Fstoppers Original Articles

Product photography might be one of the subcategories of this business that has seen a growth in available work, thanks to all of the e-commerce opportunities. By using specific techniques, you can showcase any product in a non-conventional way to have it stand out from the rest. While most of product photography consists of an all white background, you can experiment with items available around the house to show the same item in a different light.

Making any kind of money from photography is hard, so it would seem counter-intuitive to give away your work for free. However, there are times when I have no hesitation in giving away dozens of images free to people. Read on to see why this might help you too.

What are your bets on how the wedding photography industry will look by the time we get through the pandemic? Here, an award-winning wedding photographer shares his experiences on getting through this period and looks to the future of the industry.

The app swings into virality every now and again, but do people know what they’re signing up for?

Two interesting rumors emerged this week, one suggesting that Canon will kill off its M-series cameras, and another suggesting that an RF APS-C camera is only a year away. Despite the full-frame furor of the last few years, Canon should keep both of these formats. Here’s why.

Removing ambient noise, like air conditioning, computer fans, or even modeling lights in Adobe Premiere is a breeze if you have access to Adobe Audition. It only takes mere seconds.

The world of landscape photography has grown exponentially since the transition from film to digital and even more recently with a large social movement to get outdoors. What would your feed look like in 1943?

Blindly following the rules of composition won’t result in better images. But, when applying active framing, and learning how and why both simple and complex compositions work, will revolutionize your photography.

Being a well-rounded photographer who can succeed in any situation is the ultimate goal for most photographers. However, what happens when you are forced to take a portrait by lighting from below? Today, I take the challenge.

In a saturated industry, talent can get lost in the crowds. However, talent in combination with proficient business running expertise can lead to you rising above those crowds. Some business expertise is experience, but some is received wisdom. Here are more of the most important things I've learned through both.

If you’re like me and live somewhere with out-of-control housing costs, finding somewhere with enough space to shoot in can be difficult, to say the least. Having built out a home studio in a major city, here’s why I did it, but also how.

This subject comes up all too often, every time a new camera body comes out or when the industry makes a big shift such as film to digital or DSLR to mirrorless. So, what’s the best kit you can buy?

Pet photography is as popular as ever right now, as more and more people become pet owners. In fact, according to a recent survey by American Pet Products Association, nearly 80 million American households have pets.

You had me at f/0.95. When I saw Fiction Brand's tribute to my favorite lens in the whole world, the $10,000 Leica Noctilux-M 50mm f/0.95 ASPH, I knew I had to have one. But once I got my foot in the door, I realized there's more to this brand than just a novelty tee shirt as I reviewed their camera strap, hat, and pocket SD shirt.

“Award-winning photographer.” Now, more than ever, I see the term popping up in a biography. But I wondered, does it hold any merit in 2018? With so many claiming to have received awards — most of which I’ve never heard of — it’s become a pet peeve of mine. Has the prestige of winning a photography award been diminished?

Corporate events are perhaps my favorite thing to photograph these days. There are so many different shots I can create at a conference that I am never bored. Networking opportunities are in abundance at any given corporate affair, and most of the people in the room are working for a company that has the budget to hire me to shoot for them.

Facebook recently announced the launch of a new tool aimed at preventing cases of revenge porn, an act in which an ex posts intimate imagery of their former partner without permission in an attempt to humiliate or cause the person serious distress. While obviously well intentioned, the program has a major flaw and highlights a future where photos of every part of our lives will not always be a good thing.

Whether you love watches, rings, or everything in between, as a photographer, you're going to want to take a picture of them at some point. What might seem straightforward can actually prove rather tricky.

It’s possibly the most challenging topic to discuss in photography. As photographers, do we have a responsibility to maintain specific standards, or should we accept that if we can photograph it, we should?

I'm a big fan of speed lights, and I pretty much use them for almost all of my personal and professional shooting. That said, I'm not always using the biggest and the baddest the major brands have to offer, even professionally.

It isn't fearmongering to say that one mistake, and not even necessarily your own, can bankrupt your photography business if you're uninsured. So Fstoppers have teamed up with Insurance Canopy who have created Full Frame Photography Insurance to go over the issue and offer some insight.

Whether you’re a veteran freelancer or just starting out, it is important to continuously asses and audit your process. A decade and a half of experience getting washed around as a freelance photographer has taught me many difficult lessons about art, life, and growing a business doing what I love. Being successful is measured in more detail than just being Insta-famous, being a YouTube sensation, or selling single pieces for large sums of money. Even the most notable artists have had to grapple with the more organizational and administrative elements of their work and coming to terms with the reality of their goals. In most cases, it is these details that make the difference between failure and success. Hopefully these five tips can help you as you grow your personal business with larger than life ambitions.

In the years I've been in this industry, one of the more pervasive problems I have seen talented people deal with is personal fear: Fear of failure, fear of uncertainty, even fear of success. I think a misconception is that successful people do not experience these fears. They certainly do, but they have learned to overcome them, harness them, and succeed in spite of them.

Food photography is great fun and really easy to get into. All you need is a camera (which if you own a smart phone, you already have) and some food.

Editorial assignments can be both boring and quite interesting. Most of the time that depends on the photographer's attitude, not the budget. Let me show you how I approached a project where I had to make portraits of a motivational speaker and influencer.

In this article, we’ll highlight a shortcoming of the exposure triangle, one that’s more a relic of film days than a modern requirement, and we’ll see how an exposure “V,” with just two legs, might actually afford us more flexibility and control over our images.

