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.
Back in the Spring of 2009, Louis Vuitton creative director Marc Jacobs teamed up with music mogul Madonna produce their new ad campaign. This video is primarily from the point of view of Marc but that shouldn't prevent you from seeing how photographer Steven Meisel executed the overall shoot.
Clay Enos is a laid back photographer who is probably most well known for his portraits from the movie The Watchmen. Today he is taking his portrait photography to the streets and doing something most of us would find pretty intimidating by asking random people to pose in front of his white backdrop.
Back in December of 2009, photographer turned film maker Vincent Laforet teamed up with Canon and Vimeo to start a social experiment in story telling. The idea was to create an short 3 or 4 minute video that would end on a single still frame.
It's the end of the month which means it's almost time to judge the monthly Fstoppers Forum photo contest. The response for this month has been really great and I can't wait to see who wins it and takes home some new gear. The final submissions will be valid until Midnight (EST) on Feb 1st so be sure to submit now rather than later.
We've featured the work of David Nguyen in the past and this time he has taken his whole production to new level. In his most recent photoshoot, Whispers in the Wind, David takes his creative team out to a desert and creates some really inspiring composite beauty images.
If you haven't checked out Mark Wallace's Adorama TV channel over at youtube you really should. He does a great job creating informative and useful videos on all sorts of digital photography and videography topics.
Kevin Reed is a fantastic fashion photographer based out in LA and also NYC. He also has an excellent blog called Exposing Fashion where he has posted lots of tips, BTS, and bits of inspiration. Each year Kevin creates a new image to include in his holiday newsletter and this year he even filmed a fast behind the scenes video outlining the entire shoot.
If you were an Fstoppers reader back when we launched then you probably saw Lee Morris's humble attempt at how to photograph a Rolex watch. It wasn't perfect but I think it was helpful in shedding some light on how meticulous product photography can be. Well now Alex Koloskov has made an extremely detailed video on how he created his latest hero shot of a men's Marine Star Bulova watch.
Profoto has really done everyone a great service in having photographer Matthew Jordan Smith explain some of his personal favorite images in his portfolio. In this particular image, Matthew decided to photograph NBA superstar Ray Allen in his own backyard while jumping on a trampoline.
One of the first early adapters of DSLR video for professional use was Shane Hurlbut of Terminator Salvation, The Guardian, The Last 3 Minutes fame. A few days ago he released a really well shot commercial for the US Marines and decided to make a short contest out of it. The video has over 27 frames shot on various Canon 5D, 7D, and 1D cameras as they do every cinema-graphic move possible.
Jordan Matter is a headshot photographer based out of NYC but does some rather quirky personal projects. One of his on going projects is titled Dancers Among Us where he places professional dancers in urban environments and tries to capture a spontaneous yet thought provoking image.
Photographer and videographer Patryk Kizny from Poland has been making a lot of noise around the web with his HDR TimeLapse slider videos. I've had a chance to talk to Patryk about his setup and the electronic slider he is using made by DitoGear is quite impressive.
Portrait photographer Platon is best known for his stylized wide angle photographs of political figures such as Bill Clinton, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chavez, and countless other iconic leaders throughout the world. His images have graced the covers of Time, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, and Esquire to name a few.
Sometimes you come across a video that just makes you feel good, and this is one of those videos. Brooklyn resident Todd Beiber was out cross country skiing in Prospect Park during the huge blizzard which brought in 2011. During his ski adventure he happened to spot a canister of undeveloped 35mm film.
Ella Manor is a fashion photographer based out of New York City who approaches her photography in a rather unorthodox manner. Much of her work combines beautiful models and extravagant clothing with dreamy camera effects and often times double exposures.
While watching Carson Daly the other night I was exposed to a really exciting photographer named Andrew Zuckerman. On the show he was promoting his newest project MUSIC which I'll probably post here later in the month. But while researching his other works I came across an older project he did called Wisdom.
I'm always getting asked by our readers to post more videos on landscape photography but it is really tough to find good videos on landscape photography. Luckily landscape photographer Clyde Butcher has a nice little interview where he talks about how he got into landscape swamp photography and some of the gear he uses.
Last month we tested out our first ever Photoshop Contest, and it was a great success. So we have decided to start a monthly photoshop contest so everyone can get in on the action. Think Tank has offered up prizes for at least 6 months of photoshop contests, and submissions are almost due for the January 2011 contest.
