Fstoppers Original Articles

Thomas Stewart made headlines back in 2015 when he posted a rant about wedding guests and their mobile phones. Fast forward 3 years and things don't seem to be getting any better. So should we put the cameras away?

Currently, one of the most discussed topics in our photographic community is if DSLR cameras are already dead. The Digital Single Lens Reflex cameras were indisputably the preferred ones until the mirrorless cameras step ahead into the game and showed how good they could be.

We have all heard it before: shoot more, do a 365-day challenge, or attend a workshop. This advice is fine, and it can improve your photographs, but how about putting your camera away to improve your photography?

I’ve always subscribed to the practice of “paying it forward” however you can, and this article is my way of doing so for the intrepid photographers out there fixin’ to fashion a career in this space.

Every coin has two sides, and today, we're going to take a look at the natural light side of the lighting conversation. Here are seven different reasons why I think that natural lighting for portraits is pretty damn rad when compared with using flash.

Photography is a challenging career. So, what pulls us through when it all gets so overwhelming?

Sometimes, it can feel really daunting to try to create original images like no one has ever seen before. With social media oversaturated with photography, it often seems like we have captured it all. So, when I came across surf photographer Ben Thouard’s tropical landscape images captured through the back of a breaking wave, I was a little jealous, but more so inspired and hopeful.

After reading an article from a fellow Fstoppers writer on following the herd, I realized the power one person actually has when it comes to sharing a photo. Here is my story on discovering a location that doesn’t exist.

Merrell, an outdoor footwear brand, wanted a photography concept that would celebrate diversity on trails, but in a way that felt genuine and reflected reality. While outdoor brands usually look towards more of a traditional commercial photography approach, Tim Kemple had something else in mind to achieve their goals.

Most people do not understand lighting, frequency separation, or color grading. Here are some things to consider to make your next image even more engaging.

Winter is almost upon us, and that also means the opportunity for beautiful photos of falling snow is about to happen.

If you're an aspiring professional landscape and outdoor photographer, it might be time to stop capturing those iconic landscape scenes.

Photography can become ridiculously expensive with gear and props and all the other necessities. So when there is a chance to save, I save!

Welcome to "Photographing The World 4" Behind the Scenes episode 2. In this episode, we visit one of the most crowded photography locations in the world, Antelope Canyon.

Do you crave the look of a high-end, hand-painted portrait backdrop for your studio, but don't want to shell out the bucks for such a luxury? Why not grab your favorite roll of seamless paper and fake it ‘til you make it?

Asking for feedback on your own images is a healthy practice and can help improve your work. Learning how to give quality feedback to other photographers not only contributes to the community and helps fellow image makers, but it can also improve your own photography.

When you own a photography company, there are multiple ways to make money. Unfortunately, most things that make money require quite a bit of work. Thankfully, this is one of the ways you can make money without doing too much work.

It has been ten years since I started work as a professional photographer and I had the chance to survive in this crowded business over these years. Let me share some of my experiences throughout this journey.

Every landscape photographer will someday run into a situation when the bright light of the sun causes flares. Especially when using filters; the extra glass can increase reflections that results in the dreaded spots in a picture. However, there is a way to get rid of them, in most occasions.

With famous locations getting so crowded, working photographers often fall by the wayside. So should there be a pecking order?

Yes, photographers can and do have bad days. Following your favorite photographers on Instagram, it might seem that all the photographers in the world are cruising along while you alone battle horrible days. And guess what, bad days are more common than you might think. So, it is important that we as a community learn and help each other survive bad days. I’ve created an action plan for myself that has helped me overcome difficult days and I hope this will help you as well.

Adobe Portfolio is an excellent option for creating your first website or even as a replacement for photographers that don’t want to focus on web development, but not everyone knows how to get all the value out of it. With some simple customizations, Portfolio can become a powerful and easy to maintain site for photographers of all levels.

In 2008, Olympus was teetering on the edge of photographic irrelevance, and Panasonic wasn’t a serious player in the camera industry. All that changed, however, when the latter launched a brand new mirrorless interchangeable lens system, dubbed Micro Four Thirds, with the Panasonic Lumix G1, released towards the end of that year.

Photography is far from merely pressing the shutter; it encompasses so many people’s skills. So, what can you do to help yourself feel more comfortable working with strangers?

Did you know that some of the earliest combat images were captured on personal pocket cameras by professional soldiers (amateur photographers), not by official or professional photographers?

With Photokina behind us and the unprecedented amount of new cameras and lenses announced over the past few months, we’ve had some time to let the dust settle, and there is something very interesting about just how differently Canon and Nikon are approaching the full frame mirrorless camera market. The question is: who is right?

