Fstoppers Original Articles

Adobe Lightroom was a pretty slick piece of software to begin with, but over the past several updates it has become an incredibly powerful tool for photographers. Of all the different controls and tools available within the software, the Detail panel has become one of my favorites. If you use Adobe Camera Raw or Adobe Photoshop, you can find the same set of controls that we're talking about today which of course is within Lightroom. Adobe has been streamlining their systems for a long enough time now that handling raw files, although from a cataloging perspective is quite different, is almost identical between Lightroom, Camera Raw, and Photoshop.

Ten years from now, will you be the equivalent to what I refer to as film hipsters, fighting for an obsolete technology, or will you be a part of something that may be inevitable? Something that we all seem to refuse to talk about?

What is it about landscape photography that draws us back into nature? Is it waiting for the perfect light to hit the mountains overlooking a vast, green valley? Is it sitting on a rocky shore, listening to and witnessing the sheer power of Mother Nature's waves crash against the rocky shore? Is it the calmness of a misty pine forest at dawn, waiting for the sunrise and hearing the gentle crack of the trees, as a gentle breeze sweeps through the branches? Or is it the thrill of chasing a storm, down a highway in the countryside, while being pelted with hail the size of golf balls?

Wedding and bridal expos are a great place to find potential clients for your boudoir business. Brides typically come in with their mothers, girlfriends, and sometimes part of the wedding party giving you the opportunity to speak with many leads at one time. One photographer has had over 50 percent of her clients just from bridal booths alone.

This week's theme called for "music" and the results were great as usual. There is a lot of diversity on all of our WeeklyFstop lists and this one is no exception. One featured photographer almost had to be disqualified after turning in multiple entries. Luckily they both rocked and the show went on!

There are two ways to photography: registration and creation. Let me be clear that, before we get into a short essay about self-acceptance in art, neither is better than the other. While I’d like to teach you today about conscious creation, registration is the inherent nature of photography. But the way we modify and modulate light before it hits the sensor, as well as the entire process after it, is all up to us and not the camera manufacturer.

Remember the old adage, “If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all”? Yeah, that’s not really a thing on the Internet. As photographers we need to understand that criticism is rampant, it's unavoidable, and it's also not always a bad thing. Here’s how to embrace it.

It's far too easy for people working in a creative field to somehow get the sense that basic attributes of professionalism don't apply because we're working in a non-traditional job setting. This is something to watch out for as that belief couldn't be further from the truth or worse for your business. Being labelled as an artist does not excuse poor professional habits or practices and if you're serious about having a lasting impact and a long career these common-sense business practices should be very high on your priority list.

One of the most common retouching catastrophes I see on a day to day basis is an overzealous attack on eyes. Like over-baked HDR, obnoxiously over-retouched eyes have become almost ubiquitous among less experienced retouchers. Awareness is the first step to recovery, so in the spirit of painting a big obvious flag in front of all of you eye ruiners out there, take note. Your models will love you if you learn how to make their eyes look amazing without making them look like they belong in an episode of "Stranger Things."

As Halloween comes to a close and we reflect on all the creative costumes roaming the streets, I think it’s a good time we take a moment to talk about cultural appropriation. We are blessed as photographers to be able to view images from any culture in the world through the Internet. It’s pretty cool that we have access to unlimited inspiration from just about everywhere, something the founding fathers of photography had nothing close to. It's important for photographers to have a vast basic knowledge of cultures, subcultures, and social classes so that we can always use culture with respect and honor in our images.

The Huawei Mate 10 Pro has two f/1.6 cameras, so it’s no slouch in dark scenes. How far can it’s stellar AI chip push the image though?

“Never say never.” That’s what they always say. But, as hard as I try to adhere to that message, there are a few things I swore I would never do again. Yet last week I found myself doing just one of those things. Even worse, it was my idea. And to my surprise, it was a good one.

