Gillette Takes You Behind the Scenes of their "100 Years of Hair" Stop-Motion Commercial

Gillette, founded in 1901, has been around for just over 100 years now. To celebrate, they recently put together a genius stop-motion video showing the evolution of men's hair during that time. This video takes us behind the scenes of the four-day production and shows the painstaking level of attention-to-detail involved in creating an animation of this magnitude.

Five Budget Travel Tips to Save on Long-Term Landscape Photography

“Let’s go to New Zealand!” Ka-ching, that’s a pretty chunk of change to shell out, but travel has become comparatively more affordable than ever before. If you are considering extended travel to invest in your landscape photography, you can save a ton of money without turning vagabond.

Five Strategies for Photographing Cities

Travel photography is mostly associated with exploration of wild, untouched spaces, but in my experience, most commissioned travel photography takes place in cities. This article provides five tips for getting started in urban photography.

Expand Your Skillset: Commercial Food Photography

Photography is an enormous, multifaceted industry that ranges from portrait and product to macro and landscape. As photographers, we owe it to ourselves to learn as much as we can about each specific genre of our trade. Even if you only shoot weddings or cars, it’s important to learn and practice new techniques, which will allow you to hone your skills and can keep you out of creative ruts. Recently, I have had the opportunity to take on several types of shoots that I either have never done before or have had very limited experience with.

My 5 Favorite Light Modifiers as a Professional Photographer

As you can see, recently, I have been doing an evaluation of all the gear I have in the studio. This time, I looked at a dozen or so light modifiers that I own and selected my top five favorites. Rather surprisingly, they are far from what “conventional” light-shaping tools are.

The Importance of Having Brand Ambassadors for Consistent Bookings

Marketing yourself as a photographer can not only be time consuming but a drain on your creativity. The time that is scheduled for marketing could be going towards more sessions or creative projects. The benefits of having a team of brand ambassadors will get you booked months ahead and get you back behind the camera.

Capturing a Touchdown: My Hail Mary Camera

When shooting football or other field sports, oftentimes, you are looking downfield with your long glass such as a 400mm f/2.8, and suddenly, the play happens right in front of you. The solution is a Hail Mary camera.

[Stats] How Many Photos Have Ever Been Taken?

Try wrapping your head around these statistics. Approximately 3.5 trillion photos have been taken since Daguerre captured Boulevard du Temple 174 years ago. The global photo count is rising swiftly due to the accessibility of digital cameras and camera phones. Today, more pictures are taken every two minutes

Behind the Scenes: Creative National Ad Campaign with Michael Herb

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.

[Editorial] Why Nikon Built the D3200

I have seen a lot of remarks and questions as to why Nikon released a 24 megapixel consumer camera. Why did they pack so many megapixels into a crop sensor? The ISO performance is likely to suffer (though we won’t know for sure until we test it out). The smarter move? Keep the megapixels the same and increase the ISO performance. So why didn’t Nikon do this?

Last Canon Mirrorless Rumor Before Launch: Specs

I'm honestly really surprised how long it took to get rumors for this camera. Usually some site has a well-placed source that lets all of us gear heads in on the secret well before launch. With the Canon EOS M (their mirrorless), we didn't get much of anything till a few days ago, and Canon Rumors just posted specs today.

10 Things to Keep in Mind When Stacking Time-Lapse Images

Shooting time-lapses can be a good skill to have as a photographer and as a video producer. I like shooting nighttime traffic. It gives me an urban energy, with the lights dragging over the shot to give an indication of motion, power, and electricity.

Natural Light Photoshoot: No Equipment, No Excuses

Let me admit something: I'm not a technical photographer. Bless those that fuss with all of the specs and have an analytical approach to photography, I suppose that I rely on my own method. As a self-taught photographer, I acquired knowledge by watching other photographers create. Each had their distinct style, some were technical and others instinctual but each was equally an artist.

