Articles written by Lee Morris

As many of you know our forum has been acting a bit unusual lately. We finally figured out that we had a couple of things go wrong. Our server with Godaddy.com actually failed and we lost a full months worth of database info. That means that all posts and accounts created in the last 30 days were lost. Right after that, our forum was infected with a virus (I didn't even know this was possible) and we had more issues with that. Long story short; we finally have everything fixed but a few of you will need to create accounts all over again. If you posted a picture for our September contest, that was also lost and you will need to repost that image. As you know, the winner of that contest gets to have a banner advertising their site on the top of Fstoppers.com and to sweeten the pot even more Photoflex has offered to give a LiteDome XS kit away to the winner as well. Please post your "motion" themed images here. I apologize for all of the issues. Fstoppers.com has been growing at a rapid pace which is a good thing but we are having growing pains.

I just got off the phone with Jay P Morgan, a big production photographer out of California. Jay shoots usually entail big concepts and bigger set designs but in this video he keeps it relatively simple. Check out Jay's lighting scheme for this 50's style shoot.

50's Shot using a Beauty Dish & OctoDome. from Jay P. Morgan on Vimeo.

I'm not usually too big on photography seminars but this one is just too good to pass up. On October 2nd and 3rd Natalia Taffarel the famous retoucher is sharing her secrets for only $400. I will be flying up to NYC just to learn from her and it would be cool to see some other Fstoppers readers there as well. Check out the details here.

What does a guy have to do to find a high quality, informative BTSV around here? Apparently I have to start looking at videos that were released years ago. Here is a quick BTS Chase made over 2 years ago. We haven't ever posted it but if you have seen it, don't get mad at us; good BTSVs are hard to come by these days. ><

Sometimes videos don't require a BTS because although they are a unique idea, they don't necessarily have to be complicated. Danny writes "Everyone has experienced fireworks. It is truly a magical sight. I set out to capture them, not as we know them normally, but in a way that many of you may not have seen them before. For this, I used Bokeh, which originates from the Japanese word "boke", which means "blur" or "haze"."

Bokeh from Danny Cooke on Vimeo.

Ok guys, here is the deal. We did some poking around and I am happy to say that it doesn't appear that anyone has been cheating. Multiple contestants got many of their friends and family members to sign up and vote for them and although that wasn't our ideal plan, it is totally fair and within our rules. So, we were about to start the voting again but one of our top contestants asked us to postpone it a little longer because he is leaving the country this week. I am trying to be as fair as I can to everyone here. Perhaps it was a bad idea to pause the voting but we are doing the best we can. We knew that if there was cheating and we let the contest end it would have been much worse.

I am a huge fan of the technology behind movie special effects. Here is a quick look behind the scenes of the movie John Adams. It's amazing what is possible these days. <

Annie Leibovitz is perhaps the most well known photographer in the world and her work always stands out from the crowded world of photography. While her Louis Vuitton campaign with Sean Connery is a few years old now, there is still a lot of great information to be gained from the beach shoot. Using nothing more than a Photek Softlighter, Annie balances her ambient light well with her soft broad lighting to create a really awesome series of images. ><

Martin needed a light weight camera crane that could fit in a backpack, setup in under two minutes, and hold a DSLR. This sounds too good to be true right? Well it was, so I built one by hand.

Light Camera Crane - Build from Martin Roberts on Vimeo.