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Patrick Hall Photography Tutorials

About Patrick Hall

Patrick Hall is a founder of Fstoppers.com and a photographer based out of Charleston, South Carolina.

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Popular Articles from Patrick Hall
How to Photograph a Product Ad With Just One Light
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It's easy as a photographer to get caught up in having dozens of strobes and spending hours trying to get an image perfect in camera. It doesn't always have to be that hard, though, and in today's photography tutorial, I work through a mock advertisement campaign shot with just one strobe light.

Our Hands-On Test of Lindsay Adler's Optical Spot by Westcott
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A few weeks ago, I got my hands on a light modifier I've always wanted to have in our studio. Westcott's brand new Optical Spot is one of the coolest and most useful light modifiers I've ever seen, and in today's video, I'm going to show you why you might want one or two for your photography!

My Favorite Flash System is On Sale
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It's not often that my favorite flash system goes on sale, so when it does it's pretty big news. Now until August 31st, Profoto is offering up to $600 off their B10x and B10x Plus flash heads. If you looking to add to your kit or are wanting to switch over to a powerful and portable flash system that uses Profoto's light modifiers, this is a great deal to check out.

2 DAYS LEFT! Fstoppers Is Giving Away A Free Trip To Gulf Photo Plus In Dubai
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To celebrate the release of our newest wedding tutorial, Fstoppers is giving away a free flight and accommodations to Gulf Photo Plus in Dubai! One lucky reader will fly out to GPP during March 2013 to attend one of the coolest photo workshops on the planet. If you win, you will pick the workshops you want to attend as well as win digital copies of Peter Hurley's The Art Behind The Headshot and Fstoppers' How to Become a Professional Commercial Wedding Photographer. All the juicy details are inside this post

Cadillac ATS Behind The Scenes: Morocco's Most Dangerous Road
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Some of the most interesting and exciting video footage often comes out of car commercials. The current ad for Cadillac's new 2013 ATS features some pretty awesome footage of the luxury sports sedan speeding down the winding roads of Morocco's Atlas Mountain. This stretch of road overlooking the Dades Gorge is one of the most dangerous roads in the world. So when director Jeff Zwart decided to test the ATS's Brembo brakes and limited-slip differential, he not only put the drivers in danger but also put a ton of camera gear in harms way. Full behind the scenes video in the full post

CreativeLIVE's Fashion Week With Matthew Jordan Smith and Yoanna House
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Each week creativeLIVE has unbelievable live content that you can stream for free. Starting today through Sept 15th, creativeLIVE will host one of Fstoppers' most featured photographers Matthew Jordan Smith. Matthew is an acclaimed fashion photographer, and he has brought along America's Next Top Model winner Yoanna House to talk about everything that goes on in the fashion industry. For more information about this week's entire event, read the full post.

Fstoppers, Who Do You Want To See On CreativeLIVE?
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Over the last few months Fstoppers and the guys over at creativeLIVE have built a fun relationship. We love sharing inspiring photo shoots, behind the scenes videos, and gear talk, and they broadcast free workshops from some of the industry's best creative professionals. So we thought it would be fun to ask Who would you like to see on creativeLIVE? I know a short list of photographers I'd love to see on CL (some are our own readers) but we want to hear from you. Complete the Questionnaire

[Plagiarism] How To Protect Your Copyright With A Video Camera
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Last year we told the story of how Noam Galai's self portrait image had been stolen and reprinted hundreds of times around the world without his permission. What people were shocked to find out was Noam did not threaten or take legal action of any kind (instead he used the momentum to propel his career). Duane Lester of All American Blogger decided to go a different route and film his confrontation with the paper who plagiarized his work.

[Travel] How To Make A Viral Video With Someone Else's Money
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Casey Neistat is a great film maker that you may remember for his Peanut Butter Lid Lens Hack. Recently he was hired by Nike to create something interesting for their Nike + Fuel Band. The story goes that instead of making a traditional commercial, Casey took Nike's budget and traveled around the world until it was all spent. He filmed his 10 day escapade and produced the following video. Even if the Nike story was staged, it's still a pretty inspiring video made by an incredible budget film maker.

