Artists are undoubtedly perfectionists and are their harshest critics. Learn why getting your next project done and releasing it to the world is better than waiting for it to be perfect.
In some ways, working with clients is a lot like the dating scene. So how do we get that second date? Wouldn't life be easier if you didn't have to look for new clients all the time? What if you could retain the best clients you've worked with before? Maximize your resources, get better recommendations, and make freelancing far more relaxing. Maybe we're all guilty of annoying a client or two, but if you find you're not being approached by anybody for that second date, then maybe it's more than your bad breath. Here are five great ways to go about it.
Creating stunning portraits of our canine companions requires so much more than technical knowledge of photography. Understanding how to coax a dog into just the right spot while keeping them relaxed and happy is crucial to capturing genuine expressions with perfectly composed surroundings. Adding a few special items to your gear bag for those times when you venture out to photograph someone’s four-legged friend can have a much larger impact on your photos than choosing the perfect lens.
He has played a significant role in making me into the photographer I am now, so much so that I would've quit without getting started if it was not for his content. This is probably true for a lot of "new generation" creators. Yet, there is a lot of debate surrounding him, as well as other creators. The core of this debate is simply that YouTubers are not "real" photographers and should not be listened to. In this article, we will discuss the importance of educators, presenters, and, of course, real photographers.
In the world of adventure sports photography being in the right location isn't always enough. Often times you have to match the athleticism of the athletes you are photographing to get those really amazing shots. that means hanging off the side of a cliff hundreds of feet above the ground alongside a rock climber. Or swimming a couple feet above a coral reef in twenty-foot plus surf. In this case, it means spending a week in the desert running up and down sand dunes.
If you shoot photos on a professional level, there’s a chance you also shoot video. If you shoot video, there’s a chance you edit. And if you edit, there’s a good chance you have to work with audio at some point. But, it may not be something you know a lot about, especially if you are just getting started with editing video.
We cannot live without our phones. Furthermore, phone apps that access your photos can be a lot of fun. However, they have a dark side, and maybe we should start to be more cautious about using them.
German photographer Max Leitner travelled to Warsaw, Poland alongside an urban gymnast to capture this series of unconventional architectural shots that possess an air of optical illusion.
I have been struggling with my bad filing hierarchy for years. An inefficient, inconsistent, or straight up bad folder structure not only robs you of of your hard-earned time but it can also sabotage entire projects, hiding your files in the deepest, darkest corners of your hard drive, nowhere to be found ever again. I recently came up with a system that enables me to easily and efficiently store files as well as retrieve them. Follow along to hopefully also put an end to your digital storage struggles.
If you're a photographer and haven't participated in "The World’s Greatest Photo Game," hosted by GuruShots, you'll want to take a peek at their latest challenge. Participants submitted a wide variety of night photography to their latest challenge. Thousands of people entered and cast millions of votes. See the three winners of the challenge as well as hundreds of top rated images below.
This tutorial is for beginners who may want to start learning photography during the lockdown periods around the world.
I know that I’m preaching to the choir when I say that personal projects, free from the constraints of commercial clients dictating production details, are an important outlet for creativity and staying sharp on your skills. Photographer Ray Demski just dropped his latest passion project, "Fireball," combining parkour, football (soccer), and beatboxing.
The use and misuse of composite photography is a story we hear about quite often. Long before the days of Photoshop and digital manipulation, though, composite photography existed. Here's the story of one of the earliest controversies surrounding a composite.
If you've been out shooting recently, there's a good chance that you're now sitting down to edit a pile of photographs that capture the incredible colors that autumn brings. This brief tutorial shows you a quick and dirty trick (jump to three minutes to skip the waffle!) for getting Lightroom to make the most of those gorgeous, orangey tones.
Step-up and step-down rings are useful for attaching filters to multiple lenses with differently sized filter threads, but when they get stuck, they're almost impossible to separate, which can leave your filter completely unusable. So, use this quick tip to separate them with ease.
With famous locations getting so crowded, working photographers often fall by the wayside. So should there be a pecking order?
In the last week, Instagram has been automatically labeling any photo touched by artificial intelligence tools as "Made with AI." On the surface, this sounds like a win for photographers decrying the use of AI as intellectual property theft. But in practice, the way Meta has decided to call out AI leaves little room for nuance and debate.
