Articles from Noam Galai

Have a creative urge to create something but have no time to execute it? Or maybe you feel you don't have the right location and atmosphere? I think you should consider getting stuck at the airport. Richard Dunn did just that. The Georgia man got stuck overnight at Las Vegas' McCarran International Airport, alone, and decided to use do something useful with his time. By useful, I mean create a Celine Dion music video.

So many talented photographers who dream of being full time professional photographers are too afraid to make the jump and quit their 'safe' full time job with steady income in order to do so. Too many people will settle for something they don't love doing just because they're afraid they'll fail doing what they really love. If you're one of those people, hopefully this 1-minute video will change the way you look at your future and profession.

Earlier this year Lukas Renlund, a 30-year old professional photographer from Scandinavia, sat down and tried to imagine what the photography industry might look like in 5 or 10 years. That imagination-session lead him to quickly start a new photography/media company named 'Not So Fast | Media'. Instead of offering still photographs to their clients, the new company focuses only on creating motion photographs- Beautiful moving images.

Israeli photojournalist Ziv Koren is one of the most successful photojournalists in the world and mostly known for his unique/striking Arab-Israeli conflict images. In the past 25 years he won multiple prestigious international awards and captured some iconic news photos we all know and appreciate. Recently Jared Polin sat down with him in his studio in Israel for a very interesting 45-minute video interview that you won't want to miss. [Interview starts at 1:16:30]

Anyone who reads Fstoppers knows about Peter Hurley and his successful headshot business. Aside from being a great photographer, Peter is also a respected educator and speaker. We always see him in action in the different videos, and see his working techniques and creative direction, but we never really had the chance to hear the story of how he became the successful photographer he is today. Check out this very interesting video where Peter talks about how he went from being on the Olympic team, to being a headshot photographer.

'Boyhood', a soon-to-be-released movie is doing something that was never attempted by a major film before. Filmmaker Richard Linklater made a movie about growing up and decided it would be interesting to film it using the same actors for all stages of the story and therefore it took 12 years to complete. The youngest actor was 7 when filming started in 2002, and 19 years old when they finished.

One of the hardest parts of filming on moving sets such as moving cars or trains is to maintain perfect lighting in a way that makes sense to the viewer. There are many obstacles the filmmakers have to deal with when shooting on a moving set, like how to move the lights while keeping it on the same angle while the vehicle is moving and how to keep the camera shot steady and focused on the subject. Check out this great BTS video showing how filmmakers in China solved these problems.

New York based wedding photographer Richard B Flores is taking his job very seriously. Like all of us, he works hard on the day of the event and of course the following days while he edits. But Richard is doing something maybe not many of us do: he spends the day before each event heavily prepping his equipment - from cleaning, to syncing and charging. Check out his BTS video showing the prep day and read his explanation for each of the steps.

Shutterstock was founded in 2003 by entrepreneur (and photographer) Jon Oringer who wanted to create a 2-sided marketplace for stock photos (and later also video). Since then the company grew and became one of the biggest photography-related companies in the world. As of today they sell over 30 million stock images, and add 20,000 new images a day. This week the company's HQ relocated and moved to the iconic Empire State Building, and the offices look amazing.

Pathé News (AKA "British Pathé") was one of the biggest news agencies in the world in the 20th century. Maybe the biggest of all. The company was founded in 1896 and mainly focused on producing newsreels for movie theaters (before the TV took over). They stopped producing newsreels and documentries in the early 1970s as they couldn't compete with news broadcasts on TV. This week they uploaded the full collection of their films (85,000 of them) to Youtube, including un-aired materials.

About 2 weeks ago we told you the story of Eliza O’Neill, a 4-year old who was recently was diagnosed with a degenerative genetic disease called Sanfilippo syndrome. Without the right treatment Eliza won't make it in to her teens. This week, some industry leaders and known photographers donated their photos to raise more funds.

