Fstoppers Original Articles

We all love gear. Even those who say they don't love gear, love gear. But my desire to create the unique has lead me to make some questionable purchases. How about you?

When talking with photographers about the photography industry, our conversation often turns to social media and the inevitable feeling of how comparison to others affects our work. Comparison is a problem in the industry. Here are a few ways to combat it.

Anyone with long hair is generally seen around town with hair ties worn as a bracelet. I keep many in my studio even to hold back wardrobe pieces that are not form fitting. While the best option is always to remember to have your client remove them before you start shooting, there is always that small chance you forget and it isn't seen until a few frames into the session.

When Per Florian Appelgren first got the brief from L'Officiel Indonesia, he was excited as shooting styled beauty is his strong suit and he absolutely loved doing it. Being able to work with a top-tier model such as Sara from GirlsClub Management Berlin was also a huge plus point.

Making that jump to full time professional photographer is incredibly daunting. Hopefully, by learning some of my biggest mistakes, you can avoid them entirely.

This shoot was an art project that Amber Gray had been dreaming of for a long time. One of the things that she often explores in her work is the relationship between feminine energy and the natural world, and this concept in particular really exemplifies that idea in a surreal way.

You've just copied your camera's full resolution, high dynamic range raw files onto your new Android phone. How on earth do you start processing them? An app called raw2dng is the Play Store's most popular solution. Meet its developer.

Today I’d like to share how a chance encounter provided perspective on both success and the value of patience.

I've always purchased medium-speed SanDisk memory cards and the cheapest USB 3.1 card readers for my computer. Have I been missing out? Are these ultra-expensive cards and readers actually worth it? Let's find out.

This phenomenon seems to happen to us all: you take or find an image that shouldn't work, but you just love it all the same. Show us yours!

If you're not getting the followers, traffic, or clients you think you should be, then it might be your website that is part of the problem.

Have you ever set out to achieve a dream or goal of yours and found yourself not accomplishing what you set out to do? In this quick article, see three things I do to make sure I'm staying on track to achieving my goals.

This exciting shoot came about when photographer Aaron Anderson was tasked to creating content for Elinchrom’s new ELB 500 TTL and Lifted Up Fitness’s web page, making it a multiple clients shoot.

If you’ve ever felt like you needed to take a break from the roller coaster of social media but you are too worried you’ll lose all your momentum, this might ease your mind.

One of the most useful lenses any photographer can own is an ultra wide-angle zoom lens. One of my favorite zooms in this category is the Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8 lens. Tamron recently released the upgraded G2 version of their already great SP model and I wanted to see if this redesigned lens was worth the upgrade.

With so much negativity in the photography world, sometimes you just have to give credit where credit is due. This is the lens I love like a family member and could never bring myself to part with.

‘Tis the season for wedding bookings! With that in mind, here is part two of an overview of my engagement shoot prep booklet. I provided this information to my couples when I was regularly shooting weddings. I hope that you find this helpful.

Opinions are like cameras: everybody’s got one, and it should be upgraded once in a while. If you love giving feedback on photography, great, but make sure you're doing it in a way that’s right for the giver as well as the receiver.

There is an old saying that "you only find what you are looking for." It's critical for any artist, including we photographers, to know what it is that we are working to create. To have a vision and stay true to it so that it will become a reality. When you go out with the intent of creating images you know what you want, right? You choose the location, the time of day, maybe the lighting, certainly the subject, and of course what gear that you need to bring it all together. We tend to be control freaks to make sure that we get what we want.

Smartphones offer countless useful resources for planning and shooting photos. With tens of thousands of apps, it can be difficult to know which are the best. Here are my top five.

Don't work with children or animals they say. But, what do they know? Here's my trick for getting our favorite subjects to be a little more camera friendly!

FOMO, the fear of missing out, is seriously limiting your photography and you probably don’t even know it. Social media is the obvious culprit but we need to also acknowledge other key elements that play a part.

I have been using The ColourMapX panel extensively and a caveat of it led me to further dig into something I rarely used before, clipping adjustment layers to other adjustment layers. Doing so greatly enhances my experience with this panel, but honestly with any type of adjustment.

Can outstanding customer service take your portrait photography sales to the next level? Megan DiPiero thinks that it can, and she’s here to tell you how.

I’ve had a change of heart about how I feel about the law and operating a drone. A few months ago, I would have done a basic risk assessment and then flown, even if it was illegal. These days, I will only fly if I can operate entirely within the law. In this article, I’ll explain why.

