If you are a professional photographer, you probably remember a time when you wasted a lot of time working with talent that never produced an image that made it to your portfolio. Well a good friend of mine Drexina Nelson based out of Atlanta, Georgia has come up with an interesting solution: Power The Photoshoot! Drexina and Derek Blanks have teamed up with local makeup artists and hair stylists to offer aspiring models the chance to ramp up their portfolios with high quality professional images. How does this does apply to us photographers? Well Drexina and gang want to take PTP on the road, and they need other professional photographers willing to shoot two full days of paying clients! Check out the PTP website and feel free to contact the team about future Power the Photoshoot events as they travel across the country. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRH_hLLzLhM<
If you have ever watched an action movie or fantasy movie, you have probably heard people taking about how anything can be done with CGI. But how many times have you stopped to consider what was actually real and what was computer graphics? In today's movies, the line between reality and computer animation is more blurred than ever and that's why I enjoyed watching this short film about the movie Underworld Evolution. It's always crazy to me to see how creative camera angles and complex stunt rigging can be combined with computer graphics to produce these shots we are so used to seeing on the big screen.
Underworld Evolution - Behind The Scenes from Jeff Castelluccio 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.
George Chatzakis is an advertising and fashion photographer based out of Greece. For the last Porcelana ad campaign, George used a bunch of small point and shoot cameras to get that "matrix" style effect where multiple camera angles are capturing in the exact same moment in time. It's a really cool, and expensive, trick you have probably seen on MTV or on the big screen. The little bit of talking in this video is in another language but I think there is still a lot to be taken from watching this short video. Hope all our American readers are having a good holiday weekend!
Porcelana - Making Of from Real Creations on Vimeo.
I was just chatting with some people from Atlanta about which photographer to feature for the next FS video and Zack Arias seemed to be the hands down favorite. Well Chase Jarvis beat us to it so I'll pass this along to you. I have no idea how you can have a 2 hour video on youtube but if you have time to watch this check it out; they cover quite a bit of interesting topics that are sure to help you with your own photography and business. Enjoy <
Last year Zacuto started a great series called The Great Camera Shootout where they compared film cameras with digital cameras and DSLRs. We featured the first two episodes but somehow overlooked the final show in the series. Some of these tests seem a bit excessive to me but it's good to know that there is a discussion going on with the top professionals in the field. Some of topics covered are camera resolution, color vibrancy, green screening, and shooting video in raw. As photographers, we are still going to hear people making an argument for not shooting video on DSLRs but if you watch the 3 full length short films presented in this episode I think the DSLR video haters' days are numbered.
The Great Camera Shootout 2010 Web 3: The Revolution Begins... from steve weiss on Vimeo.
Check out this amazing video created by Seth Epstein from The Group Digital Agency for Suzuki power bikes. Amazing stuff and much of it is shot with only available light! <
Okay I admit there is nothing really "behind the scenes" in this video but it is just too cool not to post. On Feb 24th, NASA's Discovery space shuttle launched for the final time and created a lot of media buzz. Most people travel down to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral to watch these amazing launches, but a few lucky passengers flying out of Orlando, Florida experienced the launch like few have ever seen it: 35,000 feet high in a commercial airline! Check out our previous post on NASA's video coverage of their shuttle launches if you want to see more amazing video of the space program.
Chase Jarvis films some skateboarders for an investment company! Check out all the newest tools for filming HD video off your DSLR and that spare RED One camera collecting dust in your closet :) <
Marie-Louise Cadosch of Behind the Mask Photography is not your average run of the mill photographer. Her background as a fashion stylist seems to play a huge roll in creating a classy mood in her photographs. In her Glasspass behind the sceens video, Marie-Louise spares no effort on the production end and the images are great because of it. I love photographers who work with a large team of creative professionals, and you can really tell they add so much to overall mood of these images. It also looks like she gives a little Ode to the Kill Bill / Sin City movies without making it too obvious. Very cool shoot!
Glasspass Shooting - Behind The Scenes from Behind The Mask Photography on Vimeo.
The new Nikon Df retro styled camera is rustling the feathers of the photography world. People seem to either love it or hate. Today Chase Jarvis unboxes Nikon's newest offering and gives his first impressions. Could the Nikon Df DSLR be the ultimate travel camera or is it just another alternative to the modern DSLR?
When it comes to getting the best expressions out of your subject, Peter Hurley is one of the best out there. Two years ago we teamed up with Peter and produced the critically acclaimed The Art Behind the Headshot. This year Peter Hurley is joining us in the Bahamas for the 2014 Fstoppers Workshops. His two day headshot intensive has already sold out but there is still room in his newest lecture series From Zero To Shabang! Check out this video for details
In this episode of Critique the Community, we are joined by architectural photographer Mike Kelley. Mike has been a long time writer for Fstoppers and last year Fstoppers produced the highly proclaimed photography and Photoshop tutorial Where Art Meets Architecture. Today Mike and I give an extended critique of 20 architectural images submitted through the Fstoppers Community.
When it comes to all things headshots and manipulating human expression, the best guy to seek council from is Peter Hurley. Peter's career has spanned about 15 years now, and over those years he has gained a tremendous amount of knowledge. Last year with the help from our friends at Profoto, Lee and I were able to film a supplemental free chapter to Peter's Illuminating the Face Tutorial. In this video Peter takes us outside to show some of the techniques he uses out on location.
UPDATE: Winner Announced HERE! Yep, the title pretty much says it all. Fstoppers has teamed up with our good friends at SLR Lounge and BH Photo for the mack daddy contest of them all! At the end of this month, one of our lucky readers will win their pick of the top high megapixel professional cameras offered by Nikon, Sony, and Canon. There are 6 different ways to enter and if you do all 6 you can gain up to 14 individual entries. We have the juicy details in the full post
