Fstoppers Original Articles

I've got a fun little DIY light modifier for you today. I call it the High Fashion Specular Reflector or "shiny board" for short. In my travels, I have to carry a LOT of gear. Especially when the trip is on my own dime and I don't have a budget to rent the cool toys I want to have. I came up with the idea for this reflector through experimentation and just obnoxious luck. I wanted to create a very hard light (in addition to the sun) to use on my model while on location.

Every week, Fstoppers turns to its writers with years in the professional photography industry to answer questions submitted from the public in a series called "Fstoppers Answers". This week, we answer "If there was one piece of advice you could give a new photographer, what would it be?"

Today registration opens around the country for the new Affordable Healthcare Plans (a.k.a. Obamacare) which will take effect on January 1, 2014. People on both sides of the fence are fired up and expressing their support or disgust for the plans. It got me thinking though: What does this mean for self-employed photographers?

Focus is a word we are all familiar with in photography, but is the same true in business? The purpose of focus as it relates to photography is to keep what we want to see, and to draw attention away from the things that might otherwise distract us. The concept is almost second nature to many photographers, yet seems so foreign when you see how they run their business.

I am a big fan of automating as much as I can in life. As a husband, a daddy to 5 kids and a busy wedding photographer I am always looking for life hacks that can save me time in my day and help me live more efficaciously. One free program that I'd highly recommend to anyone who is looking for a little automation in their life is IFTTT. Here's why.

If you’ve ever struggled to put together a video demo reel, or you’re planning to make one in the future, this post is for you. Below, I’ll share some tips that will help you be more efficient in your process to prepare for editing hours of your footage down to a montage of a couple of minutes.

Kesler Tran is a photographer based out of Los Angeles and New York specializing in fashion, editorial and beauty. Of the three, one will probably find his beauty work resonating the strongest; it teems from every pore of his images. His eye for light and shape, as complex and trained as it is, seems effortless when one browses through the images on his tumblr. With the sheer amount of content, it's also hard to imagine him ever taking a break. Thankfully, he took one for us.

Have you ever found yourself thinking: “If only I had <insert expensive camera body/lens/lighting gear>, I would be shooting better images/be winning bigger jobs/get better and higher paying clients”?

If you’ve never had this thought, congratulations, skip this article and move on because you’re already part of ‘The Enlightened’ few.

Anyone with good business sense knows how strong networking can influence the way you build your career, but how about the rest of us who may not be as networking savvy? Proper etiquette says much about the way you conduct yourself and your business. Here is a guide on how to appropriately interact with your photographer peers in and out of your area to insure that the relationships built are positive and productive.

If you are like me your work computer is one of your most prized possessions. It does the heavy lifting in post production, and it's also there in times of need, like "needing" to waste four hours on Facebook instead of finishing your retouching. So, what is the best way to keep that fine piece of machinery in tip top shape? Well, honestly there are a lot of ways, but I'm only going to tell you about my favorite apps, all 6 of them. Unfortunately for you Windows and Linux peeps I'm an Apple user, so most of these apps are Mac only. *womp womp*

Kiliii Fish, Seattle-based commercial photographer, was always fascinated by how people interact with nature and how they use it to live their lives. Aside from being a full time photographer Fish is also an avid rock climber. Recently he decided to combine these 3 things he loves to a unique photography project showing the grace, power, beauty and vulnerability that goes into rock climbing. Kiliii spent days in each location and worked for months to complete the series. The results are absolutely amazing.

Steve Fischer is a Los Angeles based fashion photographer specializing in shooting women for the fashion, high fashion, lingerie, swimwear and beauty markets. Steve started shooting about 15 years ago, taking a minor hiatus to write and produce television commercials. Not too long ago, he was in a car accident that nearly killed him and left him physically unable to shoot for several years. He returned to his love of fashion photography about four years ago and is here to stay.

Dixie Dixon is a Dallas based badass and one of the sixteen "celebrated contemporary photographers" of the Nikon ambassador program. Dixie specializes in commercial fashion photography and is a prime example of how hard work, apprenticeship, and relentless dedication pays off in commercial photography. I recently chatted with her and stole all of her secrets of success for you, the reader. Because that's how much I love you, reader.

