Studio

So today we have for you a remarkably in depth lighting tutorial from Mr. Karl Taylor. In this video Karl breaks down this high end product shoot step by step, in exquisite detail. Starting from the finalized setup, he walks you through each element of the shot, taking each away to demonstrate it's purpose. Giving you the "behind the camera" perspective, he then rebuilds the set, again explaining the process to achieve the final image.

Back in March, Fstoppers writer Zach Sutton featured Fabian Oefner's "Black Hole" series, high shutter speed images of paint being spun and flung quickly to produce some amazing art pieces. In this TEDxWarwick 2013 presentation, Fabian shows his passion for bringing art and science together to create his surreal and colorful work, and explains the process behind it all.

British comedian Richard Herring's new comedy tour poster needed to have a creepy Halloween theme to it. His new tour's theme was death and what better way to illustrate that than having the comedian climb his way out of a grave. London-based photographer Steve Brown walks us through how he planned for the shoot, built the set and shows a time-lapse on his post-processing. It just shows that a properly planned shoot can have amazing results.

I'm one of those photographers that likes to take control, especially of my light. I use grids, snoots, barndoors, and every other contraption you can think of to maintain the maximum amount of control over my lighting. One of the most important light modifiers for my work isn't a soft box or a beauty dish, it's actually a piece of fabric on a metal frame called, a flag.

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.

A few months ago we featured one of commercial photographer Michael Herb's tutorials on masking and composting. Michael is back with an awesome behind the scenes video of a national ad campaign he shot for Textile Designer Patty Madden. Michael set out to create some creative photos to showcase the unique advertising that hasn't really been seen before in a nation ad campaign for furniture.

A few years ago when I was still new to the world of beauty photography and digital photo retouching, I prided myself on the ability to "fix it later in Photoshop." I would welcome retouching challenges as I was still learning, but things changed forever after I started working with professional teams and shooting for commercial clients.

There are a few unarguable reasons for getting it right in camera.

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.

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

As a Wedding Photographer, I have tons of radio triggers. I started out with the PocketWizard Plus II, and then after having all of my gear stolen, I switched to the relatively inexpensive PocketWizard Plus X, so needless to say, I’m fairly entrenched in the Pocket Wizard Brand. Could the Chinese company Aputure get me away from PocketWizard while simultaneously saving my wallet from shelling out $100 every time I need a new trigger?

A few weeks ago, I flew to Los Angeles to shoot a commercial project for Mitsubishi. They had a custom Outlander built by RIDES Magazine and were in need of press shots. Studio shooting can be among the most challenging of all types of photography, but with a little patience and some care, its really not that difficult. Here's how we did it.

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.

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.

In this interview, I speak with Russ Turner, a photographer who is relatively new to shooting fantasy portraiture, but has already received awards and praise for the quality of his work. Russ talks about working with costumed models, how he incorporates Photoshop, and shares some of the places where an aspiring shooter can get started doing photography in this genre.

Have you ever wondered how different diffusing fabrics affect the quality of light that you shoot with? Jay P. Morgan from the Slanted Lens walks you through the different diffusion materials by Rosco. He explains how the different fabrics can lessen the stops of light and how it can affect your color temperatures and look of your shoot.

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.

Today, for the first time I watched this fantastic one-take music video for Brooklyn based band, Eytan and the Embassy. On the Vimeo page for 'Everything Changes' they tout the video as "18 Costume Changes -- 1 Music Video -- 0 Edits!" It has been online for 10 months, is a Vimeo Staff pick, but only has 20,000 views. Well I think it deserves more! Check out this video and click through for a BTS video as well. Enjoy!

You may not have known it, but I'm certain you've seen a Norman Seef photograph. What photo do you think of when you think of Ray Charles? He shot that. Carly Simon? Yup. Steve Jobs? Seef again. After reading our own Douglas Sonders' article on how short the window of time is when working with celebrities, seeing how much Seef could get out of his subjects is awe-inspiring.

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.

I woke up this morning to find an email from Chase Jarvis's camp showcasing his new photo campaign for the Samsung 9 Series Monitors. It feels like ages since Chase has released one of his epic behind the scenes videos, so I was excited to see he's still alive and kicking the creative cloud (pun intended). If your imaginative juices don't start flowing after watching this video then it might be time to put your camera into retirement. Check out the behind the scenes video and then

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.

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

Beauty retouching can be an arduous task in any photographer's workflow. The amount of detail that can go into retouching a glamor portrait can easily run into several hours. Learning the secrets of the pros can be even more difficult. Julia Kuzmenko McKim has made learning easy with her new book entitled 'Digital Photo Retouching: Beauty, Fashion and Portrait Photography'

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).