This is a simple yet very personal and special project you can do at home for your clients, family, or your own walls. Traditional online canvas sales proceeding a photo session can be bland and impersonal. So if you have some time to spare for this project, it creates a connection like no other with your clients. I think of projects like this as the cherry on top of a photoshoot. It's one of the few ways to carry your artistic ability all the way through to the hard copy. This technique is usually used in the fine arts and street art world, so adding this to digital photography is a cool way to merge the two worlds. Essentially, with this you will separate your photo's ink from the paper to leave it floating in clear acrylic medium.

One of the best things about window light is that you can find it almost anywhere. As winter approaches and chilly weather threatens to keep photo sessions indoors, photographers will face the choice of how to light their portraits. Strobes and flashes are a great option, but not all photographers own them. Almost everyone has access to a window though, and a window has plenty to offer any photographer who knows how to use it.

The Fstoppers community is brimming with creative vision and talent. Every day, we comb through your work, looking for images to feature as the Photo of the Day or simply to admire your creativity and technical prowess. In 2017, we're featuring a new photographer every month, whose portfolio represents both stellar photographic achievement and a high level of involvement within the Fstoppers community.

For many photographers, particularly hobbyists, making an image black and white is almost arbitrary. I remember in the early days of my photography, I was the same. I would mutter: "I wonder if this would look good in black and white," and then, I'd try it. Sometimes, it would look better, but usually, it would not. I presumed it was all just down to taste, but that's not true. After years of reading around the subject and experimenting, I began to understand why it worked when it did and conversely, why it often didn't. Here are some key elements that ought to be present in black and white images, and why.

San Francisco-based photographer Jeff Colhoun spent the last three summers in Mongolia documenting the activity of various environmental protection projects. The Genghis Khan nation is a huge country with a thin population of three million inhabitants spread out across a vast territory. The remoteness of the place is what made this assignment both appealing and challenging. Here is the story of this photographic journey.

In a previous article, we discovered how we could transition from Lightroom to ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2018 by importing old catalogs. We also discovered the different files management options and tools ACDSee Ultimate 2018 has to offer. With this second and last part, we are going to go through the main photo editing tools you’d use in Lightroom and see their counterpart in ACDSee. If you are making the switch from the Adobe solution to ACDSee Ultimate 2018, be sure to read this article.

You've probably heard the statement "nice and simple." Sometimes it's true, indeed, but most of the time the results and consequences from following that philosophy are not so nice, especially for those who are in the business of photography and filmmaking.

Although I now work in the commercial world, my passion started with documentary photography. I was, and still am, obsessed with Annie Leibowitz’s work with the Rolling Stones and I loved William Egglestone’s color observations of the mundane world he found himself in. When I find a free day, there is nothing that I enjoy more than walking out with my camera to document someone else's life. However, unlike the plethora of studio lighting tutorials available, there seems to be a real lack of articles on documentary photography. Here are six tips on how to improve your images.

From coating your lenses with Vaseline to creating pinhole cameras, we all love experimenting with camera and lens hacks from time to time. While it's hardly a new found trick, and while it's not as harmful as it sounds, lens whacking can give you impressive effects to give your footage just that extra bit of finesse and adds a lovely romantic element overall, especially when combined with slow-motion footage.

From Grand Central Station heading out of New York City following another great year at PhotoPlus Expo, my mind is buzzing with excitement. After three photography packed days, a lot of learning, and twelve miles of walking, here are my three of my biggest takeaway points from this years event.

If you're in the middle of planning a photoshoot then it would be wise to hold off on buying any props or equipment for just a few days longer. Come November 1 there will be a tsunami of unique items and great savings to be had from all those Halloween festivities. Here's what to expect and the best places to hunt out a bargain.

Reproducible photography started with forms that would produce a monochromatic image. For a large portion of the history of the medium, this was all we had. Color photography brought about a choice as to which you would like to use, and over time it became the dominant choice of consumers and professionals alike. Even so, in the art world it persisted for much longer as the choice of the artist and right up to the overwhelming force of digital, dozens of different black and white films were still in production. As digital photographers, we have the choice, most of us after the fact, to make a black and white conversion of our files. Today, I’d like to talk about my thought process when it comes to making the decision to go black and white.

