Are you a photographer who felt like you were unable to participate in our BTS summer contest because you didn't own a DSLR that shot video? Well our good friend Michael over at www.Michaelthemaven.com is hosting a few contests and one of the prizes is a Canon T2i digital camera. What do you have to do to win you ask? Just submit your best cell phone photo! Lee and I are "Celebrity" judges for the contest and right now only 20 submissions have been made. You can read more about the contest here and you have until Friday to submit. Too bad we are judges or I might have tried to enter myself :)
So many times we photographers think we need to use every single strobe light we own just because they are there in our bag. I've been a victim of it and I'm sure you have too. Instructional photographer Tony Corbell has an old video he made for the folks at Profoto which really showcases the variety of light you can get from just one single light source. There is an old saying that goes the best light is the light you have with you but maybe it should go the best light is sometimes the simplest light. <
Our good friend Peter Hurley has been tearing up Twitter the last few days which can only mean one thing: He's done something pretty exciting! Peter loves to film his own videos on his Flip HD camera while in the middle of his shoots so the footage is always a bit spontaneous. Check out this short clip of Peter as he shoots Twilight megastar Chaske Spencer in his studio and on top of his roof. If you watch closely you may even see the Empire State Building a half a dozen times :) Check out the final images over at Peter's blog http://www.comeontakeyourbestshot.com/ and if you haven't watched our Fstoppers Original on Peter check it out here.
So we did a little experiment and tried our first ever photoshop contest....and the results were interesting to say the least. I think the holiday parties might have come early for some of our readers! If you have not checked out the images submitted you can check them out here on the forum. I really wanted to pick one of the crazy ones that made me and Lee laugh as the winner but I have to give credit where credit is due. So hit the Full post to see who won the Think Tank Photo Urban Disguise 35 camera bag and let us know in the comments if you guys enjoyed this contest. Also check out our monthly photo contest running on the forum here (December theme is "Illusion").
Love it or find it overly offensive, rapper M.I.A.'s music video Born Free created a big stir on the internet last year when it was released. I personally thought it was a pretty good video considering what most artists release these days. Regardless of your view of the video, the cinematography is really awesome. In order to shoot the driving scenes, director Romain Gavras used the Ultimate Arm to create amazing jib style shots on the move. Check out this BTS on how the team filmed much of the film's final segment and click the full post to watch Born Free in it's entirety.
Tom Guilmette is a professional camera operator for broadcast sports and definitely one of our favorite guys to feature here on Fstoppers (search his name for some other posts on him). So with all the excitement that Major League Baseball brings this time of year I thought it would be appropriate to give you a backstage peek at how guys like Tom work to bring the game into your home. For whatever reason, Tom has yet to allow embedding of my favorite video he has ever created so after you get done watching this sort video, head over to his blog to watch a much longer video with this sort of content.
Fenway HD Camera - Sony HDC-910 - Canon 75x from Tom Guilmette on Vimeo.
With a bunch of hurricanes heading our way, I figured it might be fun to show everyone that rainy days do not mean you cannot still pick up your camera. Jim Reed has made a career out of extreme weather photography and has some pretty wild videos to document his craft. Some may call it a craft and others may just call it being out of your mind but either way it puts a smile on my face. Click the full post to watch Jim run straight up into a tornado. <
Mark Lebryk decided to try something a bit different for his BTS contest entry and we are glad he did! Mark worked together with his client Ultrasun USA to show what goes into shooting product photos for a website. In a nutshell, Mark takes over 100 photographs of each tanning bed, retouches each one, and then renders them into an interactive 360 degree web presentation. Check out Mark's video and be sure to head over to Ultrasun USA to view the final products online.
Hope everyone in America is having a happy 4th of July. Thought you guys might get a kick out of the latest Dodge Challenger Behind the Scenes commercial. Thanks to Thomas on the forum for sharing this with us! Click the full post to watch the final commercial. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLa6NGduJ_c<
Philippe Kerlo is a really creative beauty and fine art photographer based out of Paris France. Some people are dubbing his work as "extreme glamour" which might be a fitting title. I was recently turned onto his work by one of our readers when they sent us this video of him shooting beauty portraits through plexiglass covered with paint, acrylic, wax, and other colored materials. The results are really stunning and the idea is so simple I thought I had to share it with everyone. Be sure to check out Philippe's portfolio because his work has a lot of interesting angles like the photos shown in the full post.
Graeme Murray just sent us this interesting video of Red Bull Athlete Kenny Belaey jumping his bike through some interesting backgrounds. Check out his photos in this behind the scenes video
Kenny Belaey Photoshoot from Graeme Murray on Vimeo.
One thing I love about having an Vimeo account is the great videos they recommend checking out. Back in Oct 2010, the first ever Vimeo Awards was held, and the winners for over 9 categories were announced. None of the winning videos are directly related to photography but the winning narrative Thrush by Gabriel Bisset-Smith was created entirely from still images. It's pretty entertaining and it really opens the gates to what is possible now that we are all documenting our lives pretty much everyday. I have to believe that all of these shots were staged, and if so Gabriel did a great job capturing all these frames and making such a unique video.
If you've ever attended a crazy big music or art festival then the thought has probably crossed your mind, "I should probably photograph these interesting characters while I'm here!" While attending the annual free expression festival Burning Man in Nevada, photographer Eric Schwabel decided to build a portable photo studio to capture dramatic portraits of everyone in attendance. His setup consisted of two strip boxes, two Profoto Pro-B2 power packs, and two Profoto Pro-7 heads. Everything was shot on a Mamiya 645 AFD with a DM28 digital back. I must say, I would be a little nervous bringing this sort of gear out to the dusty desert, but then I would have been the guy who missed out on creating such a cool project!
Fstoppers was created in part to help show the faces of the photographers behind the lens and also to give insight on how they approach their photography. But have you ever wondered who the people are behind some of tools and software we use day in an day out? Well Adobe recently released this video featuring many of the names behind their industry standard software Photoshop CS5 as they explained some of the difficulties they faced in the newest update. I've always wondered why it often takes longer for the mac version to appear on store shelves than it does the PC version and now I know why. via PetaPixel
I came across this video the other day by photographer David Jackson out of Appleton Wisconsin. David is a commercial photographer who like most innovative artists shoots primarily on location. Check out his latest behind the scenes video of a promotional shoot he did with Matters: A Design Store with a Cause. MATTER: Behind The Scenes from David Jackson on Vimeo.