When was the last time you took a photo with your DSLR? The time before that? And before that? Maybe a photo challenge will help you to consistently pick up a camera.

Experiencing bouts of anxiety when working fast paced events like a wedding is quite commonplace, clearly there is a lot riding on you the photographer. Truthfully a lot of that stress, we tend to create for ourselves. Let me explain how with thoughtful preparation ahead of time, I minimize to an extent those periods of uneasiness.

If you're serious about improving your Portraits, then pull your seat in a little closer. Because in this article you’re about to discover 7 compelling reasons why, using flash is much better for your Portraits than just regular natural light. But first, can I ask you a question?

Using a polarizer in landscape photography is often advised. And with reason: colors will be enhanced, reflections in water and on the leaves can be removed, and skies can turn deep blue. But it is not advisable to use a polarizer as a standard filter, because there are situations when it can turn against you.

The Fstoppers community is full of talented photographers producing images beyond the average photographer’s capabilities. When you view them all together in a gallery, there are certain things that make excellent photographs stand out beyond the mass of above-average images being shared regularly. Here’re a few of the things that catch my eye.

Landscape photography used to be about discovering new places and creating incredible images that no one had seen before. Nowadays, it feels like it's more about checking the location tag of something spotted on Instagram and photographing a scene that has already been shot to death.

I suspect that many of you can relate when I say that Flickr will always hold a special place in my heart. When I think about the photo-sharing platform founded in 2004, I am filled with nostalgia of a time when things were simpler and arguably better for photographers looking to share their work and find a community of like-minded creatives.

Making the jump from amateur to professional photographer can be both an exciting and scary thing, and it’s important to know how to do everything correctly. Make sure you do all these things before you open for business.

At the beginning of October, I challenged photographers to make amazing photographs using only a flashlight, and the winning image is a testament to the creativity of the Fstoppers community.

A chilly September morning. The crispness in the air added weight to the solemn moment. My composition was all figured out. I patiently waited for the final elements to come into place.

Running a photography business can be a lonely job. When you take the plunge into running a small business full-time, you quickly realize how solitary the work can be. Here’s why it’s so important to meet and build relationships with other photographers.

A little over a month ago, I got married. Now that the dust has settled, I thought I might share some realizations I had from being on the other side of the camera lens for a change.

When it comes to liquify, less is usually best. Unless you have a model or client who specifically asks for heavy shaping, chances are you are going to have an unhappy client if this tool is overly used.

It doesn’t always take expensive equipment to make big changes to the mood of a shot. Here are a couple ways I found to improve my portraits with a tool I didn’t so much buy as I found laying in the trash.

There is a lot of debate within the photo community on the importance of a social media presence. As social media has increasingly evolved as an essential in daily life, it’s time for photographers to stop fighting against the current. No matter your niche, there is value in participating in an online presence. Instagram is a particularly important tool for photographers to generate leads.

If the majority of what we and our clients see online are beautiful couples' portraits, is there a place for reportage wedding photographers, and how would you step into it?

It’s an awfully exciting time to be a creative, as the tools we use are becoming more portable, more powerful, and more connected. Fstoppers sat down with Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, and Scott Belsky, Adobe’s Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President of Creative Cloud, to discuss how new tools are empowering creatives and where the future will take us.

Whenever a new iPhone is released, we start to see comparisons being made against "proper" cameras. Generally speaking, these comparisons are met with some hostility and the most frequent comment I see is about how iPhones will never replace proper cameras. I wonder, would it be a good thing if smartphones actually did replace our cameras?

Using your personal interests and hobbies can be a great way to create a stock photography niche that is both creatively and financially rewarding.

Lenses are primordial, yet many photographers tend to attach mediocre entry-level zoom glasses on their camera when there are plenty of affordable quality lenses on the market. Here is a personal selection of some of the best optics that can be found under $300.

By now, no one is surprised by the actions of reality television star, Kim Kardashian-West. With such a massive following on social media, it seems like she could wipe her rear, post the paper on Instagram and we'd have an instant Instagram hit. After all, art is subjective, right? Were the images she used in her recent campaign to launch her newest line of perfume used in good taste, or was the advertising concept a fail supported by her massive... following?

When someone asks me how long I’ve been doing photography, it’s a complicated question. I worked in the film industry for years and still do. Many of those concepts and techniques are directly translatable — composition, exposure, color, etc. I fooled around with photos, but I didn’t really start photography, putting my life on a whole new path, until someone told me not to.

In this article, go behind the scenes on a year-long photo project, a "Century of Portraits," and see what it took to make this ambitious series a reality.