Alex Cooke's picture
Average rating:
3.2 out of 5
3.2
Alex Cooke
Cleveland, OH

Articles written by Alex Cooke

Lawyers Blame Photographer After He Was Shot by Deputy Who Mistook His Tripod for a Gun

You might remember Andy Grimm, an Ohio photographer who was shot by Deputy Jake Shaw after he stopped to take pictures of a traffic stop and his tripod was mistaken for a gun. Grimm filed a lawsuit against the county, but lawyers say not only were the deputy's actions "reasonable," but Grimm's own "negligence... contributed to cause the injuries."

How Quitting All Social Media Affected One Photographer

A lot of us think of social media as a sort of necessary evil: if we're not comfortable with it, we still engage with it because it gets our name and work out there. One photographer deleted all his high-follower accounts and went without social media for a year, and he was quite pleased with the results.

How to Properly Wrap Cables to Make Them Last Longer and Easier to Use

As a photographer or videographer, you probably have a few (dozen) cables laying around. Believe it or not, there is a proper technique to wrapping them, and it not only makes them easier to store and quickly unwrap, it helps them last longer as well, saving you money.

Five Useful Tricks for Sony a7 Photographers

The Sony a7 series has won a lot of acclaim from photographers, but like any camera system, it's not perfect. This great video will give you five tricks and tips for getting more out of your a7 series camera.

Five Tips to Truly Improve Your Photography

These aren't quick tips about a neat technique or trick. These five tips are for anyone who is in photography for the long haul, whether you're a passionate amateur or looking to make it your career.

How to Price Your Photography Services

You've bought the camera, you've mastered the techniques, you're ready for business. What are your prices? This helpful video will give you some good guidelines for pricing your photography services.

It Can Happen to You: My Photo Hard Drive Just Failed

In between my music and photography work, I have a lot of hard drives. But even so, I've never had one fail, until just two days ago. It went without warning: no crunching sounds, no notifications, just a red light.

How to Use Focus Stacking to Obtain a Sharp Image From Front to Back

Focus stacking is a technique in which one takes multiple shots of the same scene at different focus distances, then merges them together to create a final photo that is as sharp as possible from front to back. This helpful tutorial will show you how it's done.

Take $1,000 Off a MacBook Pro With This Rare Deal

The MacBook Pro remains the workhorse of choice for a lot of photographers and videographers. They come with great capabilities, battery life, and are known for their reliability, but it's rare to see a discount on them. Nonetheless, today, you can take $1,000 off a 15.4" MacBook Pro with Touch Bar (late 2016).

How Protecting Your Highlights Applies to Both Photography and Life

Even the best sensors have a dynamic range that can't capture some of the world's scenes, which is why photographers employ a number of techniques to work around this limitation, one of the most common being exposing in a manner that saves the highlights, thus throwing some of the shadows into black. This great video examines both the technique and philosophy of protecting highlights.

A Canon M50 Review: Has 4K on Canon Mirrorless Finally Arrived?

The subject of Canon and 4K is a hot-button topic for quite a few videographers out there, but with the release of the M50, the company finally has their first 4K mirrorless camera out in the wild. The 4K implementation isn't perfect, however, and this review takes a practical look at how good it is.

A Mathematical Look at What 'Light Softness' Really Is

We talk qualitatively quite a bit about the softness or hardness of light, as it's one of the fundamental qualities and something every photographer and videographer should consider when choosing how to light their subjects. This neat video takes a more scientific approach by asking how we can quantify the softness of light.

How to Fake Shallow Depth of Field Using Photoshop

Photos with shallow depth of field are a very popular look in most genres involving people in some way, but they also require pricier lenses to shoot. This helpful tutorial will show you how to fake the effect using Photoshop.

In Wake of Fatal Crash, FAA Will Ban 'Doors-Off' Flights Not Using Quick-Release Restraints

On March 11, tragedy struck, when a sightseeing and photographic tours helicopter crashed in New York's East River, killing all five passengers, with only the pilot escaping. In light of the event, the FAA has announced that it will order all "doors-off" flights not using quick-release restraints suspended until better restraint systems are developed.

Crazy Wide, Crazy Fast: Fstoppers Reviews the Sigma 14mm f/1.8 DG HSM Art Lens

Every once in a while, a lens comes along that truly breaks new ground for one reason or another. Such is the Sigma 14mm f/1.8 DG HSM Art, which has an aperture over a stop faster than its competitors and is the fastest full-frame lens under 20mm. Of course, extreme lenses often have compromises of some sort, so how does this one perform? In short, extremely well. Check out our full review.