Stock Photography

A few weeks ago I posted a video that created a lot of unintentional buzz about poorly compositing athletes together on a football field. Well this video from Monte Isom doesn't include much photoshop but still produces a lot of great images. Monte always has a great time on his sets and hopefully you NYC readers will be able to share a drink with him tomorrow at our FS Meetup.

Capturing images of high speed events can be done in many different ways. In this video, flickr member Jon Rutlen went with a more explosive approach. Using a sound capturing device to trigger his camera, Jon shattered a bunch of different glasses in front of his DSLR camera and recorded the unique moment easily, reliably, and ultimately in a pretty safe environment. I remember my organic chemistry classes pretty vividly and Silver Acetylide is nothing to play around with so don't try this at home (I know no one really listens to that warning right?). I think the next step Jon and crew need to take is lighting the glasses in a more pleasing manner with some backlighting and off axis lighting to really give some depth to these explosions. Since we just launched our BTS Contest and everyone is thinking with a bit more creativity, what do you guys suggest Jon does to take this shoot to the next level?

Hey everyone! I'm Reese and I'm excited to be a part of the Fstoppers team. My segment, The FS Spotlight, is a new weekly Q&A session with professional photographers at the absolute top of their field. The interviews are going to touch on everything from from how they reached rock star status to their shooting style to what cameras they shoot with as well as their advice to all aspiring photographers. Click the full post to read my interview with product photographer Richard Gary! As a writer/photographer myself, I want to hear how photographers got to where they are and how they get these amazing shots; but more importantly I want to know what YOU want to hear from them as well. What’s your interest? Surfing? Combat photography? Food? Retouching? If you could score a 5 minute Q&A with any photographer in the world, who would that be? Let me know!

EA Sports has been allowing fans to vote for the cover of their newest installment in the college football series NCAA Football 12. For the contest, they filmed four short behind the scenes videos from each player's photoshoot which can all be found in the full post. The photoshoots consist of two primary setups: hall of fame style portraits and on the field action shots. Each portrait was created with a gridded beauty dish and a hard background light while the action shots were lit with a huge octabank, some stripboxes, and a bunch of white v-flats acting as both gobos and reflectors. I'm not sure that the final images are online yet since the contest just wrapped up, but you can see a lot of them on photographer Tim Mantoani's site. My vote goes to Mark Ingram; roll tide roll!

Yuri Arcurs is perhaps the most well known photographer shooting microstock images in the world. His images are clean, inviting, crisp, and natural looking which are all important qualities needed to sell images in bulk. This video by Fototv might be the best video you watch all week because Yuri's tips are not only related to stock photographs but also hold true with almost any photograph requiring a model or human emotion. If you've never signed up to a stock website like Istockphoto, Fotolia, or Shutterstock, I'd recommend you at least try to get approved and test the waters for a few months. Nothing in my opinion strengthens your eye and photographic skills more than producing images that can sell in a highly competitive market like the stock agencies.

In the video below Jay P. Morgan shows us the setup for his latest sports image. Using a special body harness, the goalie is able to move in a very realistic way without the potential for injury. As always, Jay does a fantastic job of also breaking down his lighting scheme.

Does anyone remember the Domino's Pizza "cheese puller" video that we posted a few months back? Well I remember commenting about that lady because she seemed a little crazy. Well she did seem crazy until I saw this interview with Ellen Sirot. We all take our job seriously... but com'on... Check the full post for another video of her acting insane and a Funny Or Die spoof. <

Jay P. Morgan is a commercial and advertising photographer based out in Los Angeles, California. We have featured his work before and this time Jay is using a three light setup to make some portraits of a jazz player. If you are still uncomfortable with your lighting skills, Jay does a really good job explaining exactly what each light does and why he placed them where he did. Click on the full post for part two of this photoshoot where Jay adds some "special effects" in the form of an air canon firing at his subject.

We have all seen standard stock photography before and most of the time its not so good. John Lund shoot stock, but it is unlike anything else you have seen before. Check out his quick interview below. ><

Rich Legg is a successful stock photographer, and he goes all out in this video as he tries to make the prefect stock photo of a movie theater audience. If you haven't checked out stock photography, I highly encourage you to sign up and test your skills. Nothing proves whether your photography is marketable or not like putting it up on a site like shutterstock or istockphoto. This video is great on how to light large groups and also how to efficiently gather model releases from a large pool of model.

Diana Deaver is a talented photographer and good friend of mine from Charleston SC. A few weeks before the deadline she told me that she was working on a contest submission that would focus on natural lighting. Diana is a master of natural light and so I was very excited to see what she could come up with. Check out her very informatve video below. You don't need expensive gear to get quality images guys! <