Chase Jarvis is most well known for his commercial images and a history of sharing his inspiration freely on the internet. If you've followed his work at all then you know he frequently heads down to New Zealand to gain a head start on marketing campaigns for the northern hemisphere since the seasons are opposite.
Alex Soth is an American photographer based out of Minnesota. He recently setup a big exhibition at the Minneapolis Walker Art Center which showcased his work done on a large 8x10 camera. Most of his work is done by photographing strangers in unique environments.
If you've ever played with an effects lens like the Lens Baby Composer then you are probably aware that you can actually create out of focus areas that have specific shapes by using specially designed apertures. Well Kaleb Wentzel-Fisher took this one step further and actually made his out of focus bokeh spell out words during a recent video shoot.
A few months ago I got a call from one of country star Jamey Johnson's managers asking me to take some photographs of him while he was passing through South Carolina. Since Jamey was born in my hometown of Enterprise Alabama I was pretty excited to work with the real deal country artist (not a pop country bone in this guy for sure). Long story short our schedules weren't able to work.
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.
If you've ever seen one of those movie or tv show posters then you probably already know that they are usually huge composites of every actor. But that doesn't always mean that the different characters are simply shot against a white background.
Jeff Johnson is a very talented lifestyle and advertising photographer based out of California. He is probably best known for his adventurous images as the staff photographer for Patagonia. He has also worked with Best Buy, Macy's, Target, and General Mills. So when he sits down with Marc Silber to talk about how he produces great travel photos you better take notes.
Scott Schuman runs a really popular fashion blog called The Sartorialist, and the whole idea is that he takes timeless looking images of fashionable people in cities around the world. A few days ago we ran a viral story on Vivian Maier who may have been the greatest unknown street photographer of her era.
Congratulations to Jay Malone for winning the December 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 Jay's portrait work.
Fstoppers reader Tyler Kaufman sent me this interesting video that shows a little glimpse of what it is like to shoot NBA basketball. Professional photographer Layne Murdoch has been shooting sports for over 30 years and has created some really spectacular images as the New Orlean's Hornets main photographer.
Last month we tested out our first ever Photoshop Contest, and it was a great success. So many readers participated that Think Tank has offered up prizes for at least 6 months of photoshop contests. This is your January challenge.
Photographer Dave Hamilton sent us a fun video he made a few weeks ago and I thought the photos were really interesting. It also reminded me of the time Lee and I shot in a similar hotel room :) So after telling Dave that our readers would really enjoy hearing more about his lighting and the setup, he created a second video outlining the entire day.
One of our reader's emailed me this fun concept photoshoot by photographer Levy Moroshan and I thought I'd share it with everyone this new year's weekend. The styling for this is pretty straightforward: fashion evening gowns with retro style airplanes. Most of the images are lit with just two Photek Softlighters and both the out of camera shots are shown along with the final photoshop edits.
The holiday season is almost behind us and if you've spent any time watching college football tv then you've probably seen the new holiday Victoria's Secret commercials. The creative team at VS always makes some of the most high intensity commercials year in and year out.
There are so many photographer's who I don't know by name but recognize their work once it pops up.
Over the holidays we have been getting a lot of requests for a list of cameras and items that we use on both our photoshoots as well as our video shoots. We made a guide a few weeks ago but we felt it did not really explain why we prefer one product over another so we have completely redesigned it.
I know many of our readers do not like being told how to shoot their images and many more even hate watching promotional videos for companies trying to sell them on a new way adjust their workflow.
We are almost done with 2010 which means you are running out of time to participate in our monthly forum photo contest. What better way to test out those new Christmas cameras than to submit an entry and take a chance at winning a new photo toy we actually use here at Fstoppers.
We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas Day and even got a few new toys to play around with. Lee and I are currently both back home with our families as many of you are yourself. So instead of going all out with a really in-depth video I figured I'd share something a little less serious that you may find amusing.
One trend you will find happening in the advertising world is the merging of video and photography in a way that creates something no one has seen before. When it came time to start creating the next ad for Toshiba's new laptops and 3D TVs the team decided to create something completely original.
It's Christmas time around the world which means many people are going to be photographing holiday lights and dark scenic shots. In order to capture the overall ambient light when the sun has set you are going to need to slow your shutter speed to allow more light to hit your sensor.
