In wildlife photography, and being in the wilderness in general, there's always a risk that you'll meet one of the many wild and territorial creatures that calls it home. In this video, a photographer meets a (seemingly wild) pack of wolves that fight amongst themselves, yet remain gentle and affectionate towards him.
Peter Lindbergh is one of my all-time favorite photographers. I often refer to his work for inspiration not only for the technique but for the amazing beauty that exudes from his work. Not too long ago I found this little clip of Peter shooting Amber Valletta (a legend in her own right) for Vogue Italia.
Everyone has to start somewhere, and for people seeking entry into the world of video production, or even studio photography, doing work as a production assistant is a great way to get your feet wet. I've hired lots of assistants, and before that I worked as one myself. I still do for some producers!
As photographers, many of us will do the occasional wedding or two to help supplement income and boost our careers. Wedding photography can be one of the most stressful and challenging aspects of photography, but is often considered the most important because of its purpose.
These days, it’s all too easy to get caught up in the advertising hype surrounding a new cinema product. All it takes is a slick promo video and clever marketing for companies to set the Internet ablaze. As the hype and expectations build, words like “game-changer” and “revolutionary” are thrown into the mix. The over-hyping of products is completely understandable.
Fashion Week in New York is coming to an end today, and is largely considered the Grammys for the fashion forward and fashion photographers of the industry. It’s not too uncommon for fashion to get its share of criticism from the public, looking largely like a marketing con for “What’s New For Fall”.
I stumbled across this video that really blew my mind. A woman ages right before your eyes and you don't realize it is happening. You can feel a change but it's gradual. Once you reach the end and look back, you can't believe how much change has happened in just 5 minutes.
It's always fascinating to get a glimpse behind the scenes of high-budget productions, and Andrew Kramer of Video Copilot provides us with an absolutely wonderful look into the creation of the title design and introduction scenes for Star Trek Into Darkness. The best part? The plugin used to create many of the effects only costs $150.
A few weeks ago we featured an interesting project by Casey Neistat: The CLA Project. Casey was hired by Mercedes Benz to create a new, fresh and creative approach to the typical stock car commercials that you've seen on television for the past twenty years. The final commercial for the new Mercedes Benz CLA has finally been released.
Salience is the name of the five minute short that will probably be remembered as one of the most innovative, experimental (and beautiful) short films of the year.
In a latest video by Vongspoth and John Burcham, we're shown a total of 15 seconds at a local county fair, shown to us in 2 minutes and 10 seconds of beautiful footage. Using a Sony NEX-FS700, Vongspoth and John looked to create a video that "would capture all the magic and fun a child experiences." What they left us with, is an incredibly mesmerizing video.
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.
If you have been to any sort of performance in the last few years, I think you'll recognize some of the people in this commercial. Crowds who take pictures with their smart phones, holding them up to reveal a sea of illuminated rectangles, often distracting an artist or blocking the views of others.
It wasn't that many years ago when our very own Lee Morris took me on one of his wedding gigs and totally opened my eyes to what wedding photography could be. I had this idea in my head that weddings were boring, cheesy and a photographic cinch to shoot.
One of RED digital cinema’s biggest strengths is building up hype around an upcoming product. The company is praised as innovators by the film community, for building cameras like the Epic and Scarlet. When other companies were content with 1080p, RED was building cameras with 4 times the resolution.
Red Rock Micro recently had the chance to interview Captain Hook, the person behind the latest BlackMagic Pocket Camera footage, and answer a couple of questions about the BMPC and it's performance. For you that do not know about the BMPC check out our earlier post on it.
A big part of the appeal for composite photography for me has always been one's ability to imagine a scene, then use different components of the world around them to make it a reality. In this behind the scenes video from Erik Johansson, we're given a breakdown of one photo from the beginning sketches, to the different components and method, post production, and the final product.
Django Greenblatt-Seay and JJ Dreier joined together to form Tree Speed, self proclaimed as "A of couple of Mid-Western guys who spend vacation time traveling the country shooting time lapse photography."
In the last few years, video-sharing sites like YouTube have become a marketer’s best friend.
These sites offer the opportunity to disguise advertisements as pure entertainment. As more people recognize the marketing opportunity, getting exposure becomes more difficult. Video producers are constantly scrambling to stay relevant and unique.
I'm sure if you're reading this you are a Game of Thrones fan just like me! Spin VFX has put together an amazing peek behind the visual wizardry that they do for the HBO series.
It’s interesting times for those of us shooting photo and video. I enjoy highlighting photographers or videographers who are utilizing elements of both stills and motion work, and are pushing the creative envelope by integrating them so that the end result is more than just the sum of the individual parts.
“Philly is Ugly” is a timelapse photography project by Philadelphia area photographer, Nathaniel Dodson. He took an impressive amount of time to not only create this short film piece, but also to extensively document his behind the scenes process. When he sent this to me, I couldn't help but share this with you.
Shooting aerial video for commercial purposes might be iffy in the United States, but the team at Helicam, based in Finland and Estonia, make some truly epic video using a quadcopter, a RED and a custom stabilizing gimbal.
The always entertaining Kai from DigitalRev TV takes to the streets, armed with 3 different models of Canon 50mm lenses: The 1.8, 1.4, and 1.2L. Using phrases like "sphincter twitching" and "buying meth", he colorfully illustrates his points about choosing the right lens based on your budget and compares the look and feel of each model.
Sunday seems like the right time to tell a big fish story, so I was happy when I stumbled across director Kibwe Tavares's, "JONAH". It's a visually impressive fiction that begins with every photographer's worst nightmare (a stolen camera) and becomes the tale of how one photo changed everything.
