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.
If you watched my video on how to photograph wakeboarding then you know I'm a big advocate of throwing water at your subjects during a photoshoot! So needless to say I was excited when this behind the scenes video surfaced showing how photographer Art Streiber shot the hero shots for the television show Hawaii Five-O.
One thing I love about having an Vimeo account is the great videos they recommend checking out. Back in Oct 2010, the first ever Vimeo Awards was held, and the winners for over 9 categories were announced. None of the winning videos are directly related to photography but the winning narrative Thrush by Gabriel Bisset-Smith was created entirely from still images.
Yu Tsai is an incredibly impressive fashion and advertising photographer. He also is an established film maker and director (check out his film section on his site). Recently Yu Tsai was faced with the task of trying to make a car ad stand out in one of the most popular magazines in the world: The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.
Our friend Tyler Kaufman from New Orleans is a young sports photographer who had the opportunity to go and photograph Super Bowl XLV. Understandably, he was so busy shooting that he didn't have time to create a proper behind the scenes video on what it must be like shooting one of the largest sporting event in the world.
Celebrity photographer Brian Smith has a great video online that describes his workflow when shooting burlesque dancers in Las Vegas. The video is an advertisement piece for X-Rite Color Checker calibration tool but Brian gives some really good advice on how he took his career from working at a newspaper to now shooting celebrity portraits.
I'm sure like many of other photographers, my greatest fear is going blind or at least going blind beyond correction. Pete Eckert is a photographer who has been left completely blind after suffering from a condition called Retinitis Pigmentosa. This short little video documents Pete's life and how he has overcome his loss of eye sight and continues his passion of photography.
Every now and then someone comes out with a product that really makes me say, "why didn't I think of that?" If you've ever been on the set of a serious movie production, you know that the camera operator or steadicam operator hardly ever focuses the lens himself.
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.
We've featured Tom Guilmette several times on our website and each time he never ceases to amazing me. Today Tom released a fun video that he shot on the Phantom Flex while he was staying in Las Vegas. We've all seen super slow motion videos before but what really grabbed my attention was Tom's editing skills and his brilliant use of audio to help bring this video to life.
Rob Moody, a good friend of ours at Fstoppers, has been working on an interesting video project with Heartsapart.org. Heartsapart has made it their mission to capture military soldiers and their familes before they are separated through deployment.
Every month here at Fstoppers we run a photo contest that is judged by one of our readers. We'd like to congratulate Frank Lin for winning the January 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 Frank's work.
One of my favorite things about Charleston, SC is being close to the ocean. I love being in and around the water, and although I'm not very good at it, I do enjoy wakeboarding. Charleston has become a pretty big hub for sports like kiteboarding and wakeboarding over the last few years, and this city is not short on talented athletes.
If you are not already subscribed to Freddie Wong's YouTube channel, you should go there right now and watch one of Youtube's most popular animators. Well this week he has created a really simple video called The Freeze Shootout and has provided a quick behind the scenes video on how he did it.
Each year Maybelline creates a limited edition calendar featuring crazy concepts and wild makeup. This year the cosmetic brand teamed up with photographer Kenneth Willardt to produce some very vibrant images. Make sure you head over to Kenneth's commercial section of his website to view a bunch of the images.
A few months ago, Patryk Kizny with Dito Gear shared a really amazing video called The Chapel with Fstoppers. I was absolutely blown away by the footage but I knew our readers would want to know exactly how he created it. So I was able to persuade Patryk to create a second video that outlined exactly what he did to create the original HDR timelapse images featured in The Chapel.
Philippe Kerlo is a really creative beauty and fine art photographer based out of Paris France. Some people are dubbing his work as "extreme glamour" which might be a fitting title. I was recently turned onto his work by one of our readers when they sent us this video of him shooting beauty portraits through plexiglass covered with paint, acrylic, wax, and other colored materials.
Back in the Spring of 2009, Louis Vuitton creative director Marc Jacobs teamed up with music mogul Madonna produce their new ad campaign. This video is primarily from the point of view of Marc but that shouldn't prevent you from seeing how photographer Steven Meisel executed the overall shoot.
