Pye Jirsa is a director, photographer and educator. Founder and Partner of Lin and Jirsa Photography, a boutique Southern California wedding and portrait photography studio, and SLR Lounge, a photography education website, Pye devotes his time to helping photographers develop their shooting and business skills.
Website: slrlounge.com
What's up everyone! My name is Pye and I am one of the educators for FStoppers Bahamas! This is my first article here on FStoppers, and I am really proud to be a part of such a great community of photographers. We all know dodging/burning is a fantastic tool when it comes to retouching. But maybe a less common usage, it is also a fantastic tool to enhance muscle definition. Since most of the time we think of Photoshop when we think of dodging/burning and retouch, we are going to stick within Lightroom just to illustrate how powerful and efficient the Adjustment Brush tool can really be.
Some of my favorite creative photography techniques to use are those that allow us to capture moments in ways we could never see using just our eyes. One technique, in particular, that I turn to for capturing unique portraits involves using long exposure, aka shutter drag. Long exposure portraits open up a number of creative possibilities and often result in “wow” moments with my clients. Putting the technique to use does require some skill and preparation, but it’s easy enough to master once you know the basics.
For the longest time, my favorite lens on any camera system was a 35mm wide-aperture prime. The focal length forced me to get "in the action" for impactful portraits, yet it was wide enough to capture wide angle scenes. But a new lens has recently won my heart and assumed the top spot in my kit. In this video and article, I'll be walking through a photoshoot while demonstrating why the Canon RF 28-70mm f/2 lens is my favorite lens of all time.
In photography, the term leading lines is a compositional technique used to draw a viewer's eye to the subject of the photo. These lines can be created by any object in the scene like a road or path, a fence or railing, a distant object like a mountain, and any other structure that creates a real or imaginary line in your image.
When we think of family portraits, we often picture the traditional looks: everyone lined up, smiling, and well dressed. Family lifestyle photography, on the other hand, shines a new light on family portraiture. Rather than posing everybody perfectly, lifestyle captures the personality and dynamics of the family. The spontaneity is a great addition to a complete family album. Let's begin by seeing how the two styles differ.
This video is a sneak peek into SLR Lounge Premium Library with a chapter from our new course, Family Photography 101. This is a complete course on capturing memorable and unique family portraits. In this video, I had Shivani with me as we compared family lifestyle photography with traditional portraits.
Lighting can make or break a fitness portrait. Our goal is to highlight the form and definition of your subject as well as the movement if the intended photo involves action. In this tutorial, I'm going to walk through a few basic fitness photography lighting techniques.
Through the years shooting weddings, I have found that my favorite photos always tend to be those charming candid moments that last ever so briefly. In this video and article I wanted to talk about my technique in how I set up and capture well composed and lit candid moments. Hopefully I will see you all in the Bahamas where we are going to dive into all of these subjects in complete detail in our Ultimate Wedding Photography Workshop!
Last week, we walked through How to Capture an Environmental Shutter Drag Portrait. A shutter drag portrait is a portrait that captures movement around a subject using slower shutter speeds. Following the steps in the video, we wound up at a final raw image. In this video and article, I'll be walking through the editing process from start to finish in both color as well as black and white to get to our final images!
We call this the "environmental shutter drag portrait." A shutter drag portrait is a portrait that uses slow shutter speeds to capture the motion around the subject. This technique is best done in a big grand scene full of action and detail. The eye-catching nature of these shutter drag portraits makes them perfect for impressing clients and serving as the highlight photo for every album and event. Today, I'll be walking through 10 easy steps on how to photograph your own shutter drag portrait.
If you're a wedding or event photographer, chances are, you've encountered mixed lighting situations. Though mixed lighting can be used creatively, there are times when it just isn't ideal. Today, I'll be walking through several examples of mixed lighting conditions with solutions on how you can work around it on location or fix it in post-production.
There's a good chance you've heard of the "Ring of Fire," a technique popularized by wedding and portrait photographer Sam Hurd. The Ring of Fire is a special effects technique that uses a piece of copper tube to reflect light and create a highlight flare in the shape of a ring. This technique has been widely adopted, and to create this effect for yourself is pretty easy. Today, I'll be walking through the steps to transform your portraits using the famous Ring of Fire technique.
When photographers hear overcast skies, we immediately think of flat light. What this usually means is an overall lack of detail and contrast, especially in the sky. It might be easy to assume that the sky during overcast days is uninteresting, but I want to show you the opposite, that overcast days are some of the best times to get deep and dramatic images. In this video and article, I'll be walking through how to shoot and edit dramatic clouds during overcast conditions in Adobe Lightroom Mobile.
Photographers understand that marketing is essential to attracting new clients and growing their business. However, marketing strategies are constantly evolving, so what worked in the past isn’t always going to work in the present or future. In this article, we will share three photography marketing tricks and hacks that actually work based on our 12-plus years of experience operating a successful multi-shooter studio!
Photographers often look for the "epic" shot — the one that will stand out, get thousands of social media likes, and get printed by our clients for wall art. While these photos are important, it's also essential to slow down and look for the other images in the scene that help tell a story and capture the vibe and emotion of the moment. In this video, we'll review a simple storytelling framework called "Wide, Medium, Tight" to help you find these opportunities.
Most photographers focus their business growth strategies on booking more clients. However, the most financially savvy photographers understand the full revenue equation, i.e. revenues equals the number of clients multiplied by the average revenue per client. So, for example, if you want to double your revenue next year, you can either double the amount of bookings or you can double the revenue you make for each booking. In this article, we’ll teach you photography pricing tips to help you charge more for each client that you book.
