We all have cameras and know how to operate them. But how well do you understand the image forming principles? Modern technologies spoil us and we are often not required to possess any knowledge about the process behind the functions of a device. However, such knowledge can lead you to fun experiments like the one I am going to share with you today.
Amy Lynn is a 24 year old photographer from Nebraska who wanted to do an institutionalized themed shoot for a long time. Right before Halloween, she decided to finally make it happen by heading to local thrift shops in search of the right materials to match her vision. The BTS video captures the whole process and the final results are more than awesome.
NYC Photographer Richard Renaldi recently embarked upon one of the most original photo projects I've ever seen.
How many times you had to come up with ideas for creative portraits and got stuck for days with the same boring ideas? I can guess it happened many times. Sometimes anything cool or creative can seem too complicated to execute and sometimes you think you need a whole team of professionals to help with with creating it.
If you couldn't make it to the Photo Plus Expo in New York (PPE) which kicks off today, you don't have to miss out on everything. Not only will our own Zach Sutton be reporting from the show floor, but Sigma is providing a live stream from their booth that they are calling "Sigma Safari," featuring hands-on shooting experiences starring professional models transformed into safari animals.
Recently I was lucky enough to have a day off, something that doesn't happen too often. I woke up that morning feeling a little burnt out from the daily non-stop marathon that is living and working as a freelancer in New York City. I dragged myself out into the kitchen, made myself some bacon and eggs and sat down to eat.
It’s almost impossible to sign into Vimeo without getting sucked into the latest and greatest timelapse video. It’s easy to understand why these videos find such great success. They allow the viewer to experience something incredibly surreal, yet familiar.
I've been using a product called IndieMats for over a year now and I absolutely love them. My wife and I are big DIY'ers and decorated our daughter's room with them by creating a large collage of funny photos at a fraction of the cost of traditional frames. It's an awesome new way to display your photos with unique wall decor.
Over a year ago we wrote about Brandon Stanton's project named 'Humans of New York' where he photographs random people in NYC and post the results on his blog (and Facebook). Back then his project was still small and not-so-known, but today he has millions of followers and each one of his photos go viral within seconds of posting.
Jaime Moore's daughter, Emma, turned 5 recently. As a photographer, Jaime wanted to do a special photo shoot to mark that day. Having no ideas or inspiration, she turned to Google to search for ideas fitting the young age of 5 and get some direction, but the only ideas she could find are how to shoot young girls as Disney Princesses.
Before my trip to Russia in August I wrote about what we should keep in mind when choosing our clients. While in Moscow, I photographed my own best clients and I thought it would be very interesting to find out how we, photographers, get chosen too.
Kiliii Fish, Seattle-based commercial photographer, was always fascinated by how people interact with nature and how they use it to live their lives. Aside from being a full time photographer Fish is also an avid rock climber. Recently he decided to combine these 3 things he loves to a unique photography project showing the grace, power, beauty and vulnerability that goes into rock climbing.
When I first started shooting, I would spend absolutely no time planning my shots. I would focus tons of time and energy into every other aspect (location, wardrobe, mood, etc) but in some weird turn of events, it must have slipped my mind that the end goal is "The Shot." How that slipped my mind still baffles me.
It's nice to have friends from far off places. Especially when they are talented, hard working photographers who have something interesting to share. Such is the case with Helsinki-based photographer Anders Lönnfeldt. Anders started out working in radio, TV and short films but these days his focus is on commercials, music videos, portrait and concert photography.
Game of Thrones has got to be my favorite series on television right now. Its rich storytelling, amazing character development and stunning cinematography has entranced millions of viewers around the world. Season 4 doesn't premiere until spring of next year, but instead of just catching up with George R.R.
Grand Theft Auto 5, which launched yesterday, is the most expensive video game ever produced, at a cost of $250 million of production and marketing costs. It also set records for day one sales. Most of the short time I played over the last day was spent inside the house one of the one of the main protagonists.
Exactly one week ago we marked the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks which resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people. As they do every anniversary, The Municipal Art Society of New York created two vertical columns of light ("Tribute In Light") right next to the World Trade Center in remembrance of the Twin Towers using 88 powerful searchlights pointing up to the sky.
