Creating beautiful and compelling imagery through the medium of photography is a difficult challenge. Capturing a scene as it unfolds is both art and truth in storytelling. Today, digital photography presents the effortless platform for image capture. Excelling technology allows anyone to pick up a camera and take excellent photographs.
Fstoppers Analog Review is a quick throw down on some of photography’s greatest equipment. In a world where we are constantly defined by the rapid progression of technology, these posts are intended to remind us about our love for the fundamentality of capturing life in silver and light.
Whether you’re a veteran freelancer or just starting out, it is important to continuously asses and audit your process. A decade and a half of experience getting washed around as a freelance photographer has taught me many difficult lessons about art, life, and growing a business doing what I love.
When you rely on creativity for work, a battle with the absence of these abilities can be detrimental, especially when you’re freelance. No matter what type of creative work you do, there will come a time when you feel like your powers have dried up and you are no longer capable.
Creating high-quality work doesn’t have be expensive. Outside of talent, the ability to execute creative ideas cheaply can be the single best quality in a photographer or videographer. While there is some very excellent equipment out there that can make your job super easy, it is very important to consider the items we have around us, reusing resources and thinking divergently.
Improving night photography is an ever closing gap riddled with tech-tips, tricks, and expensive gear. The Star Adventurer by Sky Watcher-USA seeks to be the reasonably, all-in-one option to improve your starscape photography. The built-in tracking head and accompanying accessories are the perfect companion to viewing and photographing the night’s sky.
The question of whether or not to do free work is always pressing. The debate becomes a grey area of ambiguity with many people firmly on one side or the other, and the rest of us stuck somewhere in between questioning our self worth as artists. There are strong arguments on both sides of the arena.
The ultimate movement; adventure, experience, and escape rolled into one single word. Travel. The word itself, a title to encompass all of life's passion and emotion in transit. Life is frustrating, funny, and challenging; an endless series of events in random order, asking us to interpret meaning and understanding.
It is not a coincidence that so many creative types suffer from depression. It seems elemental to the process of creativity that one must suffer internally to give life to art completely unique and beautiful.
The editor: a job that if done well goes unnoticed. To be a good editor, one must feel the rhythm of a scene, be able to convey seamless emotion, and convince you, the viewer, of the truth unfolding on the screen. In this super-cut by Every Frame a Painting, the job of the editor is broken down by example.
On the tails of tragedy, one Denver nonprofit has focused on using photography as a valuable tool for healing. Almost a year to the day, terrible earthquakes struck Nepal. Eighteen individuals were given cameras as a way to cope with the dramatic change in their lives. The images that were produced are beautiful and poignant reminders of the resiliency of life.
Before the digital accessibility of today's water resistant action cameras, there was the 35mm format wonder, The Nikonos Calypso. Many are familiar with this analog, water photography staple. Generations of photographers grew up cutting their teeth for surf photography wielding these water tight beauties.
This gruesome photograph became pivotal anti-war propaganda that drastically shaped public opinion. The horrific frozen frame depicts a baptismal moment of unwavering distinction, a moment in a time that could not be undone, an elevated wartime tension that could not be unraveled. In this sense, the photograph was successful.
Photography, at face value, is already a difficult combination of capturing a scene as it unfolds and manipulating a tedious balance of exposure, aperture, and ISO to illuminate an image that does true life justice. When you add any additional element to the equation, the entire process can be thrown off.
To photograph nature is pure, to give back in the process is supreme. VSCO has given the opportunity to give back with the launch of the Limited Edition WWF Preset. Partnering up with Apple and WWF, VSCO has made it a mission to promote sustainability and conserve nature. The preset can be downloaded for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
The Gustaf III airport in St. Barts is considered the third most dangerous airport in the world. Airliners of many sizes come roaring in for a landing only a few feet over a traffic circle that stands on a hill. The departure isn't much better as planes cast shadows over sunbathers by merely a few feet as well.
Adventure, outdoor, and eco-sports photography has had a surge in popularity over the last decade. Rapidly growing social media outlets like Instagram have narrowed a spotlight across specific arenas of interest. Many photographers are making a living on the outskirts of the grid creating mesmerizing imagery of U.S.