Fstoppers Original: Peter Hurley exposes the perfect headshot
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Peter Hurley is a true inspiration. Not only is he an amazing headshot photographer but he is also one of the most fun, energetic, and encouraging photographers I have ever met. Click the post to read more about how we got in touch with him and what we couldn't show you in this video. <
[BTS Video] Behind The Scenes Of The 2012 Pirelli Nude Calendar NSFW
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A while back we featured a behind the scenes video on the making of the 2011 Pirelli Calendar and people enjoyed commenting on it (especially Karl Lagerfeld's crazy gloves). If you aren't familiar with the Pirelli calendar, it's basically a glamour nude calendar that is only released to VIPs and Pirelli customers. Even though the calendar is not for sale, it has become an icon in the fine art world. A few days ago this BTS video on the making of the 2012 calendar was released and it's pretty interesting at well. It features photographer Mario Sorrenti as he and his crew scout out locations throughout Corsica in pursuit of the perfect light for each nude image. There are two video versions available below each having a slightly different perspective. While I wouldn't consider this pornography, this video is definitely NSFW so you might want to revisit this later.

[Expensive Cameras] Zack Arias Explains Why He Switched From Canon To PhaseOne
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Photographers love Zack Arias because of his no nonsense, laid back approach to photography. In his full blog post Why I Moved To Medium Format :: Phase One IQ140 Review, Zack describes some of the amazing features these DSLR alternatives have for the commercial photographer. If his posted examples aren't enough to have you foaming at the mouth, this full review video will definitely have you lusting after in-camera WB adjustments and the LCD touch screen found on the IQ140 digital back!
[Production Trick] How To Create Smoke For Photography Out Of Liquid
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Every photographer needs a few things in their bag of tricks. An easy trick is to add some smoke to your images for effect. You can always create photo smoke on a budget if you want to MacGyver it but there is another solution - two solutions in fact. Click the full post to watch a video on how easily smoke can be created with two liquids.
[Video] How Much Does Flash Duration Affect Photo Sharpness?
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Unless you shoot fast moving objects with flash on a regular basis, you might not be aware that a strobes "flash duration" has a huge affect on an image's total sharpness. Flash duration is simply the time at which your flash is emitting light. Technical gurus will break it down into T.1 and T.5 times but for simplicity the longer the flash duration, the more your strobe light acts as a constant light for extremely fast moving objects (great article here). Recently Broncolor did a test between their Broncolor Scoro power pack and the Profoto Pro 8 Air to see which one had a faster duration. As biased as it might appear, I think it's fair to say that the Scoro does produce a sharper image especially since you can digital select the flash duration on the power packs themselves. The Broncolor packs do cost about 20% more than the Profoto packs so unless you are shooting extremely fast moving objects then you probably won't ever notice the difference. I think it could be interesting to throw something much cheaper into the mix like an Alien Bee but my suspicion is it might fail the color accuracy part of this test.
[Video] How Many Lights Do You Need To Light A Delivery Truck?
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A few weeks ago, commercial photographer Jay P Morgan showed us how to balance strobe light with ambient light on a large 18 wheeler (which involved closing down a California highway on ramp). In this video Jay is shooting a lifestyle image for Pilot Freight Services which requires him to light a large outdoor areas with studio lighting. The answer to the question in the title could probably be "one light," but using one strobe on a commercial shoot is not only going to produce a less than perfect image, it is also going to look unprofessional from the eyes of the art director. When photographing large advertising campaigns, I've learned that giving your clients that "wow" experience is perhaps even more important that the actual final image so don't underestimate the saying under promise and over deliver. What is great about this photoshoot is that even if you don't shoot large campaigns like this on a daily basis, it should still force you to think why certain lights are needed, and more importantly, ask what you yourself would do if this was your hired job.