Fstoppers Original Articles

How To Make Your New Camera Moment Even More Enjoyable

Waiting for that new camera or gear to arrive can be a somewhat anxious time. I don't know about you, but when I finally decide on a product after much research, I want it right away. However, there are some things you can do while you're waiting for that new camera to arrive.

How To Keep Google+ From Spamming Your Inbox

Dear Google+, you have some great features and someday I hope we can have a better relationship. But right now you are bugging the heck out of me by allowing anyone and everyone to spam my inbox. Please knock it off. In the meantime I am using this article to tell my friends how to turn off this setting, like I just did, so they won't be susceptible to getting G+ spam every day.

Why Demanding Clients Are Best for Your Photography Career

In the early throes of your career, demanding clients with highly specified briefs can seem far more trouble than they are worth. I initially would be far more interested in the clients who offered creative freedom, but looking back, I believe I was wrong to do so. I'll explain why.

Why You Should Never Let Internet Trolls Define the Quality of Your Photography

One of the most toxic poisons to continued inspiration is the sudden belief that your own work is hated by your audience. Online criticism can be a harsh weight on motivation that all photographers must face at one point or another and is something that should almost always be completely ignored.

Pacific Northwest Escape Mission 1: Helicopter Shooting the North Cascades

Just a hop, skip, and a jump from the Space Needle in Seattle, Washington, sits one of America’s most majestic spots — and every photographer’s dream. Often called the American Alps, North Cascades National Park features endless opportunities to capture America in all its striking glory. But before you point and shoot, you need to know where to look.

What Makes a Portrait Resonate With You?

There are likely north of a billion portrait images in existence, and so, capturing an audience for your shot is absurdly difficult without having a preexisting following. Nevertheless, it's certainly possible, and I wondered what exactly makes a portrait resonate with me and if it is the same for others.
What About Photography Hooked You? What Gripped Me Is Unusual

After nearly 15 years of being a photographer — or rather, actively practicing the craft — I had a sudden realization as to what drew me into photography in the first place. It may not be the most common attraction, but I doubt I am alone.

Combining Strangers' Photos to Create Digital Art

Turns out you don't always need to be an amazing photographer to create photographic art. I came across graphic designer Bashar Hjooj's work on Instagram, where he combines two to three photographs shot by complete strangers to create art full of imagination with his own take.

Behind the Scenes With Massive Machinery and Landscapes

Photographing behind the scenes at any large power producing area can be difficult not only to obtain entry but also to capture the massive scale to do the area justice. The areas are normally bustling with workers, smoke from the machines, and dust from the ground. Traveling to these destinations, however, will help show the world just what goes on behind that power that they use daily.

Say I Do to the Right Equipment for Wedding Photography

In scenarios where you don’t get a second chance at capturing that photo, such as a proposal or a first kiss moment, you need trustworthy and high-quality equipment. In this article, we discuss the best equipment and tools for wedding photographers.

Fstoppers Photographer of the Month (March 2020): Mikkel Beiter

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 2020, 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.

Is Tumblr Poised for a Return?

I have a photographer friend who consistently gets flagged on Instagram for posting images which violate Instagram’s terms of usage. The reasoning: he photographs mostly nudes.

Art, Commerce, and Photography

How does one garner success as a photographer? This article delineates between different photography markets to showcase some aspects of art practice that are necessary for intra-disciplinary success.

Fstoppers Reviews the Tourbox Elite

It’s a device that can get your hands off the keyboard and mouse. It switches between every application automatically and has presets that you can modify to set you up exactly for how you use your software.

Fstoppers Photographer of the Month (December 2020): Danijel Turnšek

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 2020, 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.

Who Do You Think Won This Fstoppers Shootout Competition?

We have a brand-new photographer shootout video in the works, and we need your help picking the winner. Click the full post and rate the four images from best to worst to decide who wins and who loses in this new "unconventional use of a backdrop" contest!

Fstoppers Photographer of the Month (November 2022): Karthik Subramaniam

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 2022, 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.

Simple Lighting Tips for Urban Fitness Portraits

Lighting can make or break a fitness portrait. Our goal is to highlight the form and definition of your subject as well as the movement if the intended photo involves action. In this tutorial, I'm going to walk through a few basic fitness photography lighting techniques.

How to Make the Photographic Most of Your Winter Sun Trip

Christmas is over, New Year has come and gone and the frenzy of gastronomic and financial excess has given way to the cold harsh reality of, well, a cold harsh January! It's time to get away for some of that southern summer sun. Here are my top tips for making the most of your winter vacation when hitting that bright sunshine.

What I Learned by Missing the Shot

The best landscape shots can require planning and preparation, but when the shot doesn’t come together, photographers can still walk away with something valuable.

