Fstoppers Original Articles

We often hear that we, photographers, don't necessarily need to travel the world or spend a lot of money to create beautiful photographs. That's exactly what Kavin Bradner endeavored to do when he began a weekly photographic ode to his girlfriend, calling it #maggiemondays.

There is nothing better than finally starting to get outdoors after a season of being cooped up inside. Our readers showed us their version of outdoors in the latest installment of our ongoing weekly photo theme. Check out the results and grab this week's theme to join in.

Last week, I had a photographer friend (hobbyist, but very talented) ask me if it was still possible to make a living in photography.

In a recent and popular advertisement, DJI uses Chris Burkard to showcase the new Mavic Air. But when advertisements don't line up with reality and end up costing customers a few hundred, maybe a thousand bucks, what is there to do?

Imagine pursuing your dream but lacking the funds to do so, then coming across a technology so amazing that you see the opportunity to establish a new business as a market leader, creating a chain of branches. John Plumbe, the Daguerreotype portraitist, did just this in 1840 which led to some of the most enduring photos of Washington D.C.

Justin Bettman is a portrait and editorial photographer based out of NYC and I first came across his #SetintheStreet project while scrolling through Facebook. I thought it was a fun, creative and unique project that was worth sharing! I love that the art kind of lived on after the shoot itself with him leaving the sets in place for people to engage with. So cool, right!?! With that said, I decided I had to interview him to find out what are his processes in creating these photographs.

Although these eight features may not be the sexiest that Photoshop has to offer, they all really do help to make my life as a photographer so much easier.

There is nothing quite as heartbreaking as the actual moment when your creativity is quashed. There are lots of culprits that can lead up to that moment, but I find that it's often traceable to a single action (or inaction) by another party.

Try searching your own name. Now, what do you see? Most importantly, what do your clients see?

Your brain is the most sophisticated and irreplaceable piece of equipment you bring to any shoot. But this fantastically complex machine is also littered with mental glitches called cognitive biases.

Branding your photography business is the number one way to make your business stick out from the competition. Here are a few mistakes photographers make when they begin the branding process.

2018 is certainly well underway. It’s getting toward the time of year where we start to let our goals slip. In the UK, summer has arrived and it's far more appealing to sit in a beer garden than it is to lock yourself away at your desk.

At the beginning of 2018, I set a goal to read one book a week to broaden my mind and seek inspiration from new places. So far, I've stuck with it. Lee Morris, Mike Kelley, and I decided to sit down on camera and discuss the experience.

I take a trip to White Castle once a year, against my better judgment usually. This time, I tried (and Instagrammed) their new “Impossible Slider” which is a burger that isn’t made from animals, but tastes and looks like it came from something that mooed.

You may have already read about Steven Holleran in a recent Fstoppers article. If not, let me briefly fill you in: Holleran is an extremely talented and accomplished visionary behind the lens. He's been commissioned by companies such as Google and Nike, and was the daring cinematographer for the popular Netflix series Fire Chasers and the award-winning Sundance film "A Boy. A Girl. A Dream." Plus, he's a badass.

I recently made a trip to the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona to photograph college graduation portraits. It was my first time on the ASU campus and my first time shooting college graduation photos. Here’s what I learned.

In general, we always discuss how our industry is changing and how we should do things differently to prosper. This is not only limited to our industry of photography: take the industry of education for example. Not all that long ago, college was considered the thing to do to be respected and move forward in your chosen profession.

Stock photography is an industry that enables many photographers to make a good living. Though some photographers focus their entire career around creating stock imagery, almost every photographer has the ability to supplement their income with images they've already taken.

When creating imagery of any night landscape, you are taking your camera and the other equipment you own and pushing them to their limits. With that in mind, should photographers be upset when their favorite imagery is put together in post?

While it is tempting to constantly compare ourselves to other photographers, it’s important to remind ourselves of what we already know: the quality of art cannot be measured in numbers.

Fstoppers is bringing you our first ever tutorial that deals with video rather than photos: "Intro to Premiere: A Video Editing Tutorial."

Making a short film is quite expensive, they say. However, if you know what to do, you can achieve your goal with very little tools and on a small budget. But let me warn you: it's not a simple task.

The cost was 107 billion dollars for a giant leap for mankind but a trashy subject and framing for the first picture taken on the surface of the moon.

If you are like me, you probably get numerous emails and Facebook messages from people in India wanting you to use their services for your image editing. While these individuals may give outsourcing to India a bad reputation, I’m here to show you what it’s really like at the reputable post-production service provider that is located in Mumbai, India: Pro Image Editors.

Have you ever felt like your photos were missing something? In this quick Photoshop tutorial, learn how to make your photos pop with this simple sharpening technique to bring your photos to life in minutes.

There're so many stories about big brands and companies approaching photographers in the hope of getting free images to use in exchange for the popular currency that is exposure, but what happens when they exclude the photographer from the equation completely and instead head straight to your client asking for free images?

