commercial photographer

So you know your business inside and out and your image quality is top notch, but there's always room for improvement. A factor that many people overlook is the experience that a client has when they work with them, being on one side of the operations gives you a very different perspective and because of this you could be overlooking little important details that make the world of difference. I've been working as a full time commercial photographer for a year now, and in that time I've learned a lot from not only my own client interactions, but the other businesses I've worked with as well.

You've all seen these images. It's the knob-and-hanger set up that has become the signature style for many kids retail sites such as Zulily. What you do not see, however, are all the tools that go into creating these minimalist images. The bulk of my work as a commercial photographer is with product, one of which is children's clothing for sites like Zulily, so let me give you a sneak peek into my personal tool bag that I could not work without.

There are many factors to success in the creative industry. Of course a big chunk of it has to do with the quality of the work, but we know quality isn’t the only factor to being successful as a photographer, otherwise, there would be a lot more of us. Yet most photographers put all their efforts into developing their technical or artistic abilities and leave the entire business chunk untouched.

We live in a digital age where we can showcase our work to possible clients all around the world, but what's the point if we cannot shoot for clients outside of our home market once in awhile? Following Andrew Link's post on creating a perfect travel light kit, here's an article with tips on how to travel as a professional photographer effectively. As a commercial photographer and filmmaker, I travel over 100k miles a year on assignment and have learned valuable lessons. I hope this list of tips helps make your shoots which require flying to a location more seamless.

There have been many books written on the subject of face anatomy and how it impacts not only our perception of someone but our reaction to them as well. There are features we deem as authoritative, feminine, funny, somber, and so on. With over 7 billion people in the world we've got quite a few unique faces out there, and yet, certain features and proportions are universally and subconsciously interpreted as "appealing".

When we talk about on-location mixed lighting we usually mean shooting with light sources of different nature, such as natural ambient light and artificial, or shooting with lights of different color temperatures (tungsten, fluorescent, flash, etc.).

There are dozens of cool effects that one can achieve when mixing ambient light with controlled lighting, but today I would like to talk about mixing lights in studio - impulse (i.e. strobe or flash) and continuous. I love this technique and hope my article inspires you to try it out too.

As some of you may know by now, I'm a commercial photographer that gets some great opportunities to shoot epic movie and tv cars. Honestly, most of my paid shoots are portrait-related, but I just love all things cars and my clients know that. Last year, I came across a rad company called Flash Rods that makes custom memory storage (hard drives and thumb drives) based from 1:18 scale models and matchbox cars, including movie and tv cars like the Ecto1, Back to The Future Delorean, and A Team Van to deliver my files to clients.

Original BBC Article (w/video)

Prof. Miles Padgett and his team of scientists at Glasgow University's School of in Scotland have created a technology which can generate a 3D image using just four stand-alone pixels by capturing light frequency waves beyond what the human eye can see.

I'm James Robertson, a new addition to the Fstoppers writer staff and a full time commercial photographer/studio owner for the past year. I've joined the team to bring content to the readers who may find themselves either ready to jump into the professional world, or have already and are looking for tips to make life easier. I thought it would be good to start with an article that will give everyone some tips on simplifying the work load that comes with the industry through organization and planning ahead.

When KFC needed new, iconic images for their redesigned website they turned to Photographer Teri Campbell (author of Food Photography and Lighting: A Commercial Photographer's Guide to Creating Irresistible Images). After fine tuning the details of the production Teri, his 1Ds Mark III and the crew got to work. The project took a total of five days, and Teri takes us behind the scenes

Commercial photographer Alex Koloskov takes us through his setup for this relatively simple (although it uses five lights) product shot. While not an incredibly in depth video, there are definitely some often overlooked things it shows that should be committed to memory. The first is that in several cases a basin of dry ice in water can make a much more versatile fog than your standard Halloween store fog machine.

After spending last weekend at the 50th Annual Society for Photographic Education’s National Conference in Chicago, a sold out symposium attended by more than 1,000 photo educators and students, I decided to examine the question: What is the value of a photo degree? Here are the pros and cons.

Hasselblad + Beer = Good stuff.

In this behind the scenes video, commercial photographer Rob Grimm and Phlearn, co-created a tutorial around the set of a beer photo shoot. Grimm does a great job explaining the lighting being used on set, how he works around reflections on glass with polarizers, how he creates highlights in the beer bottle and why chopsticks are necessary to make cereal malt beverages look crisp on camera.

I recently came across the work of Miller Mobley on Twitter on a random chance of browsing through a few recent tweets. I was linked directly to his blogwhich had a post about his recent shoot with Quentin Tarantino and Jamie Foxx. What I loved, more than his impeccable results, was how he was quite giving in regards to the details of the shoot.

Chris Odom is a Florida-based commercial photographer and videographer specializing in the marine industry. He has long been an adopter of new technology and began integrating videography into his portfolio long before the DSLR became a tool for motion.

The internet has become a gold mine of resources for photographers of all different genres, experience levels and styles. It's so easy to find inexpensive Lightroom or Photoshop presets to help create interesting post-processing colors and effects without spending hours trying to create them yourself. The only problem is: which ones do you use? SLR Lounge has released an all-comprehensive Lightroom 4 Preset System that is user-friendly and takes the headache out of using presets.

PHLEARN has just released part two of their interview with Erik Almas – which continues to be one of my favorite interviews with a photographer recently. It’s refreshing to see an interview that not just explains the technical aspect of shooting and storytelling, but the reasoning behind them. Erik is a great example of technique and creative vision working together.

I’m driving a beautiful triple-black Aston Martin DB9 V12 down a florida highway. Its nose so long that the sun striking it practically blinds me. AC/DC is blasting on the radio and the car’s 12 cylinders roar at the slightest touch to the throttle. One client has loaned me his beautiful British exotic so I could drive 90 minutes away to briefly meet another private client about photographing his multi-million dollar Bugatti supercar collection. Surreal, right? This sort of experience has become sort of commonplace for me recently, but it never becomes any less mind-blowing. Sometimes I just sit and wonder: how did I even get here? This is just crazy.

Australian Fashion and Commercial Photographer Peter Coulson with Arterium Creations put together this video from one of his fashion shoots in Melbourne. Not your typical studio setup, Peter is out with his crew shooting in the open streets, complete with the public watching and potentially ruining some of his shots. See as he works with his model and they have a great time creating some stunning street-fashion images.

I'm a big fan of the mission and idea behind websites like Kickstarter. I appreciate creating a community of people from all over the world who help each other pursue their dreams. On Indieagogo, a site similar to Kickstarter, I came across this cool project on photographer, Fred Lyons.

Joey L. has done a lot of traveling over the last seven years on commercial assignments and collected bits of wisdom along the way for other traveling photographers he shared on his blog. While reading through it I immediately picked up some useful tips that I plan on implementing on my upcoming trip to Honduras.

Howdy everyone and welcome to the Wednesday Rundown. This week we have BTS videos of Olympic shoots. Check out the Olympians shot by Dallas native Brian Braun at the track. Also see the behind the scenes Coca Cola shoot and Bob Costas and Carmelo Anthony cover shoot. I hope everyone is getting the chance to root for their country! If you have a great and informative video you want to see in the Wednesday Rundown please shoot me an email jerrit@fstoppers.com .