Fstoppers Original Articles

Photographer Randal Ford has photographed over 100 animals up close and in person and has no plans on stopping. Why would he? These are some fascinating creatures that we share this planet with and so anytime we can interact with them, its probably a good thing. They are also super cute!

In our first two segments of building a business plan, we’ve talked about defining your product and forming a long term vision. In this final section we will talk about some of the practical steps you need to take to take those hypothetical concepts and put them into action.

It's that time of year again when you've suddenly realized there are less than two weeks to Christmas and Santa's stocking is looking sadly lackluster. So, what can you do to rectify the situation? Here are 20 ideas.

In this episode of PTW 4 BTS, we knock out three different lessons with Elia, but the highlight of this episode and our entire trip out west is our hike up Angels Landing.

You've probably read how you can make your own foldable v-flats, but finding high-quality foam can be difficult and you're lazy, so you're never going to get around to it anyway. Luckily, you can buy them prebuilt and have them shipped right to your door.

Joe McNally — the name alone brings up so many thoughts of photography-related topics that could be written about. So, where does one begin when having a coffee with this world-famous photographer and storyteller? This is the thought that kept running through my mind on my 90-minute drive to have coffee with McNally and to talk about his work and life in the photography industry.

Photoshop is a complex program that takes years to master. And even after you've spent countless hours learning the ins and outs, surprising new shortcuts are a pleasure to discover.

For years, I considered myself purely a stills photographer. I resisted video like the plague. Little did I know that creating a YouTube channel to document an unrelated project would promote my creativity in ways I couldn't predict.

As cameras get better and more capable, it has become easier than ever to capture an amazing photo. But for some photographers, pushing possibilities beyond comprehension is the only way to roll. Check out the amazing results produced by combining over 2,000 carefully focus stacked images of butterfly wings.

One of the first things I learned early on after becoming a full-time photographer is the importance of establishing a diversity of revenue streams. I’m not a traditional commercial photographer whose brand is predominantly focused in one area, or specialty, such as booking client gigs (weddings, maternity, etc), shooting products photography for companies, or catering to the swath of people who need headshots.

Donald Trump has been on a tear lately on Twitter when it comes to social video. The problem is, he’s doing it all wrong.

A man from Egoton, England has had his life ruined after his outstretched arms became stuck while posing for a selfie at the top of a mountain.

In this behind the scenes article, see how I set up my studio in the athletics office of my school and shot a series of intense portraits of my college football team.

Most photographers have started with a crop camera when digital photography was introduced. Only after a few years, the full frame cameras became affordable and that is the moment when all the discussions about the effect of depth of field and crop sensors started, often with the mentioning of physics laws and mathematical calculations. Let’s try to find out with some real world examples.

If you own a cheap older lens, go back to the first set of images you captured with it, then compare those to images shot recently with that same lens. You might be surprised by how much better those old images look.

A few weeks ago, I spent two days in Doha, the capital of Qatar, especially to shoot some of its amazing architecture. And due to a little serendipitous oversight, I ended up getting exactly what I wanted.

Photoshop CC 2019 launched with plenty of new features, but many users have already started to complain about the radical changes in some tools and shortcuts. Luckily, you can revert those settings and use those tools and shortcuts in legacy mode.

Boudoir photographers are constantly on social media's radar. Images are flagged daily even if they are subtle. With numerous lingerie ads being approved daily, boudoir photographers have been working to get an answer on why this type of photography is still considered against Facebook policy.

Are you new to underwater photography, or need to brush up a bit? Unsure where to get your feet wet first? While there are many ideal places around the world that are perfect for beginners, I've compiled a few of the spots that I love for their calm conditions, easy entries, and photographic opportunities.

If you're using the monthly Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop package, make sure you make the most for your money and have looked at the free available resources to help you design, from collages to branding mock-ups.

Most photographers have invested in several camera bags over their career. Often, you need something that can hold everything including the kitchen sink, but other times, you might want something a bit more stylish and compact. Today, I check out one of the most compact yet stylish bags I've ever reviewed: the Wotancraft Sniper Backpack.

One of the most rewarding parts of photography is choosing the right type of light for an assignment. The light that will best help convey what we’ve been hired to shoot. Nowhere is that more true than in shooting athletic wear.

V-flats are traditionally not portable by any means. For those that have a little DIY in them, I made my own portable v-flats that I can take with me anywhere I need. Here’s how to make them.

