Fstoppers Original Articles

Anthony Duron and Mark Rainwater were one of the first same-sex couples married in Indiana on June 27th, 2014 after a federal judge overturned the state's ban on gay marriage. Unfortunately, a federal appeals court put a hold on the ruling and they have been waiting in a sort of limbo ever since. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently deciding whether to hear the issue of gay marriage from several states, so many couples like Anthony and Mark have been waiting anxiously for vindication over the last three months. I was honored with the opportunity to take portraits of these two gentlemen and I learned a lot about love and life along the way.

I'm always moving around, which can make doing work on the road an absolutely nightmare. Between travel for photography, workshops and the general need for some decompression, I find myself packing for travel much more often than I expect. After years of just shutting off while on the road, I've finally developed to ways to make traveling as a photographer easier.

If you are photographing people than you understand the importance of sharpening areas of your images while masking out other parts and keeping them soft. For example, I love to sharpen the eyes, the lips, the hair, but don't want to bring out any unnecessary detail on the cheeks. Fortunately in Lightroom there is way to apply sharpening to your image while masking out areas where you would otherwise not want to apply the effect.

There are dozens of "How To" articles when it comes retouching. Very few, if any, focus on vital tips that are often overlooked, that will take your retouching to the next level. Here's a list that the Professionals in the industry never share with you.

If you are an active user on Facebook (and not living under a rock), you have surely seen status updates and links referring to your friend's profiles on the new social network, Ello. But as a working photographer or cinematographer, is investing time into another social network really worth it?

How would it feel to photograph Will Ferrell or Seth Rogen? How would you ever get to be able to shoot clients like these? How do you marry technical capability and develop your own style to deliver something unique? What if you could learn from someone doing this sort of work day in day out? Well, now you can, in this exclusive interview with Emily Shur.

Retouching problems start well before we sit down in front of the computer and begin pushing pixels around. I know this because as I reflect on my past work, I realize that I’m as guilty of making countless mistakes as much as anyone else. Rather than talk about techniques like dodging and burning, frequency separation, etc. let’s focus on more high level problems that might be leading you in the wrong direction.

The air blower bulb is an essential addition to any photographer’s toolkit. They do an incredible job at removing dust spots from the delicate sensors inside our cameras as well as taking care of pesky specks on our glass. However, there’s no reason to stop there. Here I give you three more perfect applications for these nifty cleaning tools that you may not have thought of before.

Most photographers looking to advance their commercial photography careers come to the realization that in order to score the big jobs, they need to work with creative agencies. The question is, how does a photographer get those agency gigs? I sat down with Associate Creative Director Scott Wallace of Magner Sanborn to discuss the creative agency/photographer relationship and what we can do as photographers to get noticed and ultimately get hired.

Anna Mia Davidson has been shooting and documenting sustainable farmers in the Pacific Northwest for the past seven years. The USA Television Network and Aperture collaborated for a campaign called, “The Character of America,” which commissioned nine photographers to document the positive aspects of America. Anna was one of those commissioned to further her personal project under that campaign. She also gained further funding from Fotodocument to be able to complete the project.

Finding clients is a challenge all by itself so when we are fortunate enough to have some in our corner it is a natural reaction for us to go above and beyond the call of duty to keep them happy. While this is admirable from a customer service point of view it is not always feasible to say yes to every request. Here is how I have learned to overcome my fear of saying “no” to a client.

Dirty backgrounds are something that most of us have had to deal with at some point. Sometimes, all we need to do is clean the background. Other times, it's actually better to do a full background replacement. The full replacement can be as subtle as eliminating shadows and sensor dust or something as drastic as changing the background color. In this tutorial, we go over an easy, but precise, way to do this.