Clay Enos is a laid back photographer who is probably most well known for his portraits from the movie The Watchmen. Today he is taking his portrait photography to the streets and doing something most of us would find pretty intimidating by asking random people to pose in front of his white backdrop.
Back in December of 2009, photographer turned film maker Vincent Laforet teamed up with Canon and Vimeo to start a social experiment in story telling. The idea was to create an short 3 or 4 minute video that would end on a single still frame.
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 Feb 1st so be sure to submit now rather than later.
We've featured the work of David Nguyen in the past and this time he has taken his whole production to new level. In his most recent photoshoot, Whispers in the Wind, David takes his creative team out to a desert and creates some really inspiring composite beauty images.
If you haven't checked out Mark Wallace's Adorama TV channel over at youtube you really should. He does a great job creating informative and useful videos on all sorts of digital photography and videography topics.
Kevin Reed is a fantastic fashion photographer based out in LA and also NYC. He also has an excellent blog called Exposing Fashion where he has posted lots of tips, BTS, and bits of inspiration. Each year Kevin creates a new image to include in his holiday newsletter and this year he even filmed a fast behind the scenes video outlining the entire shoot.
If you were an Fstoppers reader back when we launched then you probably saw Lee Morris's humble attempt at how to photograph a Rolex watch. It wasn't perfect but I think it was helpful in shedding some light on how meticulous product photography can be. Well now Alex Koloskov has made an extremely detailed video on how he created his latest hero shot of a men's Marine Star Bulova watch.
Profoto has really done everyone a great service in having photographer Matthew Jordan Smith explain some of his personal favorite images in his portfolio. In this particular image, Matthew decided to photograph NBA superstar Ray Allen in his own backyard while jumping on a trampoline.
One of the first early adapters of DSLR video for professional use was Shane Hurlbut of Terminator Salvation, The Guardian, The Last 3 Minutes fame. A few days ago he released a really well shot commercial for the US Marines and decided to make a short contest out of it. The video has over 27 frames shot on various Canon 5D, 7D, and 1D cameras as they do every cinema-graphic move possible.
Jordan Matter is a headshot photographer based out of NYC but does some rather quirky personal projects. One of his on going projects is titled Dancers Among Us where he places professional dancers in urban environments and tries to capture a spontaneous yet thought provoking image.
Photographer and videographer Patryk Kizny from Poland has been making a lot of noise around the web with his HDR TimeLapse slider videos. I've had a chance to talk to Patryk about his setup and the electronic slider he is using made by DitoGear is quite impressive.
Portrait photographer Platon is best known for his stylized wide angle photographs of political figures such as Bill Clinton, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chavez, and countless other iconic leaders throughout the world. His images have graced the covers of Time, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, and Esquire to name a few.
Sometimes you come across a video that just makes you feel good, and this is one of those videos. Brooklyn resident Todd Beiber was out cross country skiing in Prospect Park during the huge blizzard which brought in 2011. During his ski adventure he happened to spot a canister of undeveloped 35mm film.
Ella Manor is a fashion photographer based out of New York City who approaches her photography in a rather unorthodox manner. Much of her work combines beautiful models and extravagant clothing with dreamy camera effects and often times double exposures.
While watching Carson Daly the other night I was exposed to a really exciting photographer named Andrew Zuckerman. On the show he was promoting his newest project MUSIC which I'll probably post here later in the month. But while researching his other works I came across an older project he did called Wisdom.
I'm always getting asked by our readers to post more videos on landscape photography but it is really tough to find good videos on landscape photography. Luckily landscape photographer Clyde Butcher has a nice little interview where he talks about how he got into landscape swamp photography and some of the gear he uses.
Last month we tested out our first ever Photoshop Contest, and it was a great success. So we have decided to start a monthly photoshop contest so everyone can get in on the action. Think Tank has offered up prizes for at least 6 months of photoshop contests, and submissions are almost due for the January 2011 contest.