When calling ourselves artists, we also inherently accept the title of “story teller”. We each use different mediums, but our goals are ultimately the same: Creating memorable and engaging content. We use art to tell stories in beautiful and unique ways, which in turn helps connect us together.
Recently, Julia Kuzmenko has been putting together a wonderful tutorial on how to read lighting in photography to help better understand different lighting concepts (Seriously, read Part 1 and Part 2). Applying these to photos, you can reverse engineer different lighting diagrams.
Earlier this year we showed you an amazing and advanced 4K aerial gyro system that lifestyle brand Teton Gravity Research (TGR) acquired. The Gyro-Stabilized Systems (GSS) C520 system is considered most advanced five-axis gyro-stabilized camera platform in the world. This week they released a trailer for their production "Way of Life" featuring the platform, and it looks fantastic.
In the past year, we've seen some pretty amazing advancements in camera/drone technology. Quadcopters like the DJI Phantom are incredibly affordable and seem very easy for anyone to master. When shooting a commercial earlier this year, I had a similar mentality. "Why don't I buy a cheap quadcopter and strap a GoPro to it. How hard can it be?"
The music we use in our work, whether for videos or slide shows for stills images, is an integral part of the narrative and story we are trying tell. The genre, artist and music track we choose, sets the tone for the entire story we wish to tell.
Bullet Time added to Major League Baseball and the National Football League is as cool as it sounds.
In the latest video from the "Life In Focus" series presented by F-Stop Gear, professional snowboarder turned photographer Jeff Curtes is interviewed about his beginnings in the world of photography, and he explains what he thinks is the key to his success. The video goes on to show Jeff hanging out of a car to shoot road bikers from mere feet away, while moving at a very fast speed.
Earlier this week, I stumbled upon Eskimo’s latest passion project “Wonderland”. At first, I expected a step-by-step guide to finding success with commercial work. But in fact, what I watched felt more reminiscent of a support group.
The short documentary highlights a handful of creative professionals giving transparent insights into creative commerce.
We can often get swept up in the world of digital video. Topics like 'What it will mean for the future of photography when we can pull stills from video?' occupy a lot of time and thinking.
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.
Yesterday I posted a great aerial video over New York, and today I stumbled on this gorgeous time lapse/environmental piece by videographer Eric Hines. The project, called Expedition Iceland, is a collection of shots from a 17 day adventure around the country during the midnight sun in June 2013.
Over the span of three months, Luke Shepard journeyed through 36 cities and 21 countries with the intent of capturing these beautiful European structures. What started as a successful kickstarter campaign,which raised nearly $20,000, has led to this beautiful video.
Despite the information floating around regarding the legality of drones, when you see some beautiful aerial footage taken with them, you can't help but gape in awe. In this video uploaded by Nicolas Doldinger you can watch a GoPro take to the skies. In their own words: "DJI Phantom + Zenmuse H3-SD Gimbal + Gopro Hero 3 = NYC LOVE."
Dave Dugdale of LearningDSLRVideo.com just published this great demonstration of the differences between recording video in raw and H.264 formats using Canon DSLRs and free Magic Lantern firmware. The difference is pretty astounding to me, as someone who has only ever shot video in H.264.
“Dress for the job you want, not the job you have”. I’m sure we’ve all heard this saying at one point in our lives. Even though I never took the advice (In your face Mom!) it can easily be reworked into something I firmly believe. “Film for the job you want, not the job you have”.
Recently director Moark Tola got the chance to spend 2 days testing out RED's Epic Dragon and has shared the results with all of us. I'm not going to lie, I've always been afraid that the day would come when a videographer could pull any frame a video and call it photography. Now you are only $29k (the price of an Epic Dragon brain) away from being able to do just that.
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.
The Weather Channel recently released "Brink" a series of gripping short films showcasing six stories of animals that are dangerously shrining in numbers due to poaching, development and hunting.
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.
Sometimes the greatest tool for creating unique movement is your own body. Using human-powered camera moves, an aggressive color grade, and high-speed cameras, the final video in the full post is definitely worth a watch. In this behind the scenes video, Sebastian Linda explains how his vision came together using a high speed camera to create a fascinating 'dream world' of skateboarding.
Casey Neistat was approached with an unusual proposition from Mercedes Benz. They wanted Casey, a successful Youtube filmmaker to make a car commercial for the new Mercedes Benz CLA, even though Casey has never filmed a car commercial or anything close to resembling one. The following set of the three videos is his rather interesting journey so far.
DigitalRev's Pro Tog challenges are back, this time with a DIY theme. In this video see Pro Photographer Mark Chung create a continuos ring light using some basic hardware store materials, then use them in a fashion shoot.
Night photography is a very broad category, open to many different approaches and techniques to create a unique image of the world, or universe around us. The team at Walley Films has done a great job in this video, documenting the night/light painting photo workshop led by Scott Martin and Lance Keimig in Texas.
Sometimes you see videos that just enthrall you in their simple yet beautiful elegance. This timelapse by Daniel Csobot is one such experience. He uses a Canon EF 100mm Macro on a Canon 7D with a Kessler CineSlider to capture the growth of a flower from seed to sprout to full growth.
For more from Daniel, make sure you check out his Vimeo Channel.
Not too long ago we featured a tutorial that showed you how to make a fantasy desert kingdom out of tourist images, and thought I would share with you another amazing project by a talented artist. Alexander Koshelkov has quite an impressive resume of outrageous Photoshop compositions that excellently use real world items to create fantastical scenes.