Articles written by Patrick Hall

We knew there were going to be a lot of last minute contest videos submitted but never would we have thought this many of you would have waited until the last minute. I want to thank everyone for participating but I'll give no sympathy to those who lost lots of sleep this weekend trying to meet deadlines ha! Sean Armenta's BTS video is the latest of the last minute entries, and in it he shows how you can create clean and professional beauty shots just like you seen the pages of women's magazines such as Elle, Vogue, and Glamour. All of this was also done with just one light which should help those of you on a budget. Check out Sean's website as well since he has some amazing photos in his portfolio!

Sean Armenta | One Light Beauty Setup from Sean Armenta on Vimeo.

The final day to film and upload your submission to the Fstoppers BTS Contest 2010 is here! Over the last 90 days we have received over 60 submissions and have seen some really fun and creative photoshoots. It has also been exciting to see the talent from the Fstoppers community and to be able to see our readers in action. Lee and I will continue to feature some of our favorite videos in the upcoming weeks as the final process of declaring a winner gets closer. Since many of our readers are from across the globe, we think it is only fair that everyone has a chance to submit their video up until the last minute. So please make sure that your video is uploaded to Vimeo.com or Youtube.com by the end of August 1st, and being the kind people that we are, we will give everyone a grace period of one day to have it posted to the Fstoppers Forum. Everyone at Fstoppers encourages you to continue creating BTS videos for all of your projects even after this contest is over. Thanks again to everyone who has taken part in this contest. We hope you have not only been able to grow as a photographer but also as a video editor as well. If you are interested in seeing what everyone has done for the contest, you can view all the videos HERE.

On the heals of Isaiah Mustafa, we were sent this already viral video on a parody of the old spice commercial for the Harold B. Lee Library at BYU. Unfortunately, Old Spice does not film behind the scenes videos of their commercials so you are left only hearing about how it was shot after the fact (which is great nevertheless). Watch this fun video by Stephen Jones and Scott Winn over at http://www.scottdavidwinn.com/ on how they created a spoof of the original for their alma mater. Click the full post to watch the full version; it's almost as good as the Old Spice versions. <

I guess this has become Speedo Week on Fstoppers! I recently discovered the photography of Michael Muller and must have spent a good hour on his website checking out all sorts of amazing photography! He has recently been working with Speedo for their summer catalog, and the production that goes into these shoots is insane. Click the post for a second video showcasing some BTS material from this shoot and be sure to check out Michael's website for all sorts of inspiring photography. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhy6g8Ewpac<

I'm always interested in underwater photoshoots because I've failed miserably trying to do my own underwater shoots in the past. I was happy when I came across this video created by Speedo where they show you exactly how they came up for their new 2010 print ad campaign. It's a shame they don't showcase photographer Martin Brent more than they do but they do a great job showing how the idea was first created and the process of going from idea to final rendering. <

As a photographer, I really enjoy seeing how the film guys approach their filming and there is no better way to learn than to watch behind the scenes of some larger productions. Check out what Sam Nicholson and his team of videographers did with the new ARRI Alexa Camera in their short film called "World Cup". Click the full post to see the final product. <

When I first saw this video it put a big smile on my face. I really wish the photographer had shared some insight on this video since it seems like such a unique situation but we are just left with this short clip. You can see the final photos here but I'm not sure why they did not use a more interesting shot of the bear.

Koda from Academy on Vimeo.

If you aren't familiar with fashion photography, Giuliano Bekor is one of the top photographers in the industry. Watch as Giuliano demonstrates the correct way to jump after a soccer ball while wearing ridiculous fashion clothing. We also featured another BeBe fashion shoot he did with crazy African animals that you should probably check out after watching this photoshoot. I figured this was an appropriate post for Monday since Spain just wrapped up the World Cup yesterday (and it seems I dropped the ball on my earlier post today). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FXEXyfC3h0<

Go behind the scenes with beauty photographer Scott Wright as he creates a print ad for McCann. There is no talking unfortunately but you can see that the lighting is fairly straight forward and I'm sure lots of work goes into the retouching afterwards. Check out the final image as Scott combines all the elements which make a typical ad you may find in a women's magazine.