Photoshop has a multitude of distortion tools that allow you to correct parts that distract from your image or they can creatively alter the image into a new reality. With so many options is it best to know which tools work best for optimal results in the final image. With the three most popular and sometimes misunderstood explained here you will be able to take those images that might have been discarded and create something new.

Photographer and Fstoppers alum Limor Garfinkle has been working on a very interesting project for the last two years: designing and shooting portraits of comedians that show off their unique personalities. Now, the project is ready for its gallery premiere at the TBS Comedy Hub as part of the New York Comedy Festival, with the proceeds benefiting the Mount Sinai Division of ADHD and Learning Disorders. Fstoppers recently interviewed her about the process and fun experience of shooting these portraits.

This may be appalling to some, or realistic to others, but I think if we don't discuss the state of the profession of photography we will eventually regret it. When it is more than a hobby, how has the industry changed? Is it a good change? Has technology helped or hurt the professional?

As a photographer, working with children can be incredibly challenging at times, but it can also be just as much fun. I have found that there is no real secret behind taking great shots of kids, but rather it comes down to how you navigate interacting with each child while on the shoot. The range of personalities that kids will display is incredibly diverse, this means that it is unlikely that you will be able to interact with any given child the same way that you did with another. This also means that it will be really easy to capture very unique shots on every single shoot.

As a wedding photographer, outdoor couple shoots are undoubtedly my favorites. On the big day, it gets overwhelming with little scope to get planned shots. We tend to go with the flow. For this reason, outdoor couple shoots are a treat to any photographer as it offers a lot of time and space. Here are my two cents on how to make your outdoor couple shoot an enjoyable and a memorable one.

Photographer Ryan Taylor recently worked with Red Bull to shoot a highlight story on Hilary Knight, one of Red Bull’s professional athletes and member of US Olympic Hockey team. With Knight going to the winter Olympics this February it was the perfect opportunity to showcase her journey to Gold.

The theme this week called for "monochrome" photos and the people delivered. There a number of eye-catching photos but the selections stood out from the crowd and lacked color in a good way. Be sure to check out the new bonus group selected from the Fstoppers community.

The year is 2017 and at this point, it's fair to say that most people are on Instagram. Now I don't think that you have to be and I don't believe that an Instagram presence is a requirement for your success. If you've chosen to forgo this particular media app you're not necessarily missing out. IG is a tool at your disposal and as time goes on, that tool becomes increasingly useless. Here are three reasons why Instagram's algorithm is garbage and may not be worth your time anyways.

The ultimate lifehack tool or an unnecessary distraction? Love them or loath them, the Apple Watch is here to stay. But does it have any real use case for a photographer? Well, here are five of them!

Art is about storytelling. It’s about using all the tools at one’s disposal to convey and idea or an emotion. To connect an audience to a brand, or a personality, or a moment in a way the no other medium can. Along with my own technique, the ingenuity of the on-camera talent and the creative team behind it, plus the tools necessary to complete the job, the location you select for your shoot is one of the many raw materials that will have an effect on the eventual alchemy you bring forth to produce a great image.

It feels like an increasing occurrence to meet creatives — particularly photographers — who feel no obligation to have their own website. Here's why it's still imperative to have an online portfolio that is readily available for your clients to access.

I've been a full-time wedding photographer for the past eight years and an Apple fan since I was in fourth grade. But today, that has all changed. Here is why.

Perhaps a better question to ask is: “Why am I a photographer?” In recent months, I feel like I've completely lost touch with why I became a photographer. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love what I do, but sometimes I forget why. When I was first starting out as a photographer and all of my shoots were “just for fun,” it was easy to see why I enjoyed it. After all, there were no consequences if I screwed something up, and I looked at photography as more of an escape from reality than a job.

