Fstoppers Original Articles

The use and misuse of composite photography is a story we hear about quite often. Long before the days of Photoshop and digital manipulation, though, composite photography existed. Here's the story of one of the earliest controversies surrounding a composite.

Stress is a killer. I’m sure you’ve heard that before. Study after study after study all concludes that stress can lead to a whole slew of nasty consequences. It would then stand to reason that it is in our absolute best interest to reduce it as much as possible. Anyone who has chosen to make their living as a photographer, however, will tell you that this is harder than it appears.

This is the most simple and basic component of life: Our struggles determine our successes. Hence, what pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for? As Mark Manson tells us, the question that determines your success isn’t "what do you want to enjoy?” The question is “What pain do you want to sustain?”

Happy Halloween everyone! Today we decided to create a super simple, creepy image with some basic equipment. With 2 lights, a gel, smoke, a cardboard box, and some quick Photoshop we were able to create something almost anyone could easily reproduce.

With approximately 3.4 million cats entering animal shelters every year in the U.S. alone, the need for adoption is stronger than ever. That's why Fashion Stylist Ryen Blaschke and Commercial Photographer Shaina Fishman teamed up for "Cats in Hats," a wonderful series featuring rescue cats and kittens that are currently up for adoption.

You had me at f/0.95. When I saw Fiction Brand's tribute to my favorite lens in the whole world, the $10,000 Leica Noctilux-M 50mm f/0.95 ASPH, I knew I had to have one. But once I got my foot in the door, I realized there's more to this brand than just a novelty tee shirt as I reviewed their camera strap, hat, and pocket SD shirt.

A simple Google search will turn up millions of results on what photographers should do/not do when working with models. However, nine times out of ten, these articles are written from a photographer’s perspective, and the model’s voice is rarely heard. Well, today is your lucky day! I have jumped in to give you the model perspective! Whether you are shooting underwater, commercial, fashion, conceptual, etc., some of the same rules of etiquette apply across the board.

On Thursday, Visual Supply Company (makers of the immensely popular editing app, VSCO) announced the release of DSCO, their new app for creating short, GIF-like clips. I downloaded the app and spent some time with it today.

Simply put, cameras are tools. It is up to the artist to create the image. Digital photography is everywhere nowadays. Point-and-shoots and iPhones are capable of some amazing things, and consumer level DSLRs are cheap enough to bring a high level of image quality to the masses. What separates soccer moms from professional photographers is the deep understanding that professionals have of their art and their gear. Anybody can learn the relationship of aperture, ISO, and shutter speed, but the application of it and the understanding of the side effects that those bring transcends any technological advancements. DigitalRev has plenty of proof on that concept. At the same time, if your camera is downright annoying to use, what use is it at all? That is where my issues with Sony began.

The Apple Store is a glorious place to visit. I love technology and I really appreciate their knowledgeable staff. Buying, returning, and repairing Apple products in their store has never been a smooth process for me though.

Smartphones get a bad rap. They’re ruining the photography business, they’re the downfall of society - you know, that sort of thing. Wedding photographers complain about the glare of screens dotting the aisle like a runway landing strip. Newborn photographers cringe when mom shoots over their shoulder. Clients text you at all hours of the night, not realizing your “work phone” is sitting on your bedside table. But as much as we hate on smartphones, we can’t ignore that they’ve given us the ability to network, communicate, and market in ways that weren’t possible just a few years ago. Here’s how to use your smartphone to build your business more effectively.

AIG's recent move to begin insuring unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) marked the beginning of the first large, national insurance company to get ahead of (or catch up with) the "drone movement." Like this season's migration of Canadian geese, everyone seems to be flocking in droves, clearly intent on getting to the online shopping outlets and local electronics stores that sell the latest drones. But few actually know about how to use their newly affordable crafts safely and without risking their entire life's savings. A quick phone call with the Hill & Usher insurance agency led us to a few clues about where to start.