The holiday season is upon us and dreams of new camera gear are dancing in our heads. Our email boxes are full of offers for deals on lenses, flashes, tripods and of course those new mirrorless cameras. If only we could have it all, our photographs would be so much better.

I do not adhere to a certain style and that gives me a lot of freedom.

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?

If you’ve run a photography business for any amount of time, I can almost guarantee that you’ve come across clients who make requests you don’t want to fill.

One of the greatest challenges that we have as photographers is to try to show a three-dimensional world in only two dimensions. That missing dimension, depth, can only be implied. There are many ways to create a feeling of depth. Lighting and composition are two, but my favorite is using what I call dimensional framing.

If a picture tells a thousand words, these photographs of Baja 1000 race vehicles created after the race tell tales of blood, sweat, tears, and the epic battles that ensue every year as racers battle it out in Mexico.

In Part One of this series, we began writing our business plan by focusing on the nuts and bolts of our business. In this section, we will start to expand on those roots and add to the "what" by knowing our "why".

Olympus has produced a beautiful series of videos on YouTube whereby its ambassadors visit some stunning locations, exploring Lapland, Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Namibia. What’s noticeable is that all of the Olympus Xplorers are men.

In an effort to please everyone, setting expectations and educating your clients is something that creatives often shy away from. But why not create a shiny little brochure to educate your wedding clients?

In this article, go behind the scenes of a recent shoot and see how I shot, lit, and edited this 1920s inspired shoot.

How do you replace a golden goose? Ever since the cinema essayists at "Every Frame a Painting" (EFaP) stopped posting, I’ve been asking myself the same question over and over. I’ve tossed my net far and wide, and this is what I’ve caught.

Slides contain a lot of memories from events past: anniversaries, weddings, birthdays, family vacations and more. If you want to preserve those images for generations to come, you need to think about digitizing them. Here's a rundown of the options available and the results you can expect from each.

You take out your camera, shoot a photo and like it. After a little post-processing you print two copies and send one to a friend. In a Mission Impossible Machiavellian twist, the photo self-destructs once they open it and, at the same time, so does yours.

Photographer Ole Martin Halvorsen recently did a photoshoot that was was part of a larger social media and advertorial campaign for H&M Norway, in collaboration with Spray for their magazine Portia.

Boudoir shoots are inherently more quiet and less flamboyant by their very nature, but that doesn't mean that they have to be any less creative and unique than any other style of shoot. One of the ways that I have found to change things up with my boudoir work is to set up the shoots in random Airbnb properties instead of in studios.

Lifestyle photographer Denise Crew was approached by the producers of Netflix’s Queer Eye about a book they were producing that had a very quick turn-around. It typically takes 18 months to publish a book from start to finish and they needed to do this book in 6 months.

A lot of writers and experts in the photography world have been joining the chorus of “photographers should add video to their skill basket.” But, as far as business models are concerned, photography and video can be as different as sushi and gelato. So, before you jump head-on into video, consider my words of caution.

All books on economy may tell you that you desperately need to raise your prices, but the specialists and formulas may be wrong.

Art is a huge form of self expression. We use it to push through a traumatic experience, to pull us out of sadness, or even to express the intense happiness we feel when we are overwhelmed with the beauty that surrounds us. Sometimes, we can also have this same effect on others maybe without even trying .

What causes blur? It seems a simple enough question, but in pursuing the answer to this, I've ended up becoming a firm believer in quantum efficiency. So where did this journey begin?

It's 2018 and I have no idea where I'm supposed to share photos anymore. There was a time though, when Google+ and its booming photography community was the clear answer.

There are things professional photographers do that are almost certain to get them placed on Santa’s “bad guy” list. Are you guilty of committing any of these photography "sins"?

Golden light kissed Matt McDonald's face and fresh snow greeted him while he walked out of Iceland's Keflavík airport. McDonald recently flew to Iceland for the first time in his life to research for a book he is co-authoring with Chris Burkard. But how did a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur get to this stage in the first place?

ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2019 has a tool called Light EQ™, and it's superb for making many changes quickly and easily.

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.

Returning to the same location repeatedly can yield some very different outcomes. Here I go through three years of photos from the same perspective.

Adobe recently released the new version of Photoshop, and it is relatively faster and smoother than the previous versions. However, it might still crash.