Fstoppers Original Articles

I'm not sure how many more times I can read the repugnant merging of two disparate words without writing a furious letter to someone, but I'll do my best to soldier on through. For any sentient being, the last few days have been filled with the word "Brexit," more so if you live on this little angry island I inhabit. The reach of the impact of this momentous event is both wide and largely unknown. That said, there's a very real chance it will affect many of us camera folk.

On April 29 we launched our first ever weekend hashtag project over on the @officialfstoppers Instagram. The theme for the inaugural shooting event was black and white photography. Many photographers contributed wonderful photos and here I’m sharing a selection of images that I enjoyed. We welcome you to join in on the second weekend hashtag project that was just launched and you too can have your photo published on Fstoppers. This weekend’s theme is "pattern" and I have all the details for you at the end of this article.

Several months ago, Fstoppers and ViewBug teamed up to host a landscape photo contest with Elia Locardi as the judge. Thousands of images were submitted with some heavy competition but the best have surfaced to the top. Check out the winning images below and get a little inspiration from the Grand Jury Winner below.

Overshooting may sound like it's a dumb thing to do, but over my time doing photography, I’ve learned how important it really is. Here, I will go over a few reasons why you should shoot more than you need to. They apply to almost any sort of shooting situation.

In 1987, Canon made a widely criticized move and introduced the EF mount. This was mostly to create a mount that was easier to build auto focus and stabilization mechanisms into. The EF lenses are among some of the best in the world, so there's no complaint now. Back in the 80s, however, there was a massive outcry against Canon's decision to abandon an entire system and force their shooters into new cameras and lenses with no backwards compatibility. As time passed, no one really cared. Canon's legacy is often forgotten, but Canon left behind a solid system of lenses. Those lenses are the Canon FD series.

There was a time I used to live on a paradise island called Mauritius and the summer lasted almost the whole year round. The sun was not an issue back then, as the sun protection was a ritual. The times have changed and I relocated back to my motherland Armenia, which has very severe cold winters and really hot summers. As the summer lasts only limited time we usually forget to protect ourselves from sun when it suddenly starts burning like hell.

Partnership success stories are everywhere. From business innovators like Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google or Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak of Apple, to less formal partnerships like authors JRR Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. There is a trend in the creative world to tout either big collaborative teams or solo introverted lone-wolf style work. I’m here today to tell you that the magic number is actually two, and why having a business partner is the best choice I ever made.

Mental images, dynamic range, luminosity masking... This week's article in this series is chock-full of terms that will send your head spinning. But when we want to communicate through landscape photography, it is best to speak the language first. I'll show you a big part of my processing workflow, introduce you to a great alternative to HDR photography, and tell you why Ansel Adams' invention is still applicable in digital photography.

Over the years as a boudoir photographer, I have noticed a theme when it comes to new shooters about the "restrictions" they come across. Countless times I hear or read, "I wish I could upgrade my gear," "I just do not have a commercial space," or my favorite, "I just cannot afford to have all those set ups." Well quite frankly, that is a load of bull.

3D printers have recently become cheaper, more reliable, and more capable at the consumer level. On the same token, photographers constantly need all sorts of miscellaneous parts: adapters, clamps, rings, etc. It seems like now is the time for at-home 3D printing to take hold.

Any time there is a case of nepotism in photography — like with Burberry and the oldest spawn of the Beckhams earlier this year — there is a colossal backlash and insatiable rage. In a time prior to refreshing social media four times an hour, although I could see the motivation for nepotism in fashion photography, it was tantamount to indefensible in my books. Now, however, I have a harder time working out why companies wouldn't favor their elite friendship circles for recruiting photographers.

South African Photographer, Filmmaker, and Influencer Gareth Pon has recently been named the top African Instagrammer for the third consecutive year, and looking at his ridiculously eye-catching Instagram feed, it's easy to see why. I caught up with Gareth recently while he was speaking at a conference in Dublin alongside other content-creating heavyweights, such as Dan Rubin and Philip Bloom.