Many photographers try to take on cool on-going photography-related projects, and many break in just few days or weeks. You know what i'm talking about - 365 projects or 1 Second Everyday kind of projects. Dutch filmmaker Frans Hofmeester, took on one of these projects and took it to the extreme. He filmed his newborn daughter every week from the day she was born all the way until she celebrated her 14th birthday.

Photojournalist Jonas Ginter always wanted to take the idea of the still-2D spherical panoramas and somehow make them in video format. It took him 2 years to develop the idea and tools, but finally last week he achieved his goal. Jonas used a 3D printer to build a special mount that holds 6 GoPro cameras, and placed them as close as possible to each other to make sure they overlap. The result is simply great.

Eliza O'Neill is just a normal 4-year old, she likes to sing, play soccer and be around her family. But in just few months this is all going to change. Eliza was recently diagnosed with the very rare and terminal Sanfilippo syndrome, which is going to deteriorate her body and brain functionalists very quickly up to a point she won't be able speak or walk. Few photographers and photo companies came together to help Eliza's family raise funds to find a cure for the disease.

James is not one of the ordinary kids in town. James is a superhero shooting lasers from his eyes and flying around. These super powers are all possible thanks to his dad, Daniel Hashimoto, who is a DreamWorks animator and a visual effects specialist based in LA. Daniel decided to use his visual effects skills and upgrade his own home-videos of his young son James, who is now also known as "The Action Kid".

Actors/celebrities Kristen Bell And Dax Shepard are on a mission to make paparazzi stop taking photos of celebrities’ kids. They know it will be hard to make it illegal, so they are trying a different approach: make magazines and media outlets stop buying celebrity children photos from the paparazzi.

This is not an educational piece or a product review. This is also not a post showing the creative and artistic work done by people in the industry. It is just a post about a very unique use of the GoPro camera. While it is not creative, artistic or educational, it is very important to watch this video. It shows us what news cameras will never be able to show: the real POV of the war in Syria.

Color banding is a problem we encounter when retouching many of our images or making them ready for print, but in many of the cases we just ignore it hoping no one will notice. In this long and detailed video, photographer / illustrator Lee Varis explains why banding appears in our photos, how we can recognize it, and shows the best methods we can use to fix it.

If you like social media and manicure, you can now combine the two with NailSnaps - a new product that let you turn your Instagram photos into nail polish stickers. All you need is to snap a photo, import it to the NailSnaps app, decide what each nail will look like, and wait for a shipment.

Most photobombs we know are the ones of our drunk friend who walks in behind a group shot at a party, or of a random old lady who eats while walking when you take a selfie outside with your best friend. But what if Jimmy Fallon and Jon Hamm were the ones photobombing your shots? In one word - Awesomeness.

Almost 6 years ago Getty Images and Flickr announced a partnership that allowed Flickr members to sell stock images through Getty. Over 400,000 images were picked by Getty editors since the partnership started and made them available for commercial use. Today Getty Images officially announced they won't renew their agreement with Flickr and will part ways.

Here at Fstoppers we featured many animal-related GoPro videos in the past [here are a few as a reminder: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5], and all are unique and interesting. Some are visually stunning. But this video taken by a pelican takes home the award for the most beautiful video ever taken by an animal.

The GlamSquad is a new app that has nothing to do with photography; it's not even related to retouching or filters. But it can help you on your photo shoots. How? Simple - the GlamSquad app is the 'Uber' of Hairstylists. Need a hairstylist for a simple fix for your model/subject right before your photo shoot? Just pick one of the 10 hair styles available, choose your preferred time (even within 1 hour) and pay. Your professional hairstylist will arrive at your location and do his/her magic.

Being a freelancer means you're in total control of your schedule and tasks. It's great to be your own boss and you have the freedom to focus on the things YOU want to focus on and decide when and how to do them. Being a freelancer also means you have no* real structure or workframe to rely on, nothing to really push you to do what needs to be done. Being your own boss makes it very easy to become a lazy boss-employee. Here are few