Over the last several years, I’ve been fortunate enough to grow an audience wider than I’d ever thought possible. From the days of taking photos of whatever was in front of me, to speaking at the Phase One Stand Out Photographic Forums this October in LA and San Francisco, it’s been, to the say the least, quite an adventure. All that would not be possible, however, if it wasn’t for the Google and, more importantly, a core group of photographers who, at one point or another, shared with me the answers to questions that had been burning so bright in my mind, that I literally couldn’t sleep until I’d found a satisfactory answer.

You may have noticed during our studies of umbrellas and technique that we have been lighting everything in a very direct manner, illustrating some very basic techniques for you to test out with your own photos.

Those techniques will serve you well, and can be used to create beautiful photos. But it’s time to try something a bit advanced, something that will give you the ability to better control your umbrella light and impart your own style into the photo.

The great thing about the program Lightroom is that there are usually a number of different ways to accomplish a task. In this video I show you one fantastic way to create some nice colors in your photo by using a slider tool that you might not have even touched before. As I usually do the video is short - about 2 minutes - and I've provided some samples below to see a before and after as well as steps for those that prefer to read it versus watch a video.

What sets you and your work apart? Having a clear idea of this is critical if you want to develop your work but when was the last time you actually thought about it? Shane Hurlbut is a veteran Director of Photography and today shares his thoughts on his career and success. Whether you work with stills or motion, his approach sets him apart and we can all learn from him.

I’ve seen the future of film... and it is bright. In the next few weeks I will be interviewing companies that are pushing the film photography industry forward. As the large film companies cut film stocks from production, these people are pushing forward. Developing new films, cameras, products, and services. This week, I start with CineStill.

When it comes to the quantity of lights that one needs, opinions are often heavily polarized and a hotly contested debate often rages. There are those that are staunch supporters of one light while others claim that a handful of lights are needed before anything meaningful can be done. Ultimately neither group is right as there is no definable minimum or maximum number of lights that one should use.

Growing up in the family's studios and labs, I learned a thing or two about mounting and framing prints, and I also ruined a lot of them in the process. In this video, I'll demonstrate a version of my process so you can skip the lab and mount your own prints, fresh from your home or studio printer.

Flour bombs to the head, water balloons bouncing off my face, ribbon dancing, beer pours, back flops, a ginger eating cinnamon, and silly string to the face. These are a few of of the things we tried today in slow mo on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus from Apple. Check out the results here.

We’ve studied how direction and angle can drastically change the quality of light produced from your umbrella. We have also seen examples about how distance can change the umbrella light falling on your subject.

Now it’s time to look at the big picture. Let’s take a peek at how our umbrella is actually producing light across the whole image, not just the subject that you chose. In Umbrellas 103, we’re going to study fall off, and compare the type of light produced by four different shoot thru and reflective umbrellas.

If you’ve ever wondered why you might use a giant umbrella instead of a small, collapsible model, this article is for you!

For the last month I have shared a useful tip in Lightroom each week and I look forward to continuing the series. For this week I show you how to use the often overlooked color sliders to control the hue, saturation and luminance of each color in your photo. In the short video I also show how to get those mint saturated greens that are currently very popular.

The old photographers’ saying, “It’s not the camera, it’s the photographer” sounds like a self-serving flattery when it comes out of the mouth of a photographer, yet has never been more accurate than today. Its ironic how, as a professional photographer, I posses the knowledge of manipulating the most sophisticated gear and cameras available, yet when I shoot an image on the iPhone the resulting image is an embarrassment. Rushing to my defense I’ll utter each time, “I’m a terrible iPhone photographer…” So when I see amazing images, shot with the iPhone, I’m impressed with what can be achieved.

I became a photographer because I love taking photos, and I’m fortunate enough to be one of those lucky few who gets paid to do what they love. That being said, when I got my start in this industry, I don’t think I could have anticipated just how much work was involved in running my own photography business. From taking and editing photos, to filing invoices, to professional networking, there’s no shortage to the number of items that fill my to do list each day.