You might have heard people talk about using leading lines to really improve your composition, but how exactly do you use them, and how do you find them? Let me show you five different examples here so you'll know what to look for next time you're shooting.

Allan Hinton, also know by his Instagram alias Chaiwalla, just returned from a trip to Southeast Asian nation Myanmar. For the journey, he swapped his Sony a7R II for a Nikon D5600. Here’s how he found the experience.

This week, our readers were challenged to find shots containing circles. Using a shape opens up the possibilities and the results are wonderful. Be sure to share with your photography circles if you enjoy.

At this point in time, I have lost track how many photographers I have run into who view other photographers around them as mortal enemies. Don't be that person; instead, realize that your camera-laden peers can be incredible sources of friendship and reciprocity.

The most significant hurdle when running a photography business is booking more clients. If you feel like you’re in a “booking rut,” here are a few ways to help spread your brand awareness and book more photo clients.

Choosing the ideal images for your portfolio can often seem as hard or harder than actually taking the photos in the first place. Most photographers tend to treat their portfolio as a dumping ground for as much work as possible with the intention that quantity is the key to building their credibility. More often than not, the opposite is true.

An image is eye catching when it's extraordinary. So why is it that the ordinary and banal can appear extraordinary? And if that really is the case, how can we go about achieving that?

Most of my food photography is lit with only one light source and after a few years of taking a special interest in shooting food and drink, I know exactly where I want the light to be and why.

Three-dimensional models are now widely used in the gaming and movie industries and one of the most common methods for creating them uses computational photography. This, the first of two articles, explains how it works.

Sometimes the best lessons in photography can come from sources far from the art world. Last week I saw an image that helped to remind me of one of the best lessons for a successful business and a successful life.

Working day in and day out as a creative professional, I don't put a lot of stock in inspiration as a source of drive and creativity. Some days, you just have to do your job whether you're inspired or not. For me, staying motivated is far more important!

As Spring gathers steam and hits its stride, wedding photographers all over gear up for sleepless nights in front of a monitor, intoxicated Macarena dance moves, and most importantly, activity in their bank accounts once more. Feeling left out of all that fun? Here are some pointers for joining in on the fun.

In an industry that seems to grow exponentially every day, how can existing and new photographers find an outlet for their work - one that is going to pay the bills and fuel their passions? Lifestyle, sports, and adventure photographer Scott Martin may have the answers you've been looking for.

For years photographers and YouTube commenters have been telling us that in order to get the most out of our Profoto B1 and D1 lights, we need to add the Profoto Frosted Glass Dome to our strobes. Today I test this add-on to see if it makes a difference at all, and the results are surprising.

You need different tripods for different situations, but you don’t need to spend big on them. I’ll show you three tripods I use that can cover you in almost any setting and won’t break the bank.

The little red toy car sat on a shelf, serving no purpose. It was inanimate, nothing more than the die-cast metal pieces of which it had been constructed. But it caught the eye of photographer Felix Alejandro Hernandez Rodriguez and an idea — a character — was born. Hernandez changed the car and brought it to life, and in turn, the car changed his life.

There are a lot of good time-lapse videos out there, but here is a personal selection of the finest ones that racked up millions of views and dozens of awards.

Personal projects often take a lot of planning and persistence to pull off. They are passion driven assignments which is a big part of why they are so important to evolve as a photographer. However, sometimes opportunity and timing don't line up so you have to make the best of a poor situation. This is when experience and determination make or break an idea.

Composition is one of the hardest things we deal with as photographers. It is complex and can seem like a neverending pursuit. Today, we’ll look at five simple ways we can approach a scene and come away with an effective composition.

I don't mean hanging out of a car window untethered to get a shot of another moving car (although that sounds kind of fun). What I mean is don't be afraid to take your work in a direction previously unexplored. What's the worst that can happen?

A few months ago, I showed you how we build out our new 10Gbps network using a Synology NAS device as our central server. This setup is protecting us from a hard drive failure, but our data still isn't 100 percent safe. In this video, I'll show you one simple step to protect your files from all types of data loss.

Airport authorities officially say that film at or above ISO 800 may be damaged by X-ray scanning. But they really should tell you that ISO 800 film will be damaged and that less sensitive film still could be affected. I found this out the hard way. Here's how I learned an important lesson along with a few other tips for avoiding issues while traveling with film.

With all the hectic distractions that come with today's fast-paced lifestyles, it's nice to slow things down sometimes and focus on one thing. That is exactly what long exposure photography offers, and our readers made it hard to pick out the best photo, as there were so many great shots this week.

Every few years we go through trends in wedding photography. The latest trend seems to be stylized photo shoots. Though stylized photo shoots are gorgeous and ripe with portfolio-worthy images, could they be hurting the industry?