I am excited to announce the release of one of the most epic projects Lee and I have been working on this year. As many of you know, Fstoppers teamed up with Landscape Photographer Elia Locardi back in 2014 to produce two separate tutorials on landscape and cityscape photography. This year we caught back up with Elia and followed him around his favorite country and some of our favorite mega cities for "Photographing the World 3." If you have been anxiously waiting for the next installment of PTW, the wait is finally over!
Elia Locardi is a great friend and an absolute monster when it comes to teaching photography and post-processing. If you have never had the chance to learn from Elia, I have embedded the first ever lesson we produced from "Photographing the World: Landscapes" below. Obviously this lesson starts out super basic, but by teaching both on location and also in the postproduction studio, Elia is about to walk you through the entire creative process he uses to capture and edit his photographs. What I love about Elia's teaching style is that he is one of the most articulate and concise educators I have ever had the pleasure of working with, and as you may know, Fstoppers has worked with a lot of photographers over the years.
A New Journey
For "Photographing the World 3," we knew we wanted to follow in the same vein as the previous two tutorials but we also wanted to present Elia with some new challenges. When picking the locations, we let Elia plan out the actual cities and towns we would visit, but we wanted to make sure many of the locations and specific shooting spots were places Elia had either never visited at all or at the very least had never photographed specifically. The main country Elia wanted to explore was his family's native country of Italy with epic cityscape lessons taking place in Dubai and New York City.
In Italy, we were able to explore the coastal towns of Positano and Atrani along the Amalfi Coast. In Positano, Elia was able to start with some basics on scouting, camera settings, and capturing multiple frames so he could teach his signature time blending technique in Photoshop. From there we moved to Atrani which allowed us to capture a beautiful coastal town along with stars in the sky. Having failed many times trying to capture stars in a well-lit town, I was skeptical Elia could actually pull off an image like this but the results below show just how many stars can be capture even when light pollution seems to be a problem.
After leaving the Amalfi Coast, we headed to the Basilicata region of Italy where we visited two of the most unbelievable mountain towns I have ever seen in my life. The first town, Pietrapertosa, challenged us with some of the worst weather we have ever faced in a "Photographing the World" excursion. This gave us the ability to show the patience and frustration a landscape photographer can experience in order to get the perfect shot. In some instances, a second visit might even be needed. The neighboring town, Castlemezzano (which is connected to Pietrapertosa by the longest and highest zipline in the world), offered us yet another great lesson on scouting and working through natural and manmade obstructions. These two locations were my absolute favorite spots from the tutorial and the resulting images should make everyone want to book a flight to Italy.
The next stop was another ancient city that Elia had never visited called Matera. Here Elia was able to teach different scouting and composition tricks as he photographed a traditional view of the city as well as a distant view of the city shot through a prehistoric cave. As you will see in the soon-to-be-released behind the scenes, Matera was filled with some of our highest points (the most amazing Italian food) as well as our lowest point (a tourist stole one of our D500 cameras). The postproduction on these lessons in Matera are also super interesting as Elia for the first time in his career dabbles with light painting to achieve his final photograph.
After traveling through Italy and photographing small rural towns, we knew we wanted Elia to explore the challenges that come with modern mega cities. The obvious choice was to head to the United Arab Emirates and photograph Dubai. The unique thing about a city like Dubai is that the cityscape literally changes every year as new skyscrapers are being completed. Keep in mind, these buildings aren't just skyscrapers but are some of the largest buildings in the world with the Burj Kalifa being the tallest building in the world. It is here that Elia teaches several advanced techniques on panoramic photography and how to blend complex cities scenes. Dubai also offers viewers a unique lesson as Elia shares his favorite photograph he has ever taken: the Dubai skyline with low lying fog.