Often as photographers we put in long hours on our feet, walk quite a bit, bend, crouch, shimmy and shake all while carrying heavy gear on our shoulders and back. At the end of the day my feet would be sore, my legs tired, my thighs chaffed and my back aching. If you have felt the same way, here are three things that will help you be more comfortable and pain free while out on long shoots.

There are an endless amount of options to help organize your daily tasks. Whether you are a working professional or simply a procrastinator, we have all felt the suffocating feeling of projects as they slowly begin to pile up. Some folks might be lucky enough to inherit a photographic memory or super human organizational skills, but if you are like me, you possess neither of those. Here is the best $15 I have ever spent to help keep myself organized.

It's a growing trend in wedding photography these days to do photos with sparklers, and yes, you can blame Pinterest. Whether it's sparkler exits, or long exposure sparkler photos, your brides will expect you to know how to do these and will very likely ask you to do them on the spot! With this system, you'll be able to nail them every time!

We can talk about pricing all day, every day, but when it comes down to it, it's not just about how much you're charging but how you're displaying it. Most of the time we put a lot of thought into how aesthetically appealing our pricing pages look, but how they're laid out can end up making or breaking an up-sale.

FaceResearch.org has published the results of a recent experiment where experimental psychologists at the University of Glasgow in Scotland have combined the faces of women around to world to approximate the "average face" of each country. Using a modern version of the technique that Sir Francis Galton pioneered in the 1800's, multiple images of faces are aligned and composited together to form the final result.

When first learning Photoshop, most of us are introduced to the pen tool, brush tool, or maybe even the eraser tool to remove sections of a layer. However, these methods can be both time consuming and mediocre in creating a clean final image. In this tutorial I'll be walking you through the steps that I use to isolate subjects shot in studio (against plain backgrounds) for the creation of a composite image.

Grand Theft Auto 5, which launched yesterday, is the most expensive video game ever produced, at a cost of $250 million of production and marketing costs. It also set records for day one sales. Most of the short time I played over the last day was spent inside the house one of the one of the main protagonists. I moved from room to room and realized I’d just spent almost an hour trying to work out how to position the character for best dramatic lighting effect. As I stepped outside and watched the sunset and saw the lighting change, it got me thinking - can Grand Theft Auto (GTA) 5 actually help us to improve our photography?

Everyone has to start somewhere, and for people seeking entry into the world of video production, or even studio photography, doing work as a production assistant is a great way to get your feet wet. I've hired lots of assistants, and before that I worked as one myself. I still do for some producers! Here are my tips on what to NOT do if you'd like to keep getting hired and make your way up the chain.

Exactly one week ago we marked the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks which resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people. As they do every anniversary, The Municipal Art Society of New York created two vertical columns of light ("Tribute In Light") right next to the World Trade Center in remembrance of the Twin Towers using 88 powerful searchlights pointing up to the sky. Every year I photograph the Tribute In Light from a different spot, and this year, for the second time, I decided to photograph it from above. From a helicopter. Here is how and why I did it.

In our newest segment, we've turned to the public to ask some of our writers about working in the industry as professional photographers, and invite all of you to participate in the discussion. Last week, we asked about our favorite light modifier, and the week prior, about commercial photography. This week, we ask "Your camera is suddenly only able to mount one lens. What is it?"

The phrase “go big or go home” seems to take on a special significance with photographer Dennis Manarchy. Obsessed with the concept of scale and the possibilities of working with massive negatives to create portrait images more than two stories high, he and his team have created a 35-foot view camera, the world’s largest film camera. The project, nicknamed “Butterflies and Buffalo”, aims to use the traveling view camera as a conduit for documenting more than 50 of the unique cultures in America.

Over the coming weeks I will be releasing a series of articles that will guide you step by step through the process of pricing your photography for commercial work. I will show you how to structure an invoice as well as go in depth to discuss the different parts of the invoice itself. I will show you how and why you should be using license agreements on all your work. I will even explain how you should calculate your own rates in the commercial marketplace.