Whether you are just starting out or you have been shooting for years, pricing is always top of your mind. For a long time, I just plucked figures out of the air, which made for very awkward conversations when clients wanted to know various ways to save money on a shoot. I eventually got my arse in gear and had a long (like a week-long) sit down and I went through everything in the smallest detail. Today, I give quotes with confidence, knowing that if a client says no, I am simply not the photographer for them.

You may have had the same reaction I did when I first started loading up the Develop module in Adobe's new Lightroom Classic CC update: oh no, why did Lightroom change all of my photos to an old process version!? First things first: don't worry. The process version did not change. Instead, Lightroom Classic CC introduces the fourth iteration of these so-called process versions, but this one (the first in half a decade) is different for a number of reasons.

Whether you’re about to head out for a day of shooting some corporate videos, producing a multiday lifestyle photoshoot, or even traveling abroad for a project, as a filmmaker or photographer you’ll likely have to do a fair amount of prep, called preproduction. This article will summarize a number of things that you should think about and probably not forget to do before leaving for your next job.

We've finally done it: Fstoppers has moved over to a new 10 Gb/second network and server and it is incredibly fast. Let me show you what we did and how you can create your own 10 Gb/s network for a fraction of the price.

In most difficult economies, photographers will inevitably take on work that is outside their niche area. Having one commission is better than having nothing. Being a multitalented photographer who is able to shoot both weddings and macro photography can come in handy.

Adobe just killed one of its last major one-time fee softwares, Lightroom, in favor of the subscription model introduced in 2013. While the most refractory users may continue to run on the previous versions, they will be forced to roll to the Creative Cloud at some point since Adobe will stop supporting the traditional software. Future raw images and video codecs will not work on old programs. But when looking at the price plan in detail, are we being milked by Adobe with the subscription model and if so, what are the alternatives?

The freelance lifestyle can be both creatively and financially rewarding but it does also come with a few hidden pitfalls that need to be avoided at all costs. If you want to minimize your chances of failure it is well worth having these 10 things in place long before you take the leap.

Maybe you are like me and you just settled into a new place and are looking for places nearby that you can shoot. After moving to a new location about an hour away from where I was living at home, I have been trying to keep up with all my shooting. In a way, I feel like it has gotten a lot more difficult because I need to find places to go, people to work with, and all sorts of other things that interest me to keep shooting and creating new content. There are times where I feel like I am stuck and times where I feel like I've found such a cool spot and I am super happy about it, however I think the biggest key to success is actually going out and lfinding places to continue your work.

With a multitude of template-based services offered, website building has never been easier. But wedding photography websites demand specific functionality that need to be considered in the design process. Here is a guide on setting up your first, or rebranded, website for a modern wedding photography business.

Photography, as with any creative pursuit, requires the creator to have their hand in the process for the results to shine. Countless Facebook ads, online workshops, and even our camera companies would have you believe that they if you just buy that next magic bullet, everything will change for you. If they are to be believed, swiping your credit card just one more time is the key to making great images. Rubbish. It’s time to break away from that thought.

A few weeks ago we released "Photographing the World 3," the newest installment of Elia Locardi's PTW series. As with with many of our tutorials, we have also produced a behind-the-scenes series that shows exactly how we filmed and produced this landscape tutorial. You can watch all of the PTW 3 behind the scenes here, but in this week's episode Elia covers the importance of scouting, Lee discovers a way to make his sandwiches even tastier, and I test out one of Tamron's newest lenses for time-lapse.

I still try to learn, as much as I can, as often as I can, especially in the world of photography. No matter how much more experience I manage to gain or how many people I get lucky enough to work with, I think I will always still feel like a beginner who is just learning the craft. I was fortunate enough to begin my adventures into photography with a great darkroom class. My experience behind the camera quite literally started with black and white film and using enlargers to bring my images to life.

Being that I’m primarily a wedding and documentary photographer, it’s not every day that I get the chance to take a portrait of a celebrity. Add to this that I live in Northwest Arkansas, which isn't really a hub for celebrities, makes it even less likely for me — especially one as well known as William H. Macy. So I thought it would be interesting to line out how I pulled it off and got the final image.