Our next episode of "Critique the Community" will feature swimwear photography. This featured image was taken by the amazing swimwear/fashion photographer Dixie Dixon. In our next episode, Dixie and Patrick Hall will critique 20 random images submitted by our readers. Please post your submissions into this post by Sunday November 1st at 11:59PM EDT for your chance to get direct feedback from Dixie and the FS staff.

I've seen photography products that have made me laugh at their silliness. I've seen products that have made me roll my eyes at their absurdity. But it wasn't until I saw this product that I audibly cursed at my computer screen in sheer disbelief.

Each week we get contacted by a range of manufacturers asking us to review their products. Once I had someone ask me to review a bag of lavender. When I explained that Fstoppers is a photography website, they said that even photographers like lavender and I should review it. Obviously I didn't review it but next time this happens I will review the lavender, and today I've reviewed the Parrot Jumping Drone.

Storehouse angered a number of power users in its big shakeup with the release of Storehouse 2.0 which ditched a number of features for a streamlined, more privatized system that made it harder to use the platform as a photographer’s social media marketing dream. But the numbers are out, and while it may not become the next Instagram of photo marketing and discovery, here’s why there’s a good chance it’ll find its way into your living room, regardless.

You've heard it before, there's no doubt: the creative gap — that picture you have in your head of what you want a shot to look like and what you come up with in the end. As kids we're completely fine with this, we can always just draw or make something else 10 seconds later, but as adults we often get crippled with the fear of rejection.

International candy day is upon us which means that there are going to be opportunities galore to capture some cool shots of the living dead. One way to make your photos feel a bit more horror inspired is to make them look like they were taken decades ago.

Images are extremely easy to copy, repost, and republish on the Internet and as photographers we have an inherent interest to not let that happen without our permission. We work hard to create our photographs, investing time and money into our projects. But with a few simple clicks or the help of apps, people can take images and do almost whatever they want with them without many technical restrictions.

To be clear, STARVIS is a new sensor whose technology is mostly meant for applications in scientific, industrial, and security spaces. And Sony won't give out any "normal" number with respect to ISO yet, either. Part of that might be because actual ISO is difficult to determine, since the back-lit CMOS sensor places its photodiodes in front of other hardware components that, conventionally, would block a substantial portion of light information. But as unclear as the exact results are, here, the latest advancements in ultra-sensitive sensor trickery point to a new level of attainability.

So you found the perfect model for your concept, reached out to him or her, agreed on a date, showed up at the location, and are about ready to shoot. You have never met this person in your life. Now what? We have all seen those unfortunate shots taken by our fellow photographers where the client or model looks wildly uncomfortable. We want our models to look at ease in every frame, and this can be accomplished by following these four simple steps.

A couple weeks ago, we asked the community to submit their natural light portraits to be critiqued. We had an overwhelming number of over 300 images submitted for feedback and thus will be breaking up this critique into two episodes of 20 images each. For the first episode, we had the honor of having Dani Diamond, a fantastic natural light photographer in New York, help us critique a range of 20 images. Check out the selection of pictures below and add your thoughts to the comments!

Have you ever wondered what it takes to be a successful photographer? To determine what creates success, we first have to define success. While success can take many forms, in this case we are referring to it as a healthy coexistence between business life and personal life, while following a profitable career that you love. For each individual the criteria changes, but for the past several months, after lots of reading, listening to podcasts, and through personal experiences, I have compiled a list of five words that describe a successful photographer.

You have your gear, you have your shot list, so you're ready to go out and shoot the perfect eight-hour wedding, right? Wrong! Being prepared for a wedding day is about more than just having your camera ready to go. Before leaving for your wedding shoot, you need to be prepared to perform at your best. A big part of that is developing a routine, similar to an athlete, that places you in peak performance and the best position to succeed. When I walk out the door for a wedding I have two main things on my mind other than the images that my client needs. One is that I am now a living breathing ambassador for my brand and the other is that the content for this shoot, and every shoot, is future marketing material.

Lightroom does some things really well, but one area I always wished I had more control over was web culling. After some investigation, here's the best method I've found for efficiently sending out photos for clients to peruse and select.