Right now we are experiencing a heatwave in northern Europe and that of course comes with a lot of sun and hard shadows. Try to use it to your benefit.
If you’re interested in getting big budget looks in your low budget indie film, then you should be very familiar with the Shanks FX channel on YouTube. If you’re not, you should get acquainted with it… like now! Joe Schenkenberg aka Joey Shanks is the man with the know-how when it comes to creating Hollywood effects out of simple household items. He teamed up with PBS Digital Studios to bring you quality behind-the-scenes content online and has recently partnered with Red Giant to explain how he created a black hole effect very similar looking to the one in the recent movie Interstellar – all captured in-camera.
The Fstoppers community is brimming with creative vision and talent. Every day, we comb through your work, looking for images to feature as the Photo of the Day or simply to admire your creativity and technical prowess. In 2018, we're featuring a new photographer every month, whose portfolio represents both stellar photographic achievement and a high level of involvement within the Fstoppers community.
The Harinezumi camera, a Japanese toy camera sold by Powershovel Superheadz, is now totally discontinued. As a highly popular cult camera, used models are now selling for more than $500 on eBay. Is it worth it?
Canon took their mirrorless camera range from forgettable to cutting edge last year, and now, the lenses need to follow suit. Some of the staples are available already, some are announced, but there are favorites still missing. What are you hoping to see?
It's difficult when a pet dies, but as photographers, we can choose to honor our loved ones with photos that will last forever. Here's what I chose to photograph when my pet died.
Every four years during the summer, the sports world pauses to draw its attention to the top echelon of professional football. I decided to put together a World Cup inspired shoot, shoot some concepts I haven't done before, and give you a behind-the-scenes, education glimpse.
When the general public picture photographers, they tend to envision a creative individual who goes out and snaps away at anything and everything that inspires them; architecture, nature, sports, or whatever assignment they've been put on. It's likely that they never think of the hours we spend marketing, writing proposals, editing, doing book-keeping, etc.
Take simple pet portraits at home while you’re self-isolating. All you need is a pet, a window, and some pet treats to grab their attention, then set your camera to aperture priority mode and work on your composition.
Are your photos beautiful? Consequently, do they attract lots of likes online? If you are serious about your photography, then there are arguments to shun beauty and embrace less appealing aesthetics. But those arguments are flawed. Here's why.
It's a bizarre question that can be applied to any of the arts. Typically, creatives are seen as passionate creatures, but is it essential to a career in the industry?
In many of the world's cultures, the coming of a new year is celebrated as a time of renewal and reflection. It is a time to share with family and friends, a time to celebrate, and for some, a time of contemplation. Although it can be a hectic time for many of us, with so many preparations and celebrations, it is also a great time to look back. I encourage each of you to use this month to reflect on your art from the year to date.
Erik Almas is an inspiration to many of us not only with the work he does as a commercial photographer but also as a person who shares the struggles and successes he had in his career. No doubt that he works with many companies and brands we can only dream of, but in a recent interview he confessed that despite that there wasn't a moment in his life when he could say he "finally made it." It is exciting to hear what his measure for success really was.
First things first, personal work is incredibly important. Client work often pays the bills but the most fundamental personal development you’re going to experience is when you take your vision and execute it. I would say that applies to just about anyone and certainly to photographers.
When touting the many virtues of film, people frequently mention the power of negatives in the highlights. But what does that mean, exactly, and how does its strength compare to its digital brethren? To find out the differences, I shot a demanding subject with both digital and black and white film, severely over and underexposing. How did they stack up against each other? Read on to find out!
In my journey as a portrait photographer, I've found foreshortening to be a creative look that you can use to produce some dynamic images. But what is foreshortening, and how can it add some dynamism to your portraits? Let's dive in.
While the lunar and annular solar eclipses are fresh in our minds and travel is gradually returning to some semblance of normality, it’s a good idea to begin to think ahead to future eclipse photo opportunities (especially total solar eclipses) in the next few years. Why plan so far ahead? Unfortunately for most of us, the opportunities to photograph a solar eclipse within our lifetimes can be counted on a few fingers. Lunar eclipses are a little easier to plan for but still require some planning.
With most website traffic overwhelmingly coming from smartphones, a client is going to ask for portrait content sooner or later. How can you avoid the major pitfalls?
