Articles written by Patrick Hall

Gary from F8 Photography and Mikey from Lightenupandshoot have crossed paths while traveling through Hong Kong. Lee and I ran into Mikey out at WPPI in Las Vegas a few months ago where he told us of some up coming adventures he had planned for Southeast Asia. These guys are really laid back and excited to break out into a photoshoot at any given time. In this video they take a ferry over to a local island to capture a few images of some friends they made in Hong Kong. Around 2:30, Gary talks about using a Variable Neutral Density Filter to almost completely destroy the ambient light while still shooting wide open at f1.2 and maxing out his shutter sync speed at 1/250. I've never attempted this technique, but it has been made famous by many photographers including Joey L. Does anyone have an opinion about these variable neutral density filters or use this technique in their own work? If so feel free to post an image in the comments below.

Our email has been flooded the last couple of days with this neat little flash program. At some point in your photographic journey, you've probably wondered how different shutter speeds and focal lengths affect your images. The guys over at Camera Sim have built an interactive flash simulator that lets you choose your ISO, Shutter Speed, Aperture, Focal Length, and even the lighting to expose for the perfect shot. I have to admit, I spent a good 5 minutes playing with all the settings and seeing how everything would turn out. I'm a little suspicious of the image created at 1 foot away @ 18mm but it's probably not an exact science. Imagine how much easier it would have been to learn what all these function do to your images if you had this back in the archaic era film era!

We have featured the work of Jonathan Mannion previously on Fstoppers but he has so many great videos that I figured we'd share his work again. Mannion has shot everyone in the rap scene including Eminem, Lil Wayne, Jay Z, DMX, and Ice Cube. Often borrowing from his mentor Richard Avedon, Jonathan's work can be edgy and provocative but also clean and iconic. In this video Jonathan showcases a lot of his work featured in the Milk Gallery exhibition he did last year. It's pretty interesting to hear Jonathan talk about trying to remain creative with his work while at the same time knowing the specific image the record labels want for their musicians' brand.

Every month here at Fstoppers we run a photo contest that is judged by one of our readers. We'd like to congratulate Adam Sund for winning the April Fstoppers Forum Photo Contest. Click the previous link to see his winning photograph and watch for his banner at the top of the site to see more of Adam's work.

As we do every month, the winner of the contest gets to pick the next theme and Adam has chosen "Underneath". Just like Adam, this month's winner will also win a custom image and website link on the Fstoppers rotating banner above and also a large Photoflex 42" Multidisc Reflector which is great for location and studio uses. The winner will also receive a Black Rapid Sport Strap. As always, our contests are judged by the winner of the previous month's contest so you have to impress Adam not anyone on the Fstoppers Staff. Have fun submitting to the May Fstoppers Forum Contest and good luck to everyone!

Every photographer I know is wanting to book more jobs. No matter if your niche is wedding, food, commercial, advertising, or sports, chances are you would love for your business to make a lasting impression on someone looking to hire you for your services. Casey Templeton wanted to beef up his commercial and adverting work so he decided to produce a promo package that would not get lost on an agency's desk. The video below shows the promo package he made in 2010 and mailed out to 300 of his favorite agencies and art buyers. You might be thinking that this package is pretty extravagant and expensive to send to that many agencies, but being memorable among a crowd of creative professionals can easily pay off if you land only a few jobs from such a campaign. Hope you guys enjoyed this as much as I did.

This video is a little different than anything we've posted before but I figured it would be enjoyed by those of you who are celebrating Easter. Jeremy Cowart is one of the hottest American photographers right now and his portfolio is absolutely sick! But in this video he is creating a rather unique portrait of Jesus using pastels, photoshop, stock images, and random elements from snap shots. The amount of effort that went into this portrait is quite remarkable, and almost every texture is so subtle you would never know half of what went into making this image just by looking at it. It's pretty exciting to see such a well respected photographer pushing his own craft in a way that is so different than what he does on a daily basis. Click the full post to watch a second video of Jeremy making a portrait of Tom Yorke in this style.

Back in September, HBO Films released an interesting documentary about living life within the paparazzi. Teenage Paparazzo was created by Adrian Grenier of Entourage fame and features the story of Austin Visschedyk. The interesting thing about this documentary is that Austin is perhaps the youngest paparazzo ever at only 14 years of age. The film not only focuses on the dark underworld we all have seen of celebrity photojournalism but also how the young Austin is driven by fame as he himself becomes known by celebrities and the media. Interviews by Matt Damon, Eva Longoria, Paris Hilton, Alec Baldwin and Whoopi Goldberg give a behind the scenes view on this strange and often perverse world that is the paparazzi. It's rare for a movie to get a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes so if you missed the movie in theaters you can check out Teenage Paparazzo on DVD.

I'm convinced GoPro and Redbull have the best extreme advertising on the planet. In this latest extreme skiing video, Matthias Giraud and Stefan Laude use two GoPro's each to document their parachute escape from an avalanche in the French Alps. If you don't already have a GoPro Hero, you need to get one. If you already have one, then we all need to start filming more near death moments by living life on the edge! Click the Full Post for a cliff jump skier equipped with at least 5 GoPros in a single run.

Terje Sorgjerd has become one of the most popular timelapse photographers lately. His video sequence The Aurora has become a favorite here on Fstoppers, and his latest video, The Mountain, has already gotten over 3.5 million views in it's first week. In order to capture the mountains of El Teide and the skies, Terje used an automated dolly created by Dynamic Perception. Using his Canon cameras, Terje was able to capture not only the Milky Way galaxy but also an amazing sandstorm brushing off the Sahara Desert. If you are a fan of these videos, join the TSO Photography facebook page for more of Terje's work.