Do you use a sweep in your portrait or large product photography? Sure a roll of paper several yards in length is necessary for photographing people and large products, but what about food and small products? Walking into a bakery or the back of a kitchen with two C stands and a large roll of paper is not going to work in the often small kitchen shooting environments.

Dani Diamond is a talented portrait photographer based out of Connecticut and is also an active member of our Fstoppers Facebook Group. His headshot work is impeccable and eye-catching. Recently Dani has started a personal project coined simply as "The Project." His mission is to find fellow photographers from around the world, take their headshots and challenge his craft under the scrutiny of his talented peers.

Since joining Fstoppers I had planned on doing a "behind the scenes" of one of my shoots, so today I've put together a lighting diagram courtesy of Kevin Kertz, and a detailed description of how the finished product was produced. Fair warning, I am a bit of a technique nerd and can get pretty detailed. We've all seen diagrams online, and brief descriptions on what goes where, but it seems there are always details left out that can significantly impact the results. I didn't want to do that. I wanted to leave no stone unturned and give you guys as accurate of a diagram and explanation as possible.

Just about every day I read a comment from a photographer complaining about Facebook making their images look terrible. There are hundreds of websites that have done tests and posted results to show what they feel is the best resolution to post your images to Facebook. Rather than run a bunch of tests I am going to keep things simple and tell you exactly what has worked well for me.

Because most of us fear rejection to some degree, speaking to a complete stranger and asking them for something, let alone asking if you can photograph them, tends to be pretty challenging. I’ve never been one of those naturally confident people but over time I’ve developed some techniques that have provided me with the confidence to work with strangers, which has brought additional benefit when communicating with paying clients.

In our newest series, we're inviting you the viewer to ask a weekly question for the writers of Fstoppers. Last week, we touched base on what we each individually believe commercial photography to be. Coming from different fields of photography, we all shared similar thoughts on the subject, but with different arguments and approaches.

For the second installment, we're asking each of our staff 'What is The One Light Modifier You Couldn't Live Without?'.

I recently got engaged and have started the process of finding my wedding photographer. Something that has become very hard since I have decided to rule out the possibility of a friend shooting it, because let's face it, they need to be drinking. As a wedding photographer myself, I noticed some positives and negatives in other businesses first impressions. These are just things that have become my pet peeves while seeking a photographer, mostly website related.

In my first rickety little studio I called a place to take portraits, I had nowhere but a corner to store my rolls of seamless paper. In my little budget corner I found a million ways to ruin whole rolls, or ruin parts of seamless paper on an hourly basis. The ends would get damaged, the rolls would become wavy, and I would typically end up cussing and throwing away seamless that should not have been destroyed. It was money being thrown away. I want to prevent this from ever happening to you.

Lately I've been scouting locations for a calendar project I'm working on, and it got me thinking how little content I've come across online on how to go about it. Location scouting isn't really a science, there are a lot of ways to go about it, but there are a few simple tricks and tools to maximizing productivity in your efforts.

Keeping your models and clients happy on set is vital to creating images that evoke the full range of emotion. Part of your job as a photographer is to bring everyone on set to a mind space that is calm and comfortable. Here are a few tips on how you can play the good host.

In the photography world, social media connects you with a multitude of people and not a month goes by where someone doesn’t mention they’re moving. The first comment they always make is ‘I don’t want to start my business all over again!’ But if you have developed a sturdy business in your current location there is no reason that continuing your business somewhere else shouldn’t be a possibility.

Many of us in the industry are using social media in some form or another. It's a great tool in promoting our work and we tend to explore as many options as possible. Facebook is one of those options. You may be using your personal page along with a business page to promote your work. What if Facebook suddenly deleted your personal page and you lost all your contacts, messages, and more? That is what recently happened to photographer Catherine Oshanek, otherwise known as White Cedar.

Martin Gregorian from Butterfly Photography was shooting a wedding ceremony in an outdoor park in Vancouver B.C. last weekend and became the victim of an increasingly common crime. His camera bag was stolen by a thief posing as a tourist right in the middle of the ceremony! Now, don't just brush this off as something that could never happen to you; let's learn something from this so we don't find ourselves scrambling during a wedding as well.