Dani Diamond is a talented portrait photographer based out of Connecticut and is also an active member of our Fstoppers Facebook Group. His headshot work is impeccable and eye-catching.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to stare down the barrel of a gun? Well Toronto-based photographer Peter Andrew teamed up with art directors Simon Duffy and Derek Blais to show us. The series, “Point Blank”, features iconic handguns in high-resolution "portraits", some of which are printed as large as 4×8 feet.
In my work, I do a lot of traveling for shoots and one of the most tedious and difficult parts of going to a new place to produce a shoot is the location scouting. There is a reason that people can turn location scouting into a lucrative profession. It is very time consuming, costs money (gas) and is constantly changing (because of season, construction, whatever).
Since joining Fstoppers I had planned on doing a "behind the scenes" of one of my shoots, so today I've put together a lighting diagram courtesy of Kevin Kertz, and a detailed description of how the finished product was produced. Fair warning, I am a bit of a technique nerd and can get pretty detailed.
Just about every day I read a comment from a photographer complaining about Facebook making their images look terrible. There are hundreds of websites that have done tests and posted results to show what they feel is the best resolution to post your images to Facebook. Rather than run a bunch of tests I am going to keep things simple and tell you exactly what has worked well for me.
Tomer Jacobson and Maxim Golovanov, conceptual photographers based in Israel, recently started a very interesting project together: they take songs they like, and transform them into visual photographs. They analyze each song, and try to understand who are the characters and what is the story behind them.
Smoke machine (also known as 'Fog Machine') is one product most photographers don't own or have access to. Many believe it is just too expensive to buy one, but the fact is, you can get a smoke machine for just $29! Those machines are not just good for parties and concerts, but great for creative shoots. Adding smoke can add depth, texture and drama to your images.
I grew up as part of the generation of photographers that developed film (or had a lab develop it) and mounted photos in family albums. At the time, I would remember thinking it wasn't a particularly special exercise or the photos themselves weren't particularly amazing.
As a wedding photographer, the engagement session is probably one of the best ways to get to know your clients before spending 8 or more hours with them on their wedding day. These sessions are about the two of them as a couple and how they fell in love. Most of my sessions are held about 2 hours before the sun sets, but what about when you have a couple that wants to shoot at sunrise?
Some people go through life and aren't sure how they can take their photography to the next level of giving back. There are many programs and non-profits such as Help Portrait and Operation: Love ReUnited, but nothing that you can say you did or created. Well these 16-year-old brothers decided they would do just that and create something worth remembering.
Since 2007, Red Bull has hosted an international action and adventure sport photography contest called Red Bull Illume. It's where fifty winners are chosen every three three years from tens of thousands of photographers around the world. The winners were unveiled at a grand ceremony in Hong Kong on August 29, 2013.
There is a fine line between having a well defined photographic style, and constantly putting out the same stale, boring work week after week. A fine and dangerous line. A line that can make the difference between being a successful, inspiring photographer and a photographer who has lost his audience and has even lost interest in his/her own work.
A few years ago we featured photographer Kevin Kozicki in a behind the scenes video using pointsettias for a beauty shoot. Kevin is back with an amazing glamor photo and video shoot with filmmaker Christopher Park in a beautiful pool location using the Phase One IQ180 that was featured in Sessions Magazine. We had the opportunity to speak with Kevin and get his insight on the shoot.
It felt like yesterday that we featured Underwater Dogs. Seth Casteel took those incredible photos and it definitely was a really memorable series of animal shots. How could you not love them? In fact, Seth is such a great animal photographer that he didn't just stop there. He's created some great tips on photographing animals for the intent of getting them adopted.
Certainly, we've talked about how to always protect your photos and watch for thieves. In fact, Fstoppers' very own writer, Noam Galai has had his photo stolen, and turned into one of the most iconic pieces of pop art in the last 15 years. So what happens when Samsung foolishly awards a fraudulent submission a Samsung NX300 camera?
This behind the scenes video from Lars Schneider, would no doubt be a killer shoot to land.
The location for the outdoor catalog shoot took place in Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies last September for Ortlieb, a company that makes various bags for outdoor activities.
