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Alex Cooke
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Articles written by Alex Cooke

Five Essential Gear Upgrades for Portrait Photography

When it comes to improving your portrait photography, having the right tools can make all the difference. The right gear can elevate the quality of your images, improve your workflow, and help you experiment with techniques that refine your craft and creativity.

Mastering the Tone Curve: Lightroom Editing Tips

The tone curve in Lightroom is a powerful tool for adjusting the exposure and tonal balance of your photos. Mastering this feature can help you achieve more refined edits, creating a polished, professional look.

How to Use Smoke for Cinematic Portraits

Handheld smoke machines have changed the way you can create dramatic, cinematic portraits. They give you the ability to add depth, texture, and atmosphere to your images with ease. It’s a powerful tool to elevate the storytelling in your portraits.

Money, Networking, and Growth: Hard Lessons for Creatives

Understanding how to manage the business side of your creative career can make the difference between struggling and thriving. From finances to networking, mastering a few key principles can save you years of frustration and help you build a more sustainable career.

A Beginner’s Guide to Choosing the Right Lighting Modifiers

Modifiers are essential tools for shaping light, and knowing how to use them can dramatically affect the look and feel of your images. These tools allow you to control the quality, direction, and intensity of light, which is crucial whether you’re shooting portraits, products, or events.

Lightroom Slider Secrets: A Guide to Sharpening and Contrast

Understanding how key sliders in Lightroom work can transform your approach. Sliders like Texture, Clarity, and Dehaze are powerful tools that shape how details, edges, and light appear in your photos. Learning their nuances helps you make informed decisions when enhancing your images.

How Reflectors Can Instantly Improve Your Portraits

Improving your portraits doesn’t always mean investing in expensive gear. Sometimes, a simple tool like a reflector can make a world of difference. Reflectors are versatile, cost-effective, and easy to use.

Black vs. White Grids: Do They Really Make a Difference?

Light control is one of the most important aspects of photography. Whether you’re lighting a subject or creating mood through shadows, tools like grids can shape how your final image looks. But not all grids are the same, and subtle differences can affect the results in ways you might not expect.

How to Make Digital Photos Look Like Film in Lightroom

Making digital photos look like film is something many people are interested in, but achieving authentic results can be tricky. One area that often gets overlooked is the appearance of grain. Getting it right can significantly enhance your images by mimicking the subtle imperfections that define film.

Film Photography and the Power of Personal History

Old cameras hold more than just film; they carry stories, memories, and connections. This video uses one such camera to explore not only the results of shooting film after decades but also a deeply personal journey. It reminds you how photography, whether old or new, has the power to connect us to the past in unexpected ways.

Turning Mistakes into Better Landscape Photos"

Whether dealing with snow-covered scenes or foggy mornings, knowing how to make the most of unpredictable conditions can help you create better images and enjoy the process more.

Star Trackers: What You Should Know Before Getting Started

Star trackers can transform your astrophotography by enabling longer exposures without star trails, allowing you to capture more detail in the night sky. Understanding their intricacies, however, is essential, as they can be finicky and require practice to master. Whether you’re interested in photographing the Milky Way, nebulae, or galaxies, mastering a star tracker will open up new creative possibilities for your work.

Creativity in Photography: Why Vision Matters

Staying motivated in photography can be challenging, especially when you hit a creative slump. Without a clear sense of direction or purpose, it’s easy to feel adrift, and that lack of vision can make even picking up your camera feel like a chore. Vision isn’t about gear or technical skills—it’s about having something to strive for, a destination to guide your creative energy.

TTArtisan AF 23mm f/1.8 Lens Review: A $125 Prime Worth Considering

Wide angle prime lenses are favorites for their versatility, whether for street photography, environmental portraits, or everyday snapshots. The TTArtisan AF 23mm f/1.8 lens offers a budget-friendly entry into this category, raising questions about how it holds up in terms of build quality, autofocus, and image performance.

Why the Tamron 35-150mm f/2-2.8 Could Be Your New Favorite Lens

Having a versatile lens that adapts to multiple shooting scenarios can make your work simpler and more enjoyable. Whether you're capturing street scenes, portraits, or lifestyle shots, a lens that balances functionality with image quality is invaluable.

Turning Dull Photos Into Dramatic Black-and-White Images

Black-and-white photography has a way of emphasizing the relationship between light and shadow in ways color photography often cannot. Transforming an ordinary photo into a striking black-and-white image requires a blend of technical precision and creative decision-making. This video demonstrates how to use Lightroom Classic to create stunning black-and-white edits, walking you through the process step by step.

The Truth About Some Photography Myths

The debate over “straight out of camera” photos often stirs strong opinions, but how much control do you really have before the shutter clicks? This video explains why the phrase might not mean what you think and digs into the reality of digital image processing.