Strobe light

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? I have to admit, I hardly ever get up any earlier than 9 AM most days, so the thought of being functional at 6 AM was terrifying. But the results? The light was beautiful and completely worth it.

Umbrellas have been a staple light modifier for decades. But if you’ve ever wondered why there are so many types, or how the light quality from your strobe is affected by the size, lining, fabric or shape of the umbrella, then this post is for you.

Guest writer, Corey Rich is primarily an outdoor/adventure photographer, but last winter he decided to do something totally different and shoot CrossFit—the masochistic athletic craze sweeping the nation. More than anything, he was keen to experiment with heavy-duty artificial lighting in an indoor environment–not exactly what he's known for. His goals were simply to elevate his lighting skills, unlock his creativity in different ways, learn some new things, and have fun in the process.

A small team based in Melbourne, Australia wants to change how you view your studio lights. They say their new invention, the LED Light cube, offers answers to age-old problems. Their Cube has no recycle time, better control over light output and no external battery packs. Due to The LED Light Cube using an LED model rather than a filament, the Cube can just as easily double as a video light as well as a flash. Sounds cool right?

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.

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.

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. If you understand how the direction of light and its degree of diffusion are controlled and how they affect images, it should be easy for you to train yourself to "read" lighting in the images you see in magazines, on billboards and in your favorite photographers’ portfolios.

Yesterday, I showed you the process of pre-producing a successful photoshoot and used a recent session as an example on all the steps it takes to put together a successful session with a large team. Today, I put together a breakdown of the entire production and post production process on creating a successful portrait session and a behind the scenes look into what all goes into it.

When we talk about on-location mixed lighting we usually mean shooting with light sources of different nature, such as natural ambient light and artificial, or shooting with lights of different color temperatures (tungsten, fluorescent, flash, etc.).

There are dozens of cool effects that one can achieve when mixing ambient light with controlled lighting, but today I would like to talk about mixing lights in studio - impulse (i.e. strobe or flash) and continuous. I love this technique and hope my article inspires you to try it out too.

There are times when I find myself shooting the same stuff or using the same lighting setup over and over again. Repetition helps to improve and fine-tune my skills, but sometimes it just feels boring and degrading, let alone useless for my portfolio.

But as much as I dislike feeling stuck and repeating myself, I now realize how such times in fact help me to become a better artist and shooter. It's usually the desire to entertain myself and experiment that leads me to new personal artistic discoveries. It's when I'm bored and want to "spice it up", I start searching for new lighting ideas, tricks and techniques.

I have started to see a trend with using projectors to add some flair to photos. However most portable projectors do not pump out the brightest light and cannot run off batteries alone. Meet the Light Blaster. A new tool that uses your speed light and lens to project slides in your photos, from backgrounds, special effects, and anything else you can dream up.

Día de Muertos or Day of the Dead is a Mexican holiday that has seen a spike in exposure in the United States the past few years making it a perfect subject for a photoshoot. Follow Jay P. from The Slanted Lens as he takes you behind the scenes of his latest shoot featuring a model dressed up as a Calavera (sugar skull) posing in an eerie cemetery backdrop.

One essential part of almost every wedding day is the rings. Not only are the rings a symbol of a couple's love and commitment to one another, they also usually cost a good deal of money. Capturing an amazing picture of the rings can not only wow your clients, it also adds great value to your portfolio. The best part is, getting a fantastic ring shot can be simple and quick.

Summer is upon us, which means fireworks. Previously, we have discussed using alternative methods to get smoke-like effects in your photographs. But using flour can make for a messy clean-up and smoke machines require electricity. Smoke balls, however, are cheap, come in a variety of colors and require nothing more than a lighter.

I find athletic themed shoots to be especially interesting considering the amount of effort and expertise that goes pulling off that one perfect shot. Follow James Quantz Jr in this behind the scenes video as he takes on the challenge of shooting the South Carolina Gamecocks.

As photographers, we usually use two different techniques to capture our images: The first is freezing the moment and capturing the split second we are witnessing. The other option is using a long exposure, to show movement, changes, or show things we don't normally see with our eyes. But what if you combined these two concepts - freezing a moment while adding movement? Check out these creative and unique portraits using this technique.

Wyn has been featured on Fstoppers quite a few times. Why? His work is outstanding. He comes up with some really cool concepts for shots. From using LED's on a basketball shoot to powder with Gymnasts. He does it all perfectly.

Last week I did a photo shoot for Leo's Wisdom, which is a company that makes handmade, high end jewelry. The purpose of the shoot was to provide the client with product shots and lifestyle images for their promotional needs. Their mood board for the shoot was filled with images depicting lush locations and high society. But we were shooting on a rainy day in Columbus, Ohio. So we made lemonade.

You submit your assignment images each year as a staff photojournalist at a major newspaper and never place in the prestigious Picture of the Year International competition. Then, years later as a freelance photographer, you win first place for a body of work that was undertaken solely as a personal venture. This is the story of Bob Croslin's self-assigned "Grounded," a portrait project of injured birds undergoing rehabilitation at a sanctuary in western Florida.

NYC-based commercial photographer Kenneth Volpe sat down with the good folks over at Profoto to give some insight on the way he lights his images and a bit of his philosophy when it comes to his photography business, Transposure. With Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Engineering, Kenneth is a guy that definitely understands fine light and exhibits it in the way he makes his photos. Check out the full write up over at

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.

We received over 1000 submissions from our readers to our new POTD contest, and yes, we looked at every single one of them. There were some brilliant entries and it was incredibly tough to select the top 30 for the month of April, but they've all been chosen, and you can check out the gallery here

Several weeks ago I wrote an article about Profoto's new-ish pack, the Pro-B4, which has a flash duration of 1/25,000th of a second. Well, last week I was finally able to take it for a test drive. And what better way to test an insane flash duration than with water?

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.

Pegboard is such a fun material to use when experimenting with lighting. You can change the shape of the light pattern by changing the distance of your light to the pegboard and the distance of the pegboard to your subject. We posted previously about how you can use pegboard to construct an entire backdrop. In this week's diagram I will show you how I used one speedlite and a small strip of pegboard to shape the light in my shoots.

Just the other day a buddy introduced me to hypersync via this video from PocketWizard featuring Chris Garrison. Hypersync is technology in PocketWizard FlexTT5's and MiniTT1's which enables you to sync your camera with big studio strobes at speeds up to 1/8000 with certain setups. PocketWizard has more information on hypersync over at their site. This video is pretty long (over an hour) but Chris walks you through several of his setups as well as talks about how he got his career to where it is now.

Well-known wet plate artist Ian Ruhter has just released the fourth installment in his 'Silver and Light' series, which chronicles his trip to Seattle to meet with Chase Jarvis, his journey to becoming an artist, Chase Jarvis' very frank thoughts on what being an artist

Recently I have been wanting to do an avant-garde hair shoot. I just needed to find the right stylist to work with. A few weeks ago I met Devan Aledia Ford who is a fantastic hair stylist. When I told her about my desire to do a stylized hair shoot, she took the idea and ran with it. She conceptualized a spring-themed, fairytale-inspired shoot. She even styled the wardrobe and did the makeup (never underestimate the power of a great stylist).