"Do you think we could do these photos that I found on Pinterest?" If you are a wedding photographer, or even a family photographer, it is more than likely you have heard this phrase before.
This is the second part of the article on how to learn to "read" lighting in photography. If you haven't read the first part yet, please start here: How To "Read" Light In Photography - Part 1.
And for those of you who have been waiting for the second part, let's jump right back in and see what other cues we can use to breakdown lighting in other photographers' work.
Mental Floss posted this great article that gives us a look into how the first issues of magazines such as Time, People, Wired, Playboy, ESPN, and more looked like. It even gives a brief summary as to what each issue was about.
Just recently Zach posted a guest article on 3 Nightmare Lighting Environments and How to Photograph Them with tips from top shooters Lindsay Adler and Erik Valind. This simple behind the scenes video takes a look at some amazing tips not only covered in the article, but in their book, Shooting in Sh*tty Light. You can catch their creativeLIVE workshop starting tomorrow.
Lightning is hard to photograph. You have to have patience, solid timing and a general acceptance of the possibility of getting soaked. If that doesn't really resonate with you there's always the route that Matthew Albanese chose. Rather than go through the stress, waiting and danger of shooting an actual lightning storm he just made his own.
UPDATE: Original video was removed, but we found it again! In order to make our subjects look their best we need to be shooting them from the correct angles. Peter Hurley is the master at this and in his DVD he gives so many fantastic tips on how to accomplish taking photos of people looking their best.
Photographer Lukas Renlund shares with us the second installation in his "Steal My Photograph" series. I was very impressed with this idea when I posted his Copenhagen Exhibit last August but Lukas has added a humorous new twist to his Barcelona installation by hiding a GoPro camera behind his photos to capture the reactions of the unsuspecting, would-be-thieves.
We all know and love the classic round Bokeh we get when shooting in shallow depth of field. It adds depth and interesting effects to the final result. The round Bokeh is a result of having a round (kind-of) Aperture blades, but have you ever thought what will happen if you change that Aperture shape?
Facebook changed up their News Feed algorithm again in an effort to constantly improve our experience on the site. Their goal is for us to spend as much time as possible on Facebook and in an effort to keep us there they will now be featuring the most highly ranked posts first in our news feed followed by those with less engagement. What does that mean to all of us?
The mega online retailer Amazon just launched a beta version of it's new online photographic print marketplace.
The website is in beta and is currently selling over 5,000 photo prints through Amazon.com. A signed Silver Gelatin Print of Rauchender Mann by Dieter Blum is fetching whopping $120,000.
One of the first very important skills I acquired in my Australian Photography course was the ability to breakdown lighting and determine approximate camera settings in images taken by other photographers.
Where we’re going, we don’t have roads. The North Face sent photographer Celin Serbo on assignment to an area near Canyonlands National Park to capture stills of Alex Honnold, Daniel Woods, and Matt Segal establishing new climbs in a place called Labyrinth Canyon. In this post, Celin reveals the challenges of shooting a 10 day expedition, and shares his amazing images.
io9 scored some interview time with the talented, patient and hard working, Jeffrey Martin. How do I know Mr. Martin is all these things? Simple. Because that's what it takes to make a photo so large it took 2 days to shoot, 4 months to edit and is comprised of more than 8,000 frames, at a resolution of 600,000 pixels wide.
Recently, a duo by the name of Cruz + Jacob released an short documentary about a niche of concert photography known as EDM Photography. EDM, short for electronic dance music, has swept up the top music charts and its popularity is spreading quickly.
When I read the article about Onafujiri "Fuji" Remet on Huffington Post I was excited for this kids future. At just three years old his father placed a Sony DSLR camera in his hands and with it he has created over 3000 photos already. This article hit home for me because I had a similar experience as a kid and it helped me see the world in a new way.
Ami Vitale is an award-winning photojournalist who has traveled across the globe covering assignments for major publications.
During the film era people would often use different tools, such as prisms, to create new and interesting images. Without the use of tools like Lightroom and Photoshop, camera malfunctions, such as light leaks could be very valuable in creating unique art. Perhaps its time to remanufacture these ideas, and use them to help create something truly interesting.