Our final destination for "Photographing the World" wound up being New York City which ironically is the first American location to be featured in the series. In these New York City lessons, Elia was able to focus on some new tools he has not previously explored on video such as Fujifilm's new GFX 50s medium-format camera, Nikon's new 19mm Tilt-Shift lens, and the ultimate panoramic stitching hardware, the Gigapan Epic Pro. What was cool about shooting in New York was seeing Elia photograph pretty common New York scenes with these unique photographic tools. While this section was challenging for all of us, it was fun to not only teach super advanced techniques but also learn a few tricks ourselves.
What Is Included in This Tutorial
Just like with every tutorial Fstoppers produces, our goal is to help you take your photography to the next level regardless of what genre or specialty you focus on. I've included some of the topics Elia covers in "Photographing the World 3" below but I have to say that many of these techniques can be applied to any type of photography, not just landscape or cityscape photography. In PTW3 Elia intentionally only relies on Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop so that you can master these two pieces of software without having to rely on costly or complicated third-party plugins. Once you learn how to quickly and effectively apply masks, luminosity masks, gradients, color curves, and complex selection paths to your images, you can literally apply these postproduction workflow tools to any type of photograph you want. From my personal experience, the postproduction techniques I have learned both from Elia Locardi and Mike Kelley have changed the way I approach my own photography more than anything else I've ever learned from another photographer (and I do not shoot landscape or architectural work specifically).
- In-Camera Photography Techniques (ISO, Shutter Speed, Aperture, White Balance, etc)
- Overview of Ideal Lenses and Gear for Cityscape and Astrophotography
- Examples of New Lightweight Tripods, Clamps, and Accessories
- Extensive Location Scouting and Tips for Better Composition, Angles, and Vantage Points
- How to Set Up Precise Camera Gear to Capture Hard to Work With Shooting Locations
- Advanced Panoramic Photography Shooting and Stitching
- GigaPano Multi-Row Panoramic Shooting and Stitching
- Working in Urban Environments and Proper Gear Setup and Control
- Solid Neutral Density Filters and Softening Skies and Water
- How to Use Smartphone Apps to Precisely Plan Your Night and Astrophotography
- Capturing Stars and Star Trails Over Urban Environments
- Understanding and Mastering Light (Golden Hour, Blue Hour, Sunrise and Sunset, and Astro)
- Time Blending (combining exposures shot at different times)
- Bracketing and Multiple Exposure Blending
- 100% Manual Exposure Blending Using Zero HDR Software
- Blending Different Moments in Time Together (Blending Different Times of Day Seamlessly)
- Non-Destructive Techniques to Master Raw Processing
- Extensive Non-Destructive Color Correction and Image Adjustment
- Complex Selections and Masking Techniques
- How to Create and Work With Luminosity Masking Techniques
- Advanced Luminosity Masking
- Compound Channel Masking for Precision Selections and Color Corrections
- Advanced Object Removal and Image Cleanup
- How to Replace Skies and Add Depth and Drama to Existing Ones
- Precision Sharpening and Selective Noise Reduction
An All New Behind-the-Scenes Series
If Elia's photography education wasn't valuable enough, Fstoppers has also tried to bring you along on our journey by taking you behind the scenes during the filming of this production. The last 18 episodes of "Photographing the World" have become a cult classic for fans of Elia and Fstoppers, and I'm excited to say that with "Photographing the World 3" we have produced the longest behind-the-scenes mini-series yet. With right around three hours of content, Lee, Elia, and I try to blend the perfect mix of photography education with exotic world travel. The resulting video blogs are both hilarious and exciting, and fans of the original series will be happy to follow along once again.
For more information about the entire "Photographing the World" series, head over to the Tutorial page on Fstoppers.com.
YEAH!!
Do you guys include some itineraries in the videos? Many of these locations are worlds away, and having a good place nearby to sleep, eat, as well as gear places to stock up on any lost, forgotten, or broken photo accessories would be helpful. Especially in remote locations like Iceland, where lodging is often booked months ahead, especially in popular areas. Sunset/sunrise times in Iceland are unorthodox, and tides play a big role in oceanscapes too. Was really curious to see how far beyond the photography part you really go, because it all needs to fall in place to get the final shot.