It is getting pretty hard to avoid reading a story a couple times a month where a photographer's photos are stolen in some way. It has become, sadly, the nature of the internet. Sometimes photographers aren't even aware of it until the image spreads beyond containment, but others, like Swedish photographer Tuana, do their best to nip it in the bud and succeed with help from what many would consider to be an unlikely source: the company who was unlawfully selling the image.

I grew up as part of the generation of photographers that developed film (or had a lab develop it) and mounted photos in family albums. At the time, I would remember thinking it wasn't a particularly special exercise or the photos themselves weren't particularly amazing. But how many of you remember the feeling - often years later - of finding those same 'mundane' shots and nostalgically revisiting the past? Wasn't that a powerful and often wonderful feeling?

In our newest series, we're inviting you the viewer to ask a weekly question for the writers of Fstoppers. Each of our writers are also professional photographers, in a broad range of categories and styles. Many of them are among the best in their respected fields and have been working full time as a professional in their industry for years. So who better to ask photography questions to?

To kick off the series, we're asking each of our writers 'What is Commercial Photography?'.

Some people go through life and aren't sure how they can take their photography to the next level of giving back. There are many programs and non-profits such as Help Portrait and Operation: Love ReUnited, but nothing that you can say you did or created. Well these 16-year-old brothers decided they would do just that and create something worth remembering.

From time to time, we’re graced with a new product that completely changes our workflow and makes our lives as photographers a hundred times easier than it was before. However, this luxury isn’t always the case, and we’re sometimes graced with some of the most ridiculous products imaginable.

Ten thousand miles, ten cities on a coast to coast ramble in a 1977 vintage VW bus all for the sake of promoting photographic art. From April to June of this year, gallerist Jennifer Schwartz was behind the wheel of her microbus on a two-fold mission: to promote photographers and create collectors. Working with five photographers in each city on the tour, she orchestrated pop-up events and curbside photo exhibits designed to educate and engage communities regarding photographic art and the value of starting a collection.

Recently we saw a great post from Rich Meade listing off 34 ways to stay creative, well now I have my own to add as well, as a challenge to our readers - change it up!

Routine, in many ways is a good thing. It keeps you organized, makes sure everything is completed on time, and is usually a source of comfort/sanity for people with busy schedules, but it has its draw backs as well.

Photography is a dream career for many of us. The reality is, few of us can actually turn that into a full time career. We keep our regular 9-5 jobs to pay the bills and grab the odd photography gig here or there.

Every once in a while though, one of us will slip through the cracks and enjoy some moderate success. So much so, that it begins to interfere with that regular 9-5 job, and a decision must be made to transition from one career to another. Many aspiring photographers jump the gun and attempt to take on a full time career before they are actually ready. When that time comes for you here are 5 things to consider and help make sure it's the right move for you.

I hear that a lot.

It shoots out of the mouths and into my ears from bellyaching photographers and it clutters the mind while reading an on-line post somewhere.

If photography is dead, why do publications like Sports Illustrated, National Geographic and Wired magazine produce amazing images each and every month? Why do companies spend thousands and thousands of dollars to create images of their products?

Have you had trouble lighting reflective surfaces? If you were given a food like ceviche to style, would you know where to begin? In this post, I am going to show you how I styled and shot a scallop and peach ceviche recipe. Here is a little background on the shot. The recipe developer meant for this dish to be served at an outdoor entertaining event, and wanted to highlight the light refreshing nature of the dish. With this in mind, I chose lighting and props that would help communicate this. Here is how I created the shot.

Update: The featured video has been changed per request of the photographer that was featured in it. In summary the video showed the back of a photographer standing up in the middle of the aisle next to the front two rows shooting with a 70-200mm lens aiming at the bridal party. I saw this video (video replaced with dancing dog) posted up in a Facebook group I belong to by the amazing team of videographers over at Motivity Films.

When dealing with clients every little thing we do or don't do can affect whether or not they will refer us on to their friends or colleagues. The digital age not only helps us communicate and run our business but sometimes it is a hindrance to our ability to run a successful and personable business. Taking a step back and looking at the things you are doing currently and how they come across to your clients is your best form of action.