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Alex Ventura
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Articles written by Alex Ventura

Tips on Capturing Successful Light Passes in Automotive Light Painting

There are several different ways to light your subject in photography. While light painting isn't a new or exclusive technique within automotive photography, it is a fundamental technique car photographers should understand how to use. If you are new to light painting or never used this technique to photograph a vehicle, you may have some questions on where to begin.

Seven Ways to Organically Grow Your Instagram Following

For some of us, growing our social media isn’t where we excel and we need some help or advice on how we can improve our following. Over the years, social media platforms have grown and changed. Many photographers have left Facebook or are in the process of ditching it for their photo-sharing application Instagram and putting all their efforts into this platform instead. So how do you grow your following on Instagram?

How to Get Discounted or Even Free Camera Gear

Photography can become very expensive, especially if you like collecting a lot of gear. So who wouldn’t like to receive discounts, or even better, free gear? I have spent a good amount of money on my gear and I would've loved to save some money on those purchases. So how do you go about saving money?

How to Add Splashes to Your Product Photography With Exposure Blending

Depending on your project or assignment, commercial photography can allow for some creativity to be added to the photo. Creating splashing in the background or even having the splashes hit the product or subject can be one way to add some interesting factors to the shot. How would you set up the shot?

Creating a Thin Beam of Light With Off-Camera Flash

Light is a key factor in photography. It helps shape and create your photo. As the sun changes throughout the day, depending on where you are you may see some thin beams of light fall across the environment. Creating these thin light beams and adding them to your portraits can add some interesting looks. Controlling the light into small beams is one way to create drama and mood in your work. How would you create a thin beam of light on set?

Adobe Releases Final Lightroom Update for Standalone Version

Adobe announced yesterday their 6.14 update for Lightroom is now available. The new update addresses bugs that were introduced in the previous release as well as additional camera raw support and profiles. Good news, right? Well, this will also be the last update released for perpetual customers.

Fstoppers Reviews the DBPOWER 620C, a 4K Action Camera for $70

I remember when GoPro first came out with their action cameras and owned that corner of the market for a while. Fast forward a few years, the action cameras have been reduced in size while being able to capture higher resolution photos and videos. Also, several other companies joined the action camera market with their own versions many sharing similar designs that of the GoPro action camera.

Shooting With Natural Light in a Small House Studio: Behind the Scenes With Irene Rudnyk

Every photoshoot is different, but depending on your concept and style, you don’t always need a massive studio space with tons of lighting. If you happen to have a decently sized living room with some amazing windows to take advantage of some natural light, it could be your perfect in-home studio for some of your projects.

Taking Pictures of Strangers in the Streets

Walking up to a complete stranger and asking them if they would like to have a photo taken of them is a challenge for some people. This is exactly what Jessica Kobeissi set out to do, but she wasn’t alone. She decided to have the duo from Mango Street, Rachel Gulotta and Daniel Inskeep, join in on her escapades in the streets.

How to Use Adjustment Layers to Create Light Flares and Haze

Atmospheric effects can enhance your photos, be it with in-camera techniques or postproduction effects. Light flares are one of the most popular effects that many photographers add to their work, and is one that can easily be overdone. Just like many things within Photoshop, there are several ways of doing it. It can be a fairly simple process using adjustment layers to add light flares and even haze to your photo.

Fstoppers Reviews the Albott Midsize Travel Tripod

Is there a thing of having too many tripods? Over the years, I have tried out several tripods, usually trying to stay more at the affordable end of the price tags some of the tripods have. There have been a few tripods that I have simply returned or sold after not liking them and there's the small stack of tripods that I have held on to. My main tripod is a Manfrotto which is very sturdy and reliable, but it is also a bit heavy for my taste when traveling. In the past, I have left it behind simply because I do not want to carry it. So what’s a good budget-friendly travel tripod?

Easy Cinematic Color Grading With LUTs

Lately, LUTs have become very popular with many people talking about them, why is that? It’s essentially a color preset that you can use in any of your work that easily changes the overall look. You can create your own LUTs or find one of the several premade ones to download from several sources online. If you are looking for a fast and easy way to get a more cinematic color grading in your next video project but not sure how to apply LUTs in your work stay tuned.

Quick Way to Dodge and Burn

There are many methods and reasons behind dodging and burning method for photography. Some use it for retouching and some for adding a more punchy and contrasty look. While those are the only reasons to use dodging and burning, those seem to be the more popular uses out of the many. Interested in seeing a quick and easy way of dodging and burning to add some stronger contrast to your work?

A Simple Trick to Revive a Dead Rechargeable Battery

Like many other photographers and filmmakers today, we need batteries for many of our gear and accessories. Many devices today come with their own rechargeable battery but there are still many gadgets and accessories we use that still can take the standard AA or AAA batteries. Keeping many on hand can be a pain in itself, so I tend to keep a set of traditional non-rechargeable batteries as a backup with many rechargeable ones as the main source for these items that need them. What happens with the rechargeable ones will not recharge anymore?

Enhancing your Photos with Gradients in Photoshop

When it comes to photography, there are several different ways to add your own style to your work. One way is within your post-processing, and there are several ways to enhance your photos. Gradients can be applied in many different ways, so how would you use gradients to enhance your photo?

Three Common Composition Mistakes and How to Fix Them

The composition in photographs is something that could make or break your photo, and sometimes it’s quite overlooked as well as its importance in photographs. Usually starting off in photography, this is one aspect of shooting that many people overlook. Don’t worry, they are some easy to fixes to keep in mind while shooting.

Five Things Under $20 You Might Need on Set

There are many things we have to remember to have with us while on set for a shoot, sometimes those things can be really questionable until you need them. Some of those things can be as simple as carrying extra screws with you, something you might not need but really helpful when you do.

Eight Tips You Should Try for Better Portraits

When shooting portraits, there are certain things or ways we shoot that help us achieve a better end result. We should all be trying to capture the best portrait possible, so if someone shares advice I usually give it a try to see if it works for me or fits the style of my work.

How to Get Blurry Backgrounds in Your Work

Common questions I hear, especially from newer photographers are “What lenses should I buy,” or “how do I get that creamy, blurry background in the photo?” Another very popular one is after posting a photo is “what lens did you use to get that soft background?” Well, there are several different answers for the blurry background, one method is in post after the fact, but it’s better to get it in camera. So, how do you get a blurry, bokehlicious photos in camera?

Fstoppers Reviews the Cecilia Black Leather Camera Strap

There are many different ways to carry a camera with you, and depending on how you do carry the camera or even multiple cameras could determine what accessories you might need to help you out with that. As I typically strap my camera around my neck or occasionally crossbody, the standard manufacture strapped that comes with the camera does the job, but it's not quite as comfortable as I would like. I am also one of those photographers that don't like to advertise which camera I have on me when I am walking around so that was another reason for me to ditch the manufacture strap that 's included in the box. With so many choices on the market, what's a good camera strap to get?