The Power of an Historical Image: Stretcher Bearers at Passchendaele

Photographing war has a long history dating back to at least Mathew Brady's photos of the American Civil War. Some images become inextricably linked to the events they portray. So what is it about this image that makes it so powerfully representative of the First World War?

Click Away: A Photography Conference for Creatives and Content Creators

Photography conferences are an incredible way to build your skills, find new inspiration, and network with like-minded people. The Click Away Conference is one great option if you are seeking ways to expand your photographic experience and business acumen.

Humble Cameras in Iconic Moments

Photojournalism helps to shape our collective consciousness. In thinking about how important photojournalism is, I’ve often found myself considering what happens when amateurs with amateur equipment find themselves in extraordinary circumstances.

Critique the Community Episode 25: Product Photography

To celebrate our most recent tutorial release with Brian Rodgers Jr., this weeks episode of Critique the Community features product photography images. We chose 20 of the images and rated them using the Fstoppers rating system. We also gave a free tutorial away to

Top 5 WeeklyFstop Photos: Street Sports

The city is full of surprises, and street sports are a great reminder that urban space can be full of play and creativity — sometimes completely unexpected, driven by people's desire to make a city their own. Photography is a fantastic way to capture the playful, sometimes anarchic means of engaging with the built environment.

Fstoppers in 2019 - What Do You Want to Learn?

Next year, we are planning on creating more video content than ever and the vast majority of it will be available for free on the Fstoppers YouTube channel. We want to cater our videos around the aspects of photography and video that you want to learn. Will you help us with some feedback?

What Do You Wish You Had Started Sooner?

Whenever I discover something important or valuable to me, I inevitably wish I'd started it earlier. Areas of photography are no exception. So what do you wish you had started sooner?

Bringing Your Photography to Life with Stop Motion Animation

Stop motion animation is a great technique for creating attention-grabbing content to promote a brand or your own photography, or even just for fun. In this article, I am going to show you how to shoot and assemble a series of still images to create an eye-catching stop motion animation.

Our Long-Term Review of the Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS Lens

Hands down, the best zoom lens you can get for the Sony mirrorless system is the 70-200mm f/4 G lens. I’ve been using it professionally for over three yearsm and it lives up to its reputation. Let me tell you why.

What Is a Test Shoot?

TFP, Time For Print, Time For Photos; All these terms and initialisms can become a bit daunting and overwhelming. What do they all mean? I definitely can’t pay rent with exposure dollars. So why is everyone always offering exposure for compensation?

Quick Website Checkup and Security Bar Check: Is Your Site the Way It Should Be?

SSL has become the preferred way for all sites to be displayed as opposed to only being used for shopping carts and pages where you would enter personal data. For some time, there's been a transition from http to https, and it was a choice mostly based on the intended activities of your website viewers.

How To Take Epic Bride Prep Photos at a Wedding

One of the most important parts of any good book is the first few pages which draw in the reader in. That's what getting ready photos are for a wedding day. So let's make them epic.

Your Content Will Continue to Fall Flat Unless You Become a Better Interviewer

If you’re a videographer that runs your own business, you know that you have to be a jack of all trades. You know that your skills can’t be limited to just creating great images. You need to be good with business, networking, and a whole lot more. What you might not realize is that for the vast majority of self-made videographers, you’ll need to be good at conducting interviews.

Fstoppers Photographer of the Month (August 2021): Kim Silver

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 2021, 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.

Make It a New Year’s Resolution to Introduce Photography to a Loved One

It’s no secret that the photography industry is struggling right now. People are taking more photos than ever, but not on actual cameras. That’s where the photography community can step in and change things by adopting this new year’s resolution: introduce a loved one to photography this year.

Are You Being Authentic in Your Branding?

The first bit of advice I can recall getting was given to me by my parents. I was about to start school for the first time and I wanted people to like me. There advice was something that we've all been told: “just be yourself.” As professional photographer, I still want people to like me. This article covers why simply being yourself is great advice, especially when it comes to branding.

How You Can Boost Sales by Selling Prints

Printing images is a service that is often in high demand with various clients. While wedding albums may still reign king, it’s never a bad idea to go back to good old fashion silver halide photo prints. These differ from Fine Art Prints, which use a different printing process. Often times “silver halid” is also referred to as “Photographic Prints”, and Zno’s prints in this area offer many options.

Using Photography to Document the End of a Musical Era

Ebru Yildiz is a photographer based in New York. She shoots portraits and live music events and has clients like the New York Times, Rolling Stone, NPR, and Pitchfork to name a few. One of the places she's shot a lot of work at has recently closed their doors. The venue, Death By Audio in Williamsburg, has been one of the most vital underground music venues in the NYC community. It occupied a large warehouse on the waterfront from 2005 until 2014 and hosted bands who due to their performances there later enjoyed international acclaim. Bands like A Place to Bury Strangers, Jeff The Brotherhood, and Lightning Bolt and many more graced the stage in this venue.