I love my Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM lens. Or was it a 1.4? It turns out that even though it says f/1.2 on the barrel, the story is more complex than that.

Facebook is rolling out a cool new feature that will become a lucrative sales and marketing tool for photographers. Profile videos are here and they can help your photography business stand out, whether you're a travel photographer or a portrait and wedding shooter. Read on to see how it works and how your business can make smart use of these 7-second profile video loops.

One of the first things I heard when I sat down at a large white table with Light CTO and Co-Founder Dr. Rajiv Laroia and VP of Marketing Bradley Lautenbach was that, when it comes to lenses, plastic is better than glass. Scratching my head for a bit, while searching for some logic, but keeping an open mind (I did ask for a meeting with the guy who decided to put 16 lenses in a small box and call it the future of photography), the meeting proceeded to somewhat blow my mind… if it’s all true.

In the digital age, we spend a lot of time in front of screens. Many of us retouch our own work, distribute it digitally, and even only have a digital portfolio. Some sell prints of client work, or fine art prints. And, some get published in magazines. In a past article on reinvigorating your love for the craft, I touched briefly on printing your work, and would like to expand on that today.

Dixie Dixon has been a good friend of Fstoppers over the years, and she even came down to the Bahamas with us for the first Fstoppers Workshop. Lee and I have been preaching since the start of FS that photographers need to film behind the scenes videos their own photoshoots. I was absolutely thrilled to see that Dixie has produced this short video outlining exactly how you should incorporate video into your own business.

Capture One has been known amongst high-end retouchers and commercial photographers for quite some time, the main reasons probably being its powerful tethering and color editing tools. Wedding photographers seem to think Capture One is not tailored to suit their needs. At least, that is what I thought. After a full year using only Capture One to process my raw files, I wanted to share with you why I stopped using Lightroom.

The Internet has done a rather annoying job of trivializing the photo selection process. Culling images is a critical process in a photographer’s workflow that the client or model often wants to be a big part of. The majority of photographers I’ve asked address this by dumping all the photos into some sort of web-based proofing site and just send the link off to clients and let them make their choices.

As Fstoppers' resident virtual reality content creator, I'm excited to share our most recent project we did for AOL. A few weeks back, the Autoblog/Translogic team flew my business partner and I to southern California and rented out a race track so we could film an awesome 1980s Ferrari that was converted to an all-electric high-performance sports car in virtual reality. They also wanted to interview us on what we are doing in the VR field and where we see the technology going. Learn more and see the actual VR film below!

On Monday I got an email from Microsoft telling me that a $2700 Surface Book was waiting for me at my local FedEx. I hurried over to pick it up and then I immediately went to the Apple Store in town to buy (what I thought was) as comparable MacBook Pro.

A few weeks ago Microsoft announced the Surface Pro 4, an updated version of the very successful Surface Pro 3. The day after the event they gave me one to test and I'm really enjoying it.

Something I've been asked a lot during my career is where I went to art school. Whether I took that as a compliment on my dedication to my craft or an insult saying that I couldn't have gotten to that point without years of instruction, I still really don't know. As you can probably tell, I was self-taught, not even finding photography until I was a senior in college, already committed to grad school for my MBA.

Our next episode of "Critique the Community" will feature headshot photography. This featured images was taken by the master himself, Peter Hurley, and in our next episode Peter will critique 20 random images submitted by our readers. Please post your submissions into this post by Thursday October 22nd at Midnight for your chance to get direct feedback from Hurley and the FS staff.

There are a lot of videos online, I mean a lot. The two words I hear out of clients that always make me cringe are "viral video." I want you to take a couple of seconds and expunge those words from your vocabulary... great! As many of you know SEO is the driving factor for long form content (such as this article.) Believe it or not, most of the principles that apply here are almost identical for video SEO.

So you want to travel with a model? I've been shooting portraits for around four years now, and have started to (finally!) add more traveling to my life. Unintentionally, it turns out that my travel partner, my friend Victoria, also happens to be a model. In a relatively short span of time, Victoria and I have shot together in multiple countries and states, including Florida, North Carolina, New York City, Ireland, Italy, and France. In my career up until this point, I had worked with a variety of models, choosing them based on how they fit a location or look. Here are some of the pros and cons of the experience.