It’s a common belief to think that creativity is a skill that you either have or don’t. While in reality, all creativity truly is a process through which you perceive things and situations differently than others around you. Coming up with an alternative way of seeing requires hard work but it becomes easier with time. Sometimes, we get lost in our thoughts or simply don’t know how to find any new ideas. So in this article, I have laid out for you a straightforward process to come up with unique concepts for your shoots and turn them into great pictures.

In the past few months, there have been a few articles circulating around the photography community emphasizing whether or not you should commit to making this your career. Regardless of your position, I feel it’s my moral obligation to express five things most aspiring photographers don’t realize before they make that commitment.

We shoot and share our photographs. We want our images seen by other people, as a way of expressing ourselves. Entering photography contests leads to a great way of showing our images to more people with a chance of being approved by a selected jury, but what if some contests are just scams?

A few days ago, a friend of mine brought a DJI Osmo to film alongside his usual DSLR set up. The client questioned them: “Why are you filming on your phone?”

The media has done a great job of scaring the public of personal drones. Everyone believes that these flying toys are either spying on them while they shower or falling from the sky onto children's heads. Certainly remote control drones, like anything, have some level of danger, but things seem to be getting out of hand.

I think it’s probably a fair assumption to make, that at some point during your photographic journey, you’re going to purchase a piece of photographic equipment. With today's World Wide Web, that can be as easy as a few clicks and a wistful look at your decreasing bank account, but I’m here to make the case for your local, “brick and mortar,” camera store. Well maybe not all of them.

I have known Suren Manvelyan for more than 10 years. When I first met him, I was a graphic designer who was fascinated by photography and he was a physics teacher at school who was looking for opportunities to grow as a photographer. We used to gather with our small Armenian photographer’s community each Friday to share experiences, discuss photography, and develop our skills. Years passed, a lot of the enthusiasts gave up and only a few stayed faithful to their art. Suren, on his behalf, not only grew to a professional photographer, but also didn’t give up on his other interests.

I've always heard that Adobe Photoshop will not allow you to import pictures of U.S. currency because you could potentially be using the software to "copy money." Today I ran across a video that also claims that all current copy machines will not copy currency due to a hidden pattern on the bills. I decided to put this to the test.

Without composition there is just visual chaos with no beginning or end, no direction or cycle, no shape or difference between dark and light. This series is the go-to resource for compelling visual storytelling in landscape photography as it provides a condensed overview of all the elements that make up a stunning image. This week: Advanced tools that will nick the attention of the viewer and guide them carefully through your photograph.

When starting out in photography, one of the first things we hear about is the rule of thirds. We then venture out into the world, lining up our subjects onto imaginary intersecting lines. When we get home, we open our images into Lightroom and find that the crop tool is already set up to help us maintain this rule. But as we advance in our photography careers, we start to find that there are a lot more ways to compose an image. Luckily for us, there is a somewhat hidden option to change the overlay of the crop tool within Lightroom.

As a group, we photographers tend to like to do everything ourselves. I think it is something about depending on someone else that pushes against our most basic instincts. However, great portrait photography is always a team activity. This team can range from just you and your model all the way up to a full production, but one thing remains consistent: without a team, there is no photo.

Boudoir photography can be one of the most powerful ways to bring confidence back to an individual. Challenging their negative thoughts about themselves while repairing their body image is more rewarding to a boudoir photographer than the money itself (OK yes, the money is great but be honest — you love it when they cry those happy tears of joy seeing their images).

I was all set to write a completely different article. I think it had to do with film, maybe. Not anymore. Now I'm frustrated, so I'm going to write about that instead. I love Fujifilm. I love them until I hate them. The problem is, I never really know what sort of day it's going to be until I'm out shooting.

When you get to a new place you haven’t been to before, or, even if you have been there in the past, you often see something new. It’s what travel does, it lets you see new things in new ways you haven’t seen before. So when you’re walking down the street with phone in hand but you've left the camera at your hotel or apartment and you see something you’d like to shoot, how do you save the location so you can get back to it again?

Multimedia projectors have become so affordable in recent years that it is quite likely that you either own one or know someone who does. This is good news for filmmakers and photographers who are interested in achieving a unique range of eye-catching lighting effects in-camera.