Photography is a competitive field and establishing yourself is difficult even if you're not making mistakes. So analyze your business practices, with cold contact being a common problem.

Images shot after sunset, using natural light, can be among the trickiest to post-process properly. This guide provides a walkthrough of my post-processing steps for a recent night shot, and introduces a number of techniques I find essential for optimal night photos.

For me, flat lays are the king of food photography. Telling a story with a large flat lay is a challenge, here is how I approach it.

Running a photography business, or even just posting to social media as an amateur, can end up driving some of us crazy with worry and anxiety. I'm one of these people, but thanks to friends, family, and my own doggedness I've learned some ways to cope with the madness.

No, they aren't. I just Betteridge law'ed the heck out of you. But listen, I think this list is still worth looking at and exploring.

If you, like I, are stuck in less than inspiring locations you might need a little push or kick to actually get out and do what you love: landscape photography.

Finding your specialty can be difficult for any profession, but the vague advice of needing a niche as a photographer — while important — is unhelpful in isolation.

I stumbled across this lens in a consignment shop in Gloucester, Massachusetts last fall. I was aware of its existence but had never considered it as a lens for my needs, but the price was too good to pass up and if I didn't end up using it, it’d go into the ever-revolving, buy and sell, gear pile.

Last week I postulated that as I was a PC user who shot Nikon, did Mac users shoot Canon? Here's a summary of how readers voted and what they thought.

Including all of the person's head in your photograph is considered to be one of the basic rules of portraits. Clipping off the top of someone's head is considered a rookie mistake. However, I want you to consider taking a different approach to that old standard.

We need a new PC for our new studio in Puerto Rico and for this build, we are going all out.

Nearly 10 years into taking photos, it’s safe to say I’ve been bored of my own pictures lately, and have been increasingly open-minded in looking for new ways to keep my work innovative. Delving deeper into creative concepts, the best way I feel I’ve improved as a photographer is by exploring set design and focusing my efforts on the pre-production.

With online photography portfolios being absolutely essential, it's paramount you ensure you have the best website possible. Here are my top five templates for photography websites.

Now more than ever, there are a variety of exciting photo destinations. When you’re planning your next trip, you should consider a cruise.

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 2019, 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.

With the announcement of the Olympus OM-D E-M1X, Olympus is in uncharted territory. Is charging $3,000 for a Micro Four Thirds body insane, or the smart play that launches a professional body for the brand well below a Nikon D5 or Canon EOS-1D X Mark II?

For many photographers, photography can be a solitary pursuit. Many of us run a single person business where the majority of our time is spent by ourselves. Sure there are times when we collaborate with clients, talent, and assistants, but this isn’t the same as socializing with our photography peers. I’ve been fortunate enough to find an excellent solution for my isolation and highly recommend it to all photographers.

Three days ago we gave you a tour of the new Fstoppers studio in Puerto Rico but we didn't answer your biggest question: why in the world did we move to Puerto Rico?

When I was a kid I thought I was stupid. No one could figure out why I couldn’t remember the colors of all the crayons. My teachers thought I had a learning disability. I remember having to pick up a crayon over and over to read the name so I knew what color it was.

So you want to go on a photography road trip, you pick your favorite spots from Instagram to hit up. You’re all set right? Well, not exactly. There are some major factors you should be considering before planning out the trip.

At the heart of photography as a medium is a fundamental problem: every photograph is a lie. This slippery instability is often what makes it effective as a tool for communication, but it can also create problems for some of the world’s most respected photographers, including Steve McCurry and, more recently, fine art photographer Tom Hunter.

It was all over the news; the superbloodwolfmoon of January 21st 2019. It was special, it was very rare, and it was spectacular. Or so they said. But was it really that special and did it show on the photos that I took during the four hour eclipse of the Moon? Let me tell you my story.

Portraits are a great way to reflect professionalism. As a portrait photographer, what are the things that you can ensure to get the best for your clients? There are a few important areas that you have to pay attention to as a portrait photographer. Here is a quick article that discusses on how to arrive at the perfect professional portrait.

If you’ve ever had lens flare ruin a seemingly perfect shot, this extremely simple technique will save you a ton of headache in post-processing.

Sure, you want to be successful and fully engaged in your craft but if you don't take some time for yourself every once in a while it can wear on you over time. Taking a calculated break every once in a while can have incredible benefits.