Nicolas Vuignier has an amazing flare for the creative when it comes to documenting skiing. Working with Jules Guarneri in Crans-Montana over a year ago, the duo painted professional skiers with black ochre to create a strikingly unique contrast of seemingly silhouetted figures against stark white snow.
In a quaint suburban neighborhood south of Sydney, Australia stands a three bedroom brick home that looks like any other at first glance. It is sharp and modern. The image is bright and vibrant and definitely eye catching. At a quick first look, it is a pretty standard image of the facade of a home.
Abandon fake Photoshop lens flares and enhance your photographs with lens flares captured in an actual camera. Vibrantly colored and rich in detail, these flares are created using Nikon, Leica, Fuji, and Pentax cameras. Fairly simple to use, the Principle Light Hits Pack by Lens Distortions is definitely becoming one of my new favorite toys for creative post editing.
When Austrian Alpine Skier Marcel Hirscher made his way down the course during the World Cup Slalom in Madonna di Campiglio, Italy, gates weren't his only obstacle. In a miraculous near miss, what looks to be a very expensive drone made an explosive appearance only ten seconds into the run.
It's not rocket science, complex editing, ridiculous lighting, or overly complex photographic method. It's basic double exposure; snap a picture, snap another before advancing the film, or rather expose over an already exposed roll of film. Aaron Checkwood, photographer from Oceanside, California does and incredible job taking these film school fundamentals to the ocean.
If you're like me and you're sick and tired of the Drone Takeover, this state-of-the-art weaponry is for you. In an effort to defend the airspace around you, the Ohio-based, nonprofit Battelle has created the DroneDefender as a way to keep videographer drones at bay during that next wedding shoot.
There is definitely not a shortage of time-lapse footage out there on the Internet, and in 4K no less. Photographer Toby Smith created this fixed, single perspective time-lapse from the control deck of a large transport barge.
GRIN (Greatest Release Images by NASA) is a huge collection of historical space culture images digitally scanned for public access. Intended specifically for media, publishers, and the general public looking for high-quality photographs, the GRIN database is full of striking digital and analog exposures taken throughout a pivotal point in American History.
This past weekend would have been the 87th birthday of the iconic filmmaker Stanley Kubrick. Still considered one of cinema's most influential filmmakers, Kubrick's works are memorialized by directors through the incredibly iconic style he established.
For those who are only familiar with "tilt-shift" as a filter setting on Instagram, tilt-shift refers to the physical tilt and/or shift of the lens plane that can create some dramatic selective focusing.
Ironically mocking foodies with hashtags #foodporn, #cheflife and #theartofplating and using corn dogs, Bugles and Luncheables; anonymous insta-chef @chefjacqueslamerde (hilariously translates to Chef Jack Shit) has taken a tongue and cheek approach to Instragramming glorious and intricately plated bourgeois food.
Breaking the fourth wall isn't a new thing. It's been a fundamental technique exercised for the better part of the history of cinema as far back as the early 20th century.
Ray Collins lives in the Australian town of Bulli, a sleepy, drab mining town south of Sydney. The punishing work a mile underground left Collins with a broken body and busted knees, so it was time for a career change. Purchasing a camera with his severance, Collins decided to tackle a new perspective to underwater photography.
In many cases the difference between the first and last frame of a film can be the evolution of a great adventure, while other times it can be the bridge of similarity between a characters development. Like bookends to a journey through cinematic storytelling, the beginning and end of a film can tell so much by their side-by-side comparison.
Lens Distortions is a Photoshop plugin that allows you to easily add lens blurs and light leaks to your images for creative effect. With the continual proliferation of digital photography, there is still a great demand for the look and authentic feel of 35mm film. There are certain colors, textures, and tones that are unique to the format many of us grew up with.
Over five terabytes filmed over the course of two grueling years, A Taste Of Austria is comprised of over 600 time-lapse clips intricately woven together through creative clip transitions. Time-lapse movies often take themselves entirely too seriously, focusing on the dramatic through epic song choice and long drawn out pans.
Morgan Maassen is a blossoming surf photographer with many notable photography achievements under his belt at the ripe and youthful age of 24 years old. Already nailing covers for some of the industry's most recognizable magazines, Maassen has made a name for himself and his unique photographic style in the surfing world.
Alexandre Deschaumes is an acclaimed landscape and adventure photographer whose work creates a colorful dreamlike world made up of some of the planet's most rugged and unique terrain.
