rather than being a work of art. However, if you care about the quality of images you're creating, maybe your widest option shouldn't be your default.

Detroit may be known for things like its extreme crime, car theft, Robocop, and the Detroit Auto Show by the outside world, but it also happens to be a very creative town of possibilities and one of my new favorite places to photograph in. In fact, despite being a Washington DC-based photographer (soon to be relocated to NYC full-time), I've done 4 separate paid photoshoots in Detroit this Spring alone. Detroit has some of the most incredible grand locations, which you will learn about in the blog post below.

Along with our recent release of How to Become A Professional Commercial Wedding Photographer, we've featured several behind the scenes videos on how other photographs prepare for and shoot weddings. It's always worth a look to investigate what other wedding photographers outside of your area are doing differently. Rest assured, Doug Gordon will keep you entertained in his upcoming workshop on creativeLIVE.

Canon has recently come out with their short film, "Rhythm of Life' showcasing their new line of cine lenses. Shot with the Canon C500 director, Dean Hargrove and cinematographer, Steven Poster ASC, explain how the different cine lenses affect the footage and change the color and feel of your shots. The BTS video was shot with the Canon C300.

Benjamin Von Wong has finally wrapped up his long and productive European tour, Von Wong Does Europe. The very first shoot that he was able to do was also ironically the last to be published and for good reason. It will blow you away. Taking over 60 hours to retouch Ben collaborated with talented retouching guru, Chester van Bommel.

Bulb ramping is a technique used by time lapse photographers to adjust the shutter speed throughout the time lapse to compensate for natural changes in exposure. If you're looking to shoot timelapses of sunrises, sunsets or any change from day to night, this technique is critical. In his latest tutorial video, BC based photographer Joel Schat takes us through the steps needed in order to create a bulb ramping time lapse with ease.

This new video from the Life In Focus series from F-Stop Gear tells the story of Brian Matiash, an urban and landscape photographer from Portland, Oregon. A departure from the usual mountain or expedition setting, it's cool to see a photographer who is working on the streets of a city and how he makes use of the rugged F-stop bags. Hear Brian discuss how he got into photography and what motivates him to shoot urban areas.

Location scouting is just one more facet of the photographic process that takes time and money to carry out. It can get especially difficult if you are planning an out-of-town shoot. A lot of times this would mean arriving at the shoot location a day early. But there isn't always the time or budget to allow for that, as was the case for my shoot with Japanese metal band Boris last week. Lucky for me, Google came to my rescue.

Photographer Mario Testino shoots my favorite super lady, Kate Upton, for the June 2013 Vogue. Kate keeps things super classy for her spread and even rocks some rather large, dark eyebrows with her look. I am certainly one that appreciates some curves on a model, so I am glad to see Vogue is beefing up to the competition (see what I did there) instead of the same ol' too-skinny girl. Click through to see the shots from her upcoming feature

The follow-up to 2009's re-imagined (alternate universe) Star Trek film is probably one of the biggest blockbuster sequels of the 2013 film year. Follow J. J. Abrams as he directs the crew of the USS Enterprise as they fight off a new threat, John Harrison played by Star Trek newcomer, Benedict Cumberbatch. From the looks of the two B-roll videos and behind the scenes footage Star Trek: Into Darkness looks like an instant hit.

Baz Luhrmann the master of dazzling audiences with his self-coined style of filmmaking known as the 'Red Curtain' style is back. This week's new addition to his small filmography, 'The Great Gatsby' looks to fall under the same flourish and design as previous Luhrmann films, and certainly doesn't look disappointing. In this video Baz Luhrmann breaks down one of the scenes in the upcoming movie.

Guest Writer and photographer Phillip Schmidli wanted to harken back to memories of the movie ET with this stellar shot of the moon. To do so, he placed a model in front of the full moon and shot with a telephoto to recreate that famous scene from the classic film.

Sometimes you want a portrait that just screams drama and emotion. Sometimes that emotion might be joy, other times you may want to portray a sort of dark, brooding atmosphere. In this tutorial by PHLEARN, Aaron Nace walks you through a method he chose to turn a daytime portrait into something much darker.

Posing multiple people can be a difficult task as it is, but throw in parkour performers into the mix and the shoot can quickly become tedious, but if done correctly the results can turn out nothing short of amazing. In this video Benjamin Von Wong walks you through the lighting set up he used to bring a three dimensional feel to the photographs. He also explains the different composing techniques he uses to get the posing and composition spot on for the shoot.