Building a respectable name for yourself as a photographer can oftentimes feel impossible, especially in a market saturated with other photographers. In an industry with so much competition, you need to differentiate yourself and your work from the rest your competitors if you really want to stand apart from everyone else. That sounds extremely overwhelming, but there is a very practical and efficient way to carve out your own niche in this market.

Many photographers rely on their 50mm 1.4 and 85mm 1.4 lenses to give that dreamy, narrow depth of field look to their portraits. These two lenses have become a staple for portrait, headshot, wedding, and boudoir photographers who enjoy the soft look that comes with a narrow depth of field and natural lighting. But what happens when you want to create a similar effect in the studio, where your strobes are often too powerful for shooting wide open? Today, I'm going to share with you a fairly unconventional lighting technique that will allow you to shoot your lenses wide open in the studio.

Whether you’re a photographer, filmmaker, video editor, first assistant, or even just starting out as a PA, you’ve got to work to survive. There are many lengths of time where the work might seem to be non-stop; you work so much that when you do have free time, you might not even know what to do with yourself. The winds of fate can change quickly though, and you might find yourself all of sudden not having any new jobs lined up. After doing this dance for over ten years as a video producer and photographer now based out of Lexington, Kentucky, I’ve learned a few things about dealing with the stresses of when business is slow.

Editorial photography is a wonderful place to flex your muscles and test your abilities. You don't often get to shoot such variety and have such control on a single assignment. Over the past couple of weeks, we've discussed ways to approach the photography of your first assignment. Check those out here and here. This week, we'll be taking a look at getting your foot in the door and what to charge.

Each month I will be featuring and chatting to a different creative. My first is Nirrimi Firebrace, a photographer known for her intimate approach to taking portraits. She's been a name on the lips of many creatives for the better part of a decade, paving the way for the next generation of young photographers. Here, I spoke with Nirrimi about her inspirations, shooting style, and future plans.

A man with a camera and a smartphone was questioned for twenty minutes in his own neighborhood after a woman called the cops, fearing he was taking photographs of children in the park across the street. It turned out he was just a guy who lives nearby and has been photographing his neighborhood for three decades. Was this a little embarrassing for the woman? She might feel that way, but there are two sides to this story.

When I started out photography professionally, I only wanted to do weddings. It was what I loved (and still love). I thought studio work was so boring. With time, I was convinced to get my own studio and started doing portraits, beauty, products, and other genres. It was great. However, after two years, I am about to terminate my studio lease and will not take a new one. While I love shooting in a studio, I think the cons outweigh the advantages. Perhaps they will not for you. Nonetheless, let me show you what I learned from my two-year experience of having a studio.

A few weeks ago I wrote a post mocking the new Holga Digtal Kickstarter campaign. Holga's PR team caught wind of my post and decided to send me the new Digital Holga. At the same time the Impossible Project sent me a Polaroid 600 camera with Impossible Instant color and BW film. Which is better? Let's find out.

Instagram is a great way to promote your photography business. Not only can you make yourself seen by potential clients in your area, you can also be seen by millions of users across the world. With more than 300 million users though, it can be easy to get lost within the massive crowd. There are a lot of things that you can do to help grow your following, but there are also a lot of things you can do to hurt your following. If you want your business to be the next Instagram sensation, then don't make these seven Instagram mistakes.

UPDATE: Results from our reader's poll can be found here! Last week we released our head to head competition review between the Sony A7RII, the Nikon D810, and the Canon 5DsR ultra high megapixel cameras. Our test put all three cameras up against each other and compared their performance in terms of ergonomics, HD video, auto focus, ISO performance, Dynamic range, and overall image quality when used in the studio. Unfortunately a bunch of Sony users complained that our final studio test wasn't up to snuff, so we did what any respectable review site would do and brought back baby turtle. The new results might shock you.