Creatives Make a Stand Against Depression

It is not a coincidence that so many creative types suffer from depression. It seems elemental to the process of creativity that one must suffer internally to give life to art completely unique and beautiful. According to a 2008 CDC study, it's estimated that one in ten people suffer from some form of depression; however, the connection is thought to be stronger in those of us that create for a living. Evidence suggests that creative types are more susceptible to the life-flattening effects of depression. One photographer wants you to know you are not alone in your struggles.

How to Take Perfect Sunset Landscapes

Why is it that certain sunsets stand out more than others? After all, it’s not every day we see a good one. Well, that depends on a few different things that must come together to produce the kind of sunsets we want to capture in camera. In this piece, I'll outline what to look for and when.

Newly Released Lens Filters Come With Prism Effects Built-In

The fun thing about photography is that there are so many ways to do it. One of the most popular novelties in recent years has been the use of prisms and holding objects in front of the lens to create artistic blurs. Now, one company is helping photographers do it hands-free after releasing lens filters with prism-effects built-in.

ONA Releases Brand New Line of Camera Gear for Minimalistic Photographers

ONA, the premiere camera bag and accessories company born out of New York City, has progressively released unique and well made photography gear for nearly seven years with great success. They have just released and announced a few new products that are in line with the more affordable sector of their product lineup that all seem very interesting for anyone looking to keep minimalistic with their gear organization.

Mad Max Apocalypse Photoshoot

A few months ago, I hit up my buddy Paul Miller, who is a movie director out of Southern California. Regular readers of my personal blog site may recognize Paul from my previous Mad Max Interceptor shoot. Paul told me that he is part of a group of folks that essentially constructs clothing, weapons, and even vehicles to re-enact the Mad Max post apocalypse in the Mojave desert, much like some re-enact the US Civil War. They are often referred to as "Wastelanders" after their annual gathering entitled "Wasteland Weekend".

Wireless 1080p Video: Fstoppers Reviews the Nyrius Aries Pro HDMI Transmitter and Receiver

Life as a photographer or videographer means cords — lots and lots of cords. Personally, I hate them, mostly because I'm a klutz and will invariably wrap myself in them and take down the entire set in one fell swoop. I've done my best to minimize wires in my life, but one area that's remained stubbornly dependent on physical connections is broadcasting anything on my television. The Nyrius Aries Pro seeks to change that with its 1080p wireless HDMI system, and the results are quite good.

How To Build A Profitable Portrait Studio

Starting tomorrow Friday January 4 - January 6, photographer Bambi Cantrell will be sharing helpful tips that can help elevate your portrait photography career. Hosted by creativeLIVE, this workshop will be take place at Bambi's studio in San Francisco. Throughout the 3 days, Bambi will cover how to create stunning backdrops, find inexpensive props, create a strong marketing brand, print images in-house, as well as hair and makeup.

Sony A7S II Filming Videography Kevin Whitley New Orleans

For years, videographers shooting in dark situations frequently ran into the issue of a ton of noise in darks and shadows that would oftentimes make some footage difficult or impossible to use. Many have heralded the release of the a7S II with applause due to its power for video in low-light situations and even to record bursts of high frame rates in HD, so we took one into the deep recesses of an abandoned power plant in New Orleans to see how it did.

The Photokina That Was: Five Trends from the Photography Industry's Most Important Trade Fair

Photokina is a juggernaut. Held every two years since 1966 (intermittently before that beginning in 1950), it has long become one of the largest, and arguably the single most important trade fair in the photo industry. Two years is a short enough interval to not miss larger trends, yet long enough to skip over fads, so the biannual trade show offers valuable snapshots that help us understand where the industry at large is moving. Photokina 2016 closed almost four weeks ago. Enough time has passed for things to sink in, so let's look back and contemplate what the most notable trends from this year's show were.

Why Photographers Should (Still) Care About Instagram

If you haven’t been keeping up with your photography Instagram marketing, now’s the time to revisit. Instagram marketing can be incredibly fruitful for photography businesses. To make it work for yours, you must understand how to use Instagram productively. Let’s start off with some statistics…