Would also love to see some more focus on panoramics. It's the latest craze in landscape photography, and it's what made Peter Lik so successful. There is a generic feeling of familiarity that comes with 4:3 and 3:2 ratio compositions, while panoramics carry a much bolder visual edge. Here's one of my quick samples:
Elia does talk a bit about scheduling, booking hotels, and what seasons are best to travel but it's not like a HUGE section of the tutorial. It's easy enough to download a tide and sunset calculator for some of that and for many things like camera stores, well, in a lot of these locations that just isn't possible. Having backups is pretty crucial if something goes wrong on location. Besides sharing what we actually did during the production, I'm not sure how useful it would be unless you were going to copy the exact same itinerary that we did but for us cost isn't necessarily something we skimp out on with this series.
Yay can't wait! And can't wait for the BTS, please tell me the moon boots make an appearance!!
Hope you guys rethink the BTS videos as the first one was horrible. Lee has become such a huge diva it really is a turnoff. Use to anticipate the BTS videos but now it seems all it shows is Lee’s ignorance of other cultures. And I really do not care to see Lee talking into the camera again with food stuck in his beard. It was gross.
I agree, food in your teeth is gross but all of us have been guilty of it before me included. And here I thought I was the one being the Diva :/
this looks like a cool tutorial and explains some awesome stuff, and im happy you guys have now made 3 tutorials like this, but can the next one be, "I live in a town 350 miles away from anything and dont have $25,000+ to travel the world to photograph these places so here is something cool to photograph in the middle of nowhere besides wildlife and a desert sunset" please...
it's called Big Bend National Park and it's maybe 3 hours away from you by car. If you can't get spectacular photos there of things other than wildlife and desert sunsets then just throw your camera away.
Haha you guys are reading our minds! We actually traveled a ton through Utah and Arizona for supplemental content for PTW3 but wound up with WAY too much content. So our next project will focus a lot on Western USA which was really awesome. I've only been to Utah to ski so I had no idea all the natural beauty there in the summer. If you are from Texas, you should def make some week long trips to that part of the country. Oh and driving up the 101 PCB should be on your list too!
Waiting to see the next BTS!
Haha, Marco, you gave us our first awesome meal in Italy! Thanks so much for your guidance and it was fun hanging out with you and talking food and politics (and cameras). Hope all is well!
Hi Patrick! I was watching the third episode, but I have a strange face ??! Hahaha
You guys do not know the whole story.
Four days before meeting you I was working to take pictures in a hotel, it was very cold and it was snowing and I had a bit of influence, but unfortunately I could not leave the job because the hotelier had prepared the rooms to be photographed, I decided to go anyway and while I was working, my fever went up and after I finished my job I felt bad,I rushed to the hospital, as soon as I got to the reception I called the nurse and then I can not remember other, because -> I fainted ;)
( this damn sense of responsibility for the work pervading freelancers... )
I was awakened 5 hours later on the stretcher, and the nurse told me that I had high fever, could have been worse. I come home and rest in bed...
But!
I knew you were in the Amalfi Coast and obviously could I miss the opportunity to meet Elia and Fstoppers crew? No way!
So I took some medication and rest to get better and I came to meet you, And at the end I can only thank you guys for the day spent together and talk about things in general, although my English is not really the best, but it was nice to meet you, and I'm glad you finally ate well in italy, generally in southern italy the food is good, there is a culture of food different from the north. You should try the food of Puglia, Calabria and Sicily too, and of course eating pizza with mozzarella di bufala in Naples.
Next time you come back to italy, maybe for the Zip Line too, I bring you to a wine cellar where there is also a famous restaurant, I think Elia and Lee would love it!
Whaaaaaa! Are you kidding me? Man I had no idea! Thanks for hanging out but goodness, glad to know you are okay. Thanks for the gifts by the way :)
I dont have time to look at ot now but looks AMAZING!:)