If you’ve been following along, you may remember that back in July, I packed up my apartment, loaded up my car, and set off on a month-long cross country tour of the southern United States with my girlfriend Holly and my dog, Olive. Along the way we met and hung out with some incredible people, had the opportunity to take great photos, ate at some great local places and most importantly, got to experience first hand the freedom of the open road.

You might have missed it, but last night, the earth cracked and shifted a little in the world of the photo community. The “Stand Out! Photographic Forums” launched and details the first of a series of events that promise to offer up some of the most exciting photographic speakers I’ve seen in a long time. Not only that, but the price is ridiculously low to hear them talk. Something special is afoot, read on to get the full scoop.

What are certain photographers doing that make them popular? Surprisingly enough, things like gear, location, social media skills and post production have very little to do with it. Believe it or not, it's something far more important and it's not often discussed. Here is the common secret all five photographers shared that makes their work stand out.

Like Photoshop, Lightroom is a powerful piece of software. Sadly most of us learn the basics and don't take advantage of all that is has to offer. One powerful feature is called the "Survey View." Are you taking advantage of it? If not, take a couple minutes to watch this two minute video where I go over how to use the tool and the shortcut to get there.

On the morning of September 11th, 2001, many NY based photographers and film makers found themselves documenting one of the most traumatic events in American history, the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers.

Growing up, my dad liked to quote an old song called “Warpaint” by the Brooks Brothers: “With all that lipstick powder and paint, you all dressed up like what you ain’t.” It was his defense against the inevitable growing up of his teenage daughters, but never once did I buy into it. Instead, I embraced makeup, hair styling, clothing, and more as a path to self-expression.

This post is in celebration of simple ideas, executed brilliantly. Incredibly simple ideas demonstrate that simplicity, combined with brilliant execution, can result in incredibly powerful images that affect us far more deeply than those that are more complex and technically well executed, but are boring and bring nothing new to the table. To make better images, stop thinking big and start thinking simple.

Martin Melnick is a Portland-based director and colorist. His studio, Tree House Post, specializes in color, VFX, editing, and motion graphics. Recently he along with his team put together an amazing music video for the band Adventure Galley based on classic 50s and 60s scifi shows such as Men into Space, Destination Moon, and Dr. Strangelove. The video has already received quite a bit of attention from various film and music video festivals and Martin was kind enough to share a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the video in a brief interview.

Last week, we talked about how to understand the difference between your bare flash unit and a flash fired through an umbrella. We learned that adding the umbrella would drastically change the light, creating a much softer glow to aim toward your photo subject. We also learned that we could use a white umbrella in a shoot thru position or a reflective position. But there is so much more to learn.

A common issue that we're often faced with when using hard light modifiers such as a beauty dish or open reflector, is that of over-exposed highlights on our subject's forehead, nose and under eye areas, which also results in lost skin texture in those regions. While raw processors offer up the ability to recover highlight detail, this rarely leads to satisfactory results. In this tutorial I'll show you how to recover the texture while leaving the overall luminosity in-tact to produce a well-balanced result.

Great photographers need to be excellent problems solvers that can rig up anything. Getting lights into tight spots or building new sets in tight quarters are just a few examples of what a photographer is faced with on a daily basis. When you are running a team of people, working with clients on set, or doing a test shoot by yourself, you will always have a new idea or inspiration that challenges you to light something differently. The Master Clamp is the tool to help you rig it up and not look like a fool in the process.

Figuring out a fair rate for providing photography or video services can be a slippery slope, filled with pitfalls if you happen to price yourself incorrectly. But what's more complicated than setting a rate for services is how to approach setting a rate for someone who wants to license a piece of work you've already created. In this post I'll share my insight on the factors I look at, and my rationale for determining a fair fee for video and photo licensing.

How many times have you heard the saying "if you want it done right you've got to do it yourself"? Well, that is not always the best mindset. This business we are in is all about collaboration, and the sooner you embrace what others have to offer, the sooner you will put out work that is competitive. Collaboration has many benefits that can take your work to the next level.