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.

Since last November I have been shooting a photo series titled 'Comedic Value' which consists of NYC comedians shot in NYC locations for NYC charity, Art-Start. Of the 25 comics featured in the project, 1 of my favorite shoots was with Jim Gaffigan and his fantastic family. When discussing concepts with Jim, he mentioned that he needed a shot of him and his kids for his new book, 'Dad Is Fat' which will be out next month.

Al Jazeera English just premiered the first episode of their new show, "The New African Photography." Following a time of great turmoil for Africa, the show centers on the changing image of the continent as told through the eyes of photographers. The goal is to ultimately replace the images of famine and war that often come to mind and with images that redefine what Africa is becoming today.

We've all heard of renowned portrait photographer Zack Arias - not only is he a great shooter, but he's got a reputation for making some bold claims. Make no mistake that the Fuji X100S is a great little camera. Small, compact, feature-packed and with great image quality, you've probably heard quite a bit about it lately. But just HOW good is it? Zack Arias says that it's so good, in fact, that the DSLR is dead. Check out the video and let us

Tim Kemple has "always been an adventurer, an explorer, a climber", but how did he make the transition into being a photographer? A new web mini-series from F-Stop Gear is setting out to tell the story of outdoor and adventure photographers. In this premier episode, Tim Kemple shares his background while running around the mountains in France, and he explains what it takes to capture images in those environments.

Devin Graham creates Youtube videos for a living. Not just any Youtube videos, but breathtaking videos that not only leave you in awe-inspiring wonder, but are obviously made with tediously hard work, amazing creativity and most importantly... passion. Devin takes you behind the scenes in this motivating video about exactly what he does for a living.

Yahoo's new weather app that was released today just replaced my Apple weather app, and probably for good. Why? Because it's outstandingly beautiful thanks to Flickr image integration. Rather than just showing bland vectors of sun and clouds, Yahoo has backed up their accurate weather forecasting with geolocated imagery from Flickr users. So pretty...

I know you all have seen tons of life style photographers, all the happy, smiley shots of girls wearing weird, fashionable clothing. However, I think each photographer who shoots these is able to tell a different story with them. Joseph Tyler is one of these photographer who is able to tell a different story then the others. These shots are not all happy, smiley, and fun looking. They are more on the serious side of things which is a nice little change from the ordinary life style shots.

While walking the floor at WPPI, there was one item we kept seeing over and over again: the MeFoto tripod. It seemed like everyone had one, and we had never heard of the brand. So we spoke with the guys at the MeFoto booth who agreed to let us test them out. Now after using all three sizes of MeFoto tripods, I can see why they were everywhere: they’re excellent.

Kevin Jairaj, wedding and sports photographer based in Dallas, is usually shooting for USA Today Sports Images or for different unknown couples. Recently Kevin was hired by one of the most famous girls in the world to shoot her new set of images, for her own portfolio. Her name is McKayla Maroney, and she has more Olympic Gold medals than you. Check out the BTS video, and the final results.

Here in New York, we finally had a day that that you could actually call "warm." To celebrate, here is a BTS of the Guess shoot for their 2013 Spring/Summer collection shot in Bora Bora, Tahiti by Yu Tsai. I've always been a fan of the direction that Guess chooses to go with their campaigns. It has a seemingly effortless sex-appeal. A great thing to take away from this BTS is that, although every person on set is an incredibly talented professional, the fundamentals of what they are doing is rooted in simplicity.

Shooting underwater is not a simple task, and usually not very affordable. To shoot underwater you need not only the knowledge, but also expensive DSLR housing (or point and shoot cameras designed to shoot underwater) and also underwater lighting system if you want to fully control the lighting. Once you get underwater with your subject, the water lets you create striking and beautiful images, that you can never create out in the fresh air. Check out these great examples of underwater photography.

Visual effects have been a huge part of the movie industry since well... movies began. Adding that extra little touch of magic makes a movie that much better and there are millions of ways to do that.

In Michael Wolf’s latest photography series, entitled ‘Architecture of Density’, the urban landscapes of Hong Kong are explored. While his photos in the series rarely contain people, creative angles, or any context, they still manage to provide a mind-blowing look into the haunting and seemingly endless buildings of mega city Hong Kong.