Articles from Patrick Hall

I can't tell you how many photographers I encounter think being successful has to do with being at the right place at the right time.

When I tell people that I grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, everyone always asks me what it's like to see the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis). I always try to explain how it looks by relating it to a laser show or smoke streams but I've never found a way to describe it to someone who hasn't seen it for themselves.

When I received an email from Marie-Louise Cadosch saying she had a behind the scenes video featuring "Lord Vader" I may have rolled my eyes. Chances were good though that her photoshoot would be badass because her previous videos on Fstoppers are some of my favorites.

Chris Marquardt has developed a really mind blowing new camera called The Invisible Camera. Using ground breaking technology developed by the Max-Planck Institute in Germany, Chris has designed a camera that can properly expose an image even when the film is exposed to ambient light.

The other day I came across a popular video on Vimeo right now that featured an amazing new projection technique hitting large buildings across the world. The art is called 3D Projection Mapping and the effect is really cool.

Karl Taylor is an excellent photographer from England who has become a leading teacher in the "how to" photography market. In his latest video he explains a few lighting techniques he uses in the studio while shooting some crazy hair styles. Karl is using a single Elinchrom monolight but is pairing it up with two Canon 580EX flashes.

Yesterday I got an email from one of the Red Bull brand managers inviting me out to 2010 Illume Photo Exhibit here in Charleston, South Carolina. Illume is a traveling exhibit where dozens of images from the world's best action and extreme sports photographers are displayed on huge 6'x6' backlit panels.

Bara Prasilova is a photographer and artist from Prague with quite a list of awards to her name . Recently she teamed up with Quicksilver Women in Europe and began photographing some of their ambassadors. What I love about her work is that she creates a very dreamy mood with muted colors and often unorthodox poses.

If you've followed Fstoppers for any length of time then you know we are huge fans of Freddie Wong and his crazy hilarious Youtube Channel. What's so great about Freddie's work is that it's not big budget at all and he mixes his great sense of humor with relatively simple After Effects to create one of the most watched channels on the internet.

The girls over at [Framed] have started a really great web series that profiles photographers and shows them in action behind the scenes. In this video they dive into children photography with Shannon Sewell. I know a lot of photographers have made a side business out of shooting families and children but what Shannon is doing is completely different.

Yuri Arcurs is perhaps the most well known photographer shooting microstock images in the world. His images are clean, inviting, crisp, and natural looking which are all important qualities needed to sell images in bulk.

In this video from AdoramaTv, Mark Wallace sits down with Mark Peterman to discuss camera gear, location scouting, lighting, and overall creative drive. Mark Peterman is an editorial and commercial photographer from Arizona who has a portfolio that is a bit tough to describe.

Over the last year, Douglas Sonders has created some excellent behind the scenes videos showing off many of his photo shoots. In this video he takes us onto the tarmac at the Lemoore Naval Air Station in California where Douglas creates some excellent portraits.

A few weeks ago Lee and I went out to Las Vegas to club it up check out WPPI which is the largest wedding convention in the US. While out there we were able to meet quite a few of our readers, check out the new gear at the Photoflex booth, and play with a lot of new photo related toys.

If you were a film student and your professor gave you an assignment requiring you to show a series of different lighting setups, what would you do? John Note and his fellow classmates created a pretty funny video tutorial that shows 10 different lighting setups that you could use in both your films and your still images.

By now you are probably aware of the massive 8.9 earthquake that shook Japan and caused a devastating tsunami. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Japan and those affected by this horrible disaster. If you would like to help in the recovery or in a charitable way, check out a few of the links below.

Harry How is a sports photographer without any prior photography training. With hard work, determination, and a pressing urge to create images that hold up against his peers' photographs, Harry now has a career shooting for Getty Images.

Fstoppers was created in part to help show the faces of the photographers behind the lens and also to give insight on how they approach their photography. But have you ever wondered who the people are behind some of tools and software we use day in an day out?

One of my favorite directors is Robert Rodriquez, and I was about to post another great BTS video showcasing his directing skills when I came across this video. Most of this short Nike commercial is shot on green screen but that doesn't mean that you as a photographer can't take away something from this big production.

While browsing Creative Motion Design's blog I came across an eye catching ad for Sony's Bravia series of HDTVs. The complete video directed by Superfad had elements of slow motion, CGI effects, graphic design, animation, and photography.

As I'm sitting in the San Diego airport waiting to lose my entire day to layovers and time changes, I finally have some time to catch up on our email account. One video that was submitted to us multiple times was recently featured by our friends over at Strobist and showcases fashion photographer Martin Prihoda.

Every month here at Fstoppers we run a photo contest that is judged by one of our readers. We'd like to congratulate Julius Koivistoinen for winning the February 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 Julius's work.

We've featured Aaron Nace before here on Fstoppers and again he delivers with a really creative photo composite. I'm not exactly sure what the theme is on this one but it's definitely some sort of love story gone wrong. The final image is included at the end.

One of our readers just emailed us this great video of landscape photographer Ansel Adam's darkroom. Michael Adams, Ansel's son, gives us a full tour of Ansel's home studio and shows some of his prints as well as much of his equipment.

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.

If you've ever attended a crazy big music or art festival then the thought has probably crossed your mind, "I should probably photograph these interesting characters while I'm here!" While attending the annual free expression festival Burning Man in Nevada, photographer Eric Schwabel decided to build a portable photo studio to capture dramatic portraits of everyone in attendance.

Fred Conrad is a photographer who has been working for the NY Times for over 34 years. Recently he attended the Westminister Kennel Club Dog Show and photographed every single breed of dog at the show. His setup was basically a white backdrop, a ring flash, and a photek softlighter.

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 March 1st so be sure to submit now rather than later.

Michael Nichols is a photographer for National Geographic who was recently faced with the task of photographing a 300 foot Redwood in Northern California. In order to capture the tree in all of its glory, Michael had to use 3 Canon 1Ds Mark II cameras, several pocket wizards, a cinema dolly system, and dozens of bracketed photos all shot at f2.8.

Earlier in the week I posted a video featuring commercial photographer Monte Isom photographing comedian Colin Kane. We'll it turns out Monte has been filming great behind the scenes videos of his photoshoots all along. In this video Monte shows you not only how he created the fun ad campaign for the EA Sports FIFA 2010 video game but also how he secured the job in the first place!

Lee and I are wrapping up our trip to WPPI in Las Vegas which is basically the largest wedding convention in the US. So today after meeting with tons of wedding professionals we thought it might be fun to showcase an underwater bridal shoot.

Yes, you read the title correctly. The famous female Mattel toy has photoshoots, and they are actually quite extravagant. When I first saw this I thought it was a joke but after doing some research I found that Mattel designer Robert Best has big production photoshoots like this for all his Barbie Fashion Model Collections.

When I think of pageant photography I often think of those glamor shot booths in the mall with the crazy hair, makeup, and horrendous props and backgrounds. Well times have changed and most young women competing in pageants around the world are taking much more fashion and beauty style portraits of themselves.

These days, creating a portrait that grabs the average pedestrian's attention isn't an easy task. So what did local New York City comedian Colin Kane do to spice it up a little? He added a raging mob of crazy people behind him in this awesome portrait by photographer Monte Isom.

Many of the posts we have seen here lately on Fstoppers have been heavily influenced by Freddy Wong and the amazing special effects videos on his YouTube channel. Now Freddy has tackled something very sacred to us all: something that might still keep some die hards up late in to the morning.