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Articles written by Ryan Cooper

How To Avoid Letting Toxic Comments Rob You Of Your Passion For Photography
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Recently, a rather scathing article went up on Resource Mag’s website discussing the toxic behavior of a certain photographer. You can feel free to read the article. I, however, won’t mention him here other than to say that he is the sort of person who claims to be a teacher, but instead uses his fame to attack and belittle other, less experienced, photographers. He has made a hobby of robbing others of their love and passion for his own selfish delight.

Four Changes Instagram Should Make That Would Make Photographers Happier
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This week, Instagram awed us all by rolling out one of the simplest and most obvious features that we had all been clamoring for for years. OK, maybe I wasn't awed, but boy does multiple account support make my life so much easier. I’m no longer typing in my Instagram passwords 30 times per day, which got me to thinking: as a platform, Instagram is pretty good, but its features are still notoriously primitive. Here are a few features I think they should add that would make my life much easier.

Seven Ways to Stretch More Life Out of Your Photography Gear During Tough Times
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Almost everyone goes through times when the belt need to be tightened because money just isn’t abundant. During these times when income dips, we need to take care to avoid spending as much as possible. Photography, however, is an expensive vocation that seems to be an endless drain on the bank account. It becomes increasingly helpful to avoid having to replace gear you already own due to wear or damage.

Keeping That Photographic Fire Burning During The Winter Slump
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We all have that time of year when lethargy seems to run rampant by pulling our desire to keep creating great photos to the ground. For Vancouver, where I live, that time is right about now. Vancouver was carved out of the middle of a rainforest, which means we have a rather aggressive rainy season. It is pretty common to go weeks without even seeing a hint of sun. During this time, the motivation to shoot seems to wash away. As photographers, we need to take this time to toss several new logs on the fire and re-ignite that passion that is threatening to slip away.

Building a Successful Career As a Generalist Photographer With Viktoria Haack
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As competition in the photography industry becomes tighter and tighter, the challenge of building a successful career with the camera is ever growing. In response to this, the industry continued to fragment into an array of smaller, niche, industries where each photographer specializes in a specific area of expertise. In an vocation once filled with photographers who were focused on shooting nearly anything, the classic, generalist, photographer has become a rather rare breed. Viktoria Haack is an example of a young, rising, star who has not only chosen to buck this trend, but who has also managed to build a successful career in the process.

Use Photoshop to Make Fake Contact Lenses More Realistic
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Fake contact lenses (also known as circle lenses) are becoming wildly popular. They seem to have first started to gain momentum in the cosplay world but have begun growing well beyond that. I've started to encounter models regularly wearing them, especially ones focusing on Asian fashion trends. Circle contacts look great at a glance, they make the pupil larger and often change its color to be more exciting. When walking around in real life or when in video the eye is constantly moving so the weakness of being obviously fake is much less apparent. However, when photographed the eye is frozen in perfect sharpness which instantly reveals how fake circle lenses can look, especially the cheaper ones.

5 Excuses That Will Hold Back Your Photography in 2016
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The new year has arrived! Time to stop making excuses as to why you can't make better images. The only barrier to creating the work you really want to create is you. Cast aside your goofy excuses that you use to justify your failings. Do what it takes to become the photographer you want to be and do it now!

How to Recover When Nothing Seems to Be Working During a Photoshoot
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Not every shoot goes according to plan; sometimes, everything goes wrong and nothing seems to fix it. Each time you look at the back of your camera, the photos just seem wrong. This isn't your work or vision. You just aren't on your game. But that doesn't change anything for your client! They still expect professional quality images that meet the standards of your portfolio. Rather than panicking and sending the entire shoot off a cliff of miasmic distress, take a moment to gather yourself and reorient the shoot so that it can still be successful, even if you don't end up delivering exactly the perfect images that you originally had in mind.

6 Things to Learn from 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' That Will Make You a Better Photographer [Spoiler Free]
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There is this new film out and I’m sure you’ve heard of it. It's sort of like "Star Trek" but with laser swords. "The Force Awakens" is one of the most impressive films to come along in a long time. Director JJ Abrams does an immaculate job of taking a franchise that has become so culturally embedded that it is ubiquitous and rebuilt the magic that first captivated audiences almost 40 years ago. By learning from his techniques you can translate them to your photography so that you can expand the quality of your own work.

How To Create A Realistic Lightsaber In Photoshop
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Unless you have been living under a rock for the last year or so, you probably have noticed that the force is awakening! After a wait that has spanned a generation, Star Wars fans are finally getting a sequel to the saga that started in the seventies! With the arrival of Star Wars come hordes of its most endearing fans dressing up as their favorite Jedi or Sith heroes! Which means an awful lot of opportunity for photoshoots, but there is one problem. Those dull, plastic, toy, lightsabers just don't have the same epic feel that will do the rest of the costume justice. Luckily creating a lightstaber blade in Photoshop using visual effects is quite easy!

6 Loathsome Retouching Mistakes That Drive Editors Insane
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Part of building a professional looking portfolio is in learning to retouch your photos in a way that gives them an elegant, high-end polish. However, I unfortunately encounter dozens of images on a daily basis that were quite strong to begin with but ended up looking bewilderingly amateur because of one or two very easily solved retouching mistakes that drags their quality to abysmal depths.

The Motivation to Create Your Best Photos
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Every photographer wants to be creating their best work each time that they touch their camera, but the reality is that inspiration ebbs and flows. No photographer can consistently create their best work every time they shoot. As photographers, our goal is often to steadily improve by continually expanding our body of work. Sometimes, however, a shoot becomes magical as creativity and motivation climax into one of those images that you know will sit proudly in your portfolio for years to come.

5 Holiday Gift Ideas For The Photographer In Your Life
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Tis the season to go splurge on fantastic photography odds and ends that you can stuff into colorfully wrapped boxes and give them out to all your favorite photographer friends! So get ready to whip out that credit card, even if you end up getting a few of the gifts for yourself!

8 Tidbits of Photoshop Interface Wizardry That You Probably Didn’t Know Existed
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Photoshop is a veritable spell book of amazing and seemingly mystical tools that empower any digital sorcerer with the potential for creating visual magic. Adobe has done a pretty great job over the years at adding in tons of optimization and shortcutting that can make for a more pleasant workflow. Unfortunately, they often treat these workflow enhancements like Easter eggs by not making them obvious at all. In this article we will go through a few hidden spells to help you optimize your Photoshop workflow.

World-Famous Instagram Model Essena O'Neill Quits Social Media
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Sometimes the time comes to say "enough is enough" and move on from something that has become a cancer in your life. That day has come for Australian model Essena O'Neill who over the last few years has accumulated over 500,000 followers along with myriad of modeling contracts, offers from major agencies, and an endless lineup of sponsors.

Why I Loathe Sending Web Proofs After a Photoshoot
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The Internet has done a rather annoying job of trivializing the photo selection process. Culling images is a critical process in a photographer’s workflow that the client or model often wants to be a big part of. The majority of photographers I’ve asked address this by dumping all the photos into some sort of web-based proofing site and just send the link off to clients and let them make their choices.

6 Tips for Photographing Halloween Costumes
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Halloween is almost upon us. October brings the opportunity to photograph a huge array of exciting costumes. As a photographer who specializes in cosplay photography, I’m accustomed to shooting elaborate costumes all year-round, but for most photographers, Halloween presents a fun time to step outside of their normal photography box.