Photographer Felix Hernandez has done it again. If the name doesn't ring a bell then you might know him by his amazing miniature photography such as "The Love Car" or his "The Crow & The Dove." These projects has been floating around on the Internet, and we have an exclusive on his new project called "The Wardrobe."

I've had a few months to play with the Phantom 4. I can say with certainty that it is better than the Phantom 3 in almost every way but it costs a good bit more and the Phantom 3 is still one of the greatest drones on the market today, especially at these incredibly low prices.

I was standing in a camera shop in the centre of Brisbane when the anxiety began to take hold. Lizzie and I have a shoot this afternoon, and from all accounts it should be awesome: rockin’ couple, engagement party, private boat, emerald green dress, and the big city lights of Brisbane as the backdrop. I have the tools, and I have the talent. So, why am I so nervous, and why do I love this feeling so much?

I love Fujifilm's X Series cameras. They're small, light, quick, and have wonderful image quality. The lens collection is at the top of the game, especially the primes. I went back and forth for quite some time in the lead-up to my recent personal work trip to Myanmar. I would be creating a book and needed to choose carefully. Which gear should I take? Should I take my DSLR system, or should it be the Fuji X system? In the end, I went for the Fuji X, as it allowed me to carry a couple of extra lenses and fit all of my flash system in the same pouch as well. But how would they perform?

I love my DJI Phantom 4. I've gotten some great shots that I could have only dreamed of before. And yet, a recent experience left me angry and surprised.

If you’re interested in drone photography and video, I’ve compiled a list of people and sites you need to go to for inspiration, tips, tutorials, and insight. Aerial photography has changed with the drone. When you put costs aside, the other advantages of flying a drone vs a helicopter are that it can get closer to the subject, it doesn't create the ripples in water as much, it doesn’t cause a wind force blowing out the leaves of trees and plants, and it can make for some great shots through mountain gorges that helicopters simply can’t fit through.

There may be no camera more eagerly anticipated than the Canon 5D Mark IV. The 5D Mark III is one of the workhorses of the industry, but it's definitely showing its age as of late, and many are clamoring for Canon to catch up. The 1D-X Mark II is certainly promising, but for many wedding and portrait photographers, the 5D series is their bread and butter. Here's everything we think we know about the forthcoming camera.

As a boudoir photographer for over seven years, I am always seeking new ways to keep the artistic appeal to my images. Sometimes we work so hard to create something so epic, that we forget about that simplicity is usually the key to greatness.

Our tutorial with Joey Wright on all things swimsuit photography and retouching is finally available, but we wanted to show you guys what goes into making a 20-hour tutorial. In this behind the scenes episode (number 6 of 7), we wrap up shooting in Curacao, and Joey travels to Charleston to start the retouching.

The question of whether or not to do free work is always pressing. The debate becomes a grey area of ambiguity with many people firmly on one side or the other, and the rest of us stuck somewhere in between questioning our self worth as artists. There are strong arguments on both sides of the arena. Over the course of my career I have wandered back and forth across the defining line only to lately land in the anti-free work position, and here is why.

Recently I bought a new Vizsla puppy named Leo. I decided to take a few portraits of Leo in the studio and I put them on Facebook. They became my most liked images of all time. Yesterday I went back to the studio to create a video on how I did it.

Point and shoot. That's how many people think about modern photography. A lot of things we take for granted today developed in the 1800s, including photography. Exposures took days until Louis Daguerre invented his daguerreotype process, which reduced days to minutes and produced clearer, more detailed images. At about the same time, the Victorian Period began with the ascension of Queen Victoria to the British throne. Disease was rampant and mortality rates were high, especially among children under five years old. Arguably, these were contributing factors to the unintended birth of portrait photography.

Awakening your creative mind can be a challenge, but from my previous article "Fstoppers Creative Photography Challenge (Part One)" I hope that these challenges are helping you overcome your creative rut. Sometimes it's hard to spot simple things and sometimes you just don't have that drive to take that photo. There are tons of options to sharpen you creative skills, but I find these challenges relaxing. Here are some more added challenges for you to continue.