Today, more and more cameras have wireless technologies built into the body. So far, the concentration on development for the use of these antennas has centered around image transfer and social media connectivity, posting directly to other services, etc. But that’s far from all that can be accomplished when cameras start being able to communicate with one another.
I’m here at Google’s launch event for the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL in New York. Have they got a world-leading smartphone camera again?
Whether you are a landscape, street, or portrait photographer, there are ways we navigate differently abroad as opposed to within our own hometown. Here are some tips to ensure not only that you come home with photos you are happy with, but also that you get to take home a bit of the culture with you as well.
Sometimes when shooting a portrait the drama created by a silhouette can reveal a more powerful sense of character than a more traditional portrait. One major downside of a true silhouette, however, is that it fully blacks out the subject sacrificing any opportunity for expression or detail within said subject. In a recent shoot, I experimented with an alternative to a true silhouette that uses a light source near to the subject to wrap light around them in a way that creates a sense of a heroic silhouette of the style that could be found on film posters or the cover of a book.
While all photographers are unique and differentiate through their style and specialty, there is one constant throughout: client experience. All photographers must provide an excellent client experience in order to stay in business. When clients choose us to document their lives, they may love our style and even like the final product, but if they have a poor experience, they will not recommend us to others or refer us new business. Particularly in the boudoir genre, because we provide such an intimate service, the client experience must be a priority for a photographer to be successful and have a lasting career.
The perceived glamorous life of a Hollywood unit still photographer is not all about meeting A-list celebrities and taking iconic cover shots of award-winning films. It's actually a challenging endeavor that requires grit, perseverance, and a plethora of social and technical skills.
The more work I do as a photographer, the more I realize the importance of personal projects. While I do everything I can to book jobs shooting subjects that I enjoy, the reality is, photography is not just a hobby, it is a job and not every job is enjoyable all the time. Sometimes, staying inspired can be difficult, especially when you are taking a job for the money or experience alone; this is exactly why personal projects are so important. Last week, I had the chance to talk to Brent Foster, a filmmaker who has recently been working on a personal project. He gave me an inside look at what goes into one. From equipment to execution, he gave me a behind the scenes look at his project "While I'm Here | The Legacy Project."
As some of you may have already known, we were off to somewhat of a rocky start when we launched this new website. For a recap: we ran into a few load issues right before our switchover deadline, so we decided to postpone the launch for nearly 22 hours before launching it again. We have been monitoring the servers very closely and working nonstop to squish all the bugs ever since. Now that the dust has settled, I'd like to talk to you guys about how we set up our servers on Amazon Web Services - the cloud.
Successful photographers follow one of two paths. Which route are you taking in your photographic journey, that of a conceptual genius or an experimental master?
A heritage website has found fame for its web app that can animate old photographs to bring the dead briefly back to life. But how effective and realistic is it?
I'm mainly an Arizona based golden time landscape photographer, and I also mix in Milky Way and telescope based astronomical photography of galaxies and nebulas. On June 5th, a lightning storm struck the Catalina Mountains near Tucson, and almost literally, all hell broke loose.
While it's easy to assume that meaningful photography gifts come with a hefty price tag, this article is here to debunk that notion. In this guide, let’s explore nine photography gifts that are not only thoughtful and creative but also friendly on the wallet. From DIY projects to budget-friendly accessories, these ideas prove that meaningful gestures don't have to break the bank. Time to discover how to gift on a shoestring budget.
Standing at the edge of Tunnel View in Yosemite National Park I didn’t feel an immediate connection with the iconic tableau. It wasn’t that the scene, El Capitan, Bridalveil Falls, and Half Dome, wasn’t spectacular, as it was. It is among the most captivating scenes in the world. In spite of the beauty, my camera remained in its bag. I couldn’t conceive of a shot that felt personally connected to the scene. Instead, I only saw vignettes of Ansel Adams' deep love for the place.
When I first wrote about using mirrorless cameras for journalism in 2014, the Sony Alpha series had just been launched a few months before in 2013. Panasonic was just hitting its stride with the GH series of cameras and Fuji had just really started kicking off its X-Series cameras. Things have certainly changed.
There are only two things certain in life, as the saying goes: taxes and death. For something so certain, modern society has difficulty with understanding, and dealing with, our own mortality. So why is photographing death such a taboo subject?