As technology advances, the tools photographers can use to create their visions are more accessible, varied, and intuitive than ever before. I have a feeling this means our definition of photography and our uses for it are going to expand like crazy. It may also mean a photographic renaissance.

What happens when the sun is setting and you want to get a balanced exposure of the setting sun in the background and your subject? The reality is you can't without the use of a strobe and high speed sync. In this article, I’ll share with you how I was able to get a perfect exposure on my subject and the background using high-speed sync.

In recent weeks, racial inequality has been brought to the forefront of awareness for many around the world. In light of the cultural shift that has the world talking about the Black Lives Matter movement, is it time for the photography community to change some terminology?

If you were raised in the United States, you were taught about the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. You’ve heard the famous description of it by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who called it “a date which will live in infamy.” With a lack of declaration of war and without warning — and killing 2,403 Americans — the surprise attack by Japan’s military on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii was judged to be a war crime, and was the impetus for the U.S. officially entering World War II. You know this, but there’s a good chance you haven’t seen many (or any) photos from that day.

Some people use social media platforms as their emotional outlet, some for vanity purposes. I use social media to brand my photography business. This approach may not fit every photography niche, but I would like to explain how it fits mine, and I am sure you will note a thing or two that you could use as well. I hope you can interpolate my experience onto the niche you work in.

Certain beliefs dominate photography, leading to a monotonous similarity in images. Breaking free from peer-pressure-imposed restrictions can revolutionize your pictures. But don’t expect those lost in the fog of mediocrity and with limited imagination to appreciate it.

Choosing the ideal images for your portfolio can often seem as hard or harder than actually taking the photos in the first place. Most photographers tend to treat their portfolio as a dumping ground for as much work as possible with the intention that quantity is the key to building their credibility. More often than not, the opposite is true.

We create tons of free content on a weekly basis for our YouTube channel, but until now, we have exclusively sold our "professional" photography tutorials on the Fstoppers store. But today, thanks to a few sponsors, we've created a free 45-minute tutorial on product photography.

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.

Photography is an art that allows us to capture moments, freeze time, and express our creativity. One fascinating subject that many photographers are drawn to is small waterfalls. These cascading wonders provide an incredible opportunity to capture the beauty of nature. While wide angle lenses are often popular for landscape photography, telephoto lenses have their own unique advantages. In this post, let's explore how using a telephoto lens can significantly enhance your photography skills when capturing small waterfalls. Specifically, we will discuss the benefits of long exposures at half a second, and explore the focal length range from 70 to 200mm.

The human expression is, for me, the most powerful form of communication we have. We all remember the looks our moms and dads gave us when we did something wrong, or the look on the face of the person we love when we proposed. These looks are just a few of the powerful ways we can communicate with no words, and it’s this that is the holy grail in portrait photography, whether it be stills or video.

Going through retouching related Facebook groups, it seems like the frequency separation trend is fading away. Some people even call the images edited with split frequency "filtered" as if it was as bad as using some kind of filter. Instead, many are learning to grow some appreciation for the art of dodging and burning. It’s said that with the latter, you won’t lose skin texture and it’s not destructive. But if it really is this great, how can some people still manage to have a plastic-like effect on their model’s skin? Let’s have a look at the most common mistake that may keep your images from that sought after natural look.

In part two of our Micro Four-Thirds lens guide, we focus on some of the best telephoto lens options. The 2x crop factor of this format offers photographers and videographers some seriously impressive reach which is compact and affordable compared to full-frame alternatives.

Apple Aperture began with a bang in 2005 and promptly became a favorite of many professional photographers. But what began with a bang ends in a whimper, as Apple quietly issued a support document with some bad news for those few photographers who were still using it.

Endless traffic jams, millions in lost U.S. productivity, and a ton of glasses, but it grabbed the unified attention of millions for just a few minutes. I have to admit I wasn't into it; I didn't care to observe or capture this phenomenon at first, I can't stand crowds or doing what everyone else is. Then I realized this is the only event where millions of people have the chance to photograph the same beauty as one another without being in the same location. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I know many of you had the same feeling of obligation I had to photograph it. As photographers, we have this unspoken duty to be present at events like yesterdays. Whether we wanted to or not, we pick up our cameras and head for the crowd. Now, what do you do with it to avoid capturing an identical image as the next photographer?

Have you ever been out for landscape photography and didn’t get weather conditions that would support your compositions? Here are a couple of ideas you can try.

It's hard to make your images stand out from the crowd. Here is a method which might help you catch the attention of your audience.

It's not easy shooting for a giant brand. Here's how I pulled off this shoot for Lancôme.

I put off buying a graphics tablet for years after taking up photography, before buckling the best part of a decade ago. But, do you really need a graphics tablet?

Humidity, sunlight, water, and most of all, time, are just some of the culprits in the damage most printed photographs will endure. However these memories of loved ones do not need to be thrown away or thought to be unrepairable. A few layers in the digital world can bring it back for your clients.

What is a surefire way to become a better photographer? Especially if you’ve learned all the technical aspects of your field of photography, what more can you do to be better?

One of the nice options in Luminar is Sky Replacement. It is a very effective way of replacing a boring sky for a more interesting one. I have been using it for my real estate photography. But how much easier is it compared to Photoshop?

A couple weeks ago, I noticed a problem with the camera on my Mavic Pro. It seemed to have a few spots that were blurred and because of that I couldn't use it for work. This was my excuse to buy myself a new drone that I could have some fun with.

Have you ever wondered what it takes to assist the most successful photographers in the world?