Video is something I have begun to play with over the last few weeks in the form of a vlog on YouTube, but as you might know it's difficult to gain that organic reach you're used to on social platforms. That doesn't mean its impossible, but by using various other channels to advertise and push them to that new content is key in today's world. That is where vertical video comes in on Instagram! Yes, it might be annoying as hell to see yet another vertical video, but hold tight as I walk you through why this is a brilliant place to use it and also how you can do it yourself.

Landscape photography is the often stigmatized genre of it not communicating anything other than display of beautiful imagery at best. In this epic arc series, I strive to provide an integral resource for working on your own landscape images. We’ll cover planning, shooting, and post-processing, and talk about anything from composition to colour theory. And for the more advanced photographers, we’ll include the use of shapes, tropes, and negative space to aid in compelling visual storytelling. This week: A composition primer.

This is an article I've been on the cusp of writing for some time. I was first jolted into this area of discussion when I heard someone refer to the photography of poorer cultures and communities as "white middle-class photography." I say jolted because — perhaps naively — I had drawn no parallels between types of photographer and types of subject before that day. Unlike most criticisms about photography, this comment didn't glide past me; instead, I found myself plunged into an internal debate. Are the loose motivations of "raising awareness for" and "the documentation of" these communities disingenuous and moreover, are they doing more harm than good?

It’s almost a daily occurrence: you open Facebook or Fstoppers, and someone is telling you that it’s not okay to shoot for free. If you’re not getting paid for your work, you’re devaluing the entire industry. But chances are we’ve all done it at some point, we’ll probably all do it again, and If you don’t, you’re only hurting yourself.

In my last article, Adventures in Large Format: A Beginner's Perspective, I talked about some of the things I noticed upon purchasing and attempting to use my first 4x5 large format camera. As fun as fiddling with some knobs and taking a photo of a stool was, it was time for me to point my camera at some actual people. After lugging the camera upstairs and taking portraits of some of the awesome characters that work at the bar, it was time to see how I did.

Slowly but surely, I find myself shooting more film. It’s getting to the point where my digital cameras are almost strictly for video. They may offer better resolution and more versatility, but there’s a look to film and a fascination with the cameras that pull me to it. The one man that took me into the bottomless hole in my wallet that is film photography is Mat Marrash, a coworker and an avid large format photographer. It's some of the most gorgeous landscape photos of the Ohio Valley I've seen. A few weeks ago, Mat, myself, and the good folks at Rooted Content traveled to Hocking Hills, where Steve and Kyle from Rooted created this short of Mat’s work.

Photography is a game of emotions. Think about some of the most powerful images that you’ve ever seen. The ones that have left a lasting impression on you. Sure, they might have gorgeous tones, light, or composition, but the reason they have stuck with you for so long is probably the emotion or mood that the image evokes. Our job as a photographer is to control those moods and to decide which emotion we want our viewer to feel.

Two weeks ago, SkyPixel teamed up with DJI and launched an aerial photography contest that could win you a brand new DJI Phantom 4 and a Huawei P9 Plus smartphone, along with several other big prizes. Contestants have been invited to submit their best 360-degree aerial photos to the world's largest aerial photography community before noon on June 20, 2016. The submissions have been pouring in, but the best image has yet to be chosen. If you would like to join the fray and take home a brand new drone, check out the details below.

Some of us photographer types are rather notorious gear junkies. I'm as guilty of it as the next guy. We like our toys and love to collect as many gadgets and doohickeys as we can get our hands on. Few things grab our attention more than the spec sheet of the newest cutting edge camera. Our budgets, however, aren't as infinite as our eagerness to spend them, which often leads to the need to prioritize purchases. Despite what your eagerness is telling you, the most valuable update might actually be upgrading your computer rather than that shiny new camera body.

Freckles are in. As more and more brands and publications start opting to hire models with realistic “imperfections,” we’re bound to see more and more ads with speckled skin. Score one for realistic expectations! However, lighting freckles isn't easy, as most broad light sources will flatten the tone in the skin. Here’s a quick tutorial on how to bring back and enhance freckles in Adobe Lightroom.