The state of California is simply unmatched when it comes to beautiful, picturesque imagery in the United States. As the birthplace and home of timelapse photographer Hal Bergman, it was his goal to compile as much of the visual wonders California has to offer in to a tight four-minutes time. His newest video, aptly titled “California,” combines four years of filming in to a marvelous treat for the eyes that any citizen of the world can appreciate. Beyond the video, Hal also speaks to Fstoppers about the behind-the-scenes work and equipment used in the making.

When you make a photograph as part of a personal project, the likelihood is that you'll want to share it with your peers. Often the concept is as important as the final image, so the title or description must sit alongside it for the picture to be taken in context. So what happens when a picture accidentally goes viral with no credit to the artist and more specifically, no mention of the theory behind it?

As a commercial photographer, I specialize in product, food, and architecture. One of the products we've been shooting a lot of lately is jewelry, specifically jewelry for catalog use. In my opinion, jewelry is one of the hardest things to photograph, and many photographers don't know where to start. Whenever we're tasked with photographing shiny, reflective, spherical objects, our studio sounds like a group of sailors on leave with all the profanity flying around (often times strung together to make complete sentences).

Adobe Lightroom is a program full of many different little tips and tricks just waiting to be discovered. In this short video I show you one of my favorites which allows you to apply a selective focus technique to your photo without having to open it in Photoshop. This technique is especially useful if you want to draw your viewers attention somewhere specific in the photo.

You read that headline correctly. After making a huge splashes in the motion-capture industry since 2005, Red has big plans to be the only camera system you use on set for both your motion AND still photography needs, and it's closer to being a reality than you would think. Prepare to have your minds blown.

This is not a story about an amazing photographer or stunning photography. It’s about photos that are taken by non-photographers, in everyday situations, documenting a moment in time that is supposed to be filled with joy and happiness. The time after a baby - that fresh-smelling bundle of joy - came into the world. These are the faces of mothers, suffering from postpartum depression, hiding their angst behind a smile.

I thought he was crazy at the time, but my college photography professor Richard Ross had little interest in teaching us the finer points of lighting and retouching. Instead he believed, “Anyone can learn those skills, I’m going to teach you how to think.”

Ed Keating, Pulitzer Prize-winner, career photographer of over thirty years and mentee and friend of Robert Frank (the most celebrated American documentary photographer probably ever), is one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met. I filmed and edited this exclusive Fstoppers interview, as his insight was just too good not to share. No matter what type of photographer you are, I’m sure you can all take something of value away from this video interview.

If there is one thing we learned this weekend concerning Jennifer Lawrence and others, it’s that even the most seemingly safe photos are not safe at all. We happen to be amongst two eras. One where cameras are more frequent than ever, and one where privacy is disappearing rapidly. Here are some tips to keep those two things separate.

As senior portrait photographers, we are often plagued with the decision of what to offer and what to sell to our clients. For those doing in-studio sales, the goal is to sell products that people desire and want in their homes. Below are five products that sell like hot cakes in my studio to high school seniors and their families.

As a wedding photographer I often fill up 3 or 4 memory cards at a wedding and it is important that I get those images downloaded and backed up as soon as possible. Rather than download one card at a time I like to do them all at the same time using multiple card readers. I usually use Photomechanic to do this but recently discovered that it is actually very simple to download multiple cards at the same time in Lightroom as well. I put together this quick video tip to show how.

The advantage to downloading multiple cards at the same time is so one doesn't get...

We have been sold on the biggest myth of all time; In order to succeed at anything and have a lustrous career you must spend 4 years in an overinflated educational institution and spend a small fortune, which doesn’t include costly textbooks, supplies and living expenses. All in exchange for a fancy sheet of paper we call a degree… a piece of paper that gives us instant credit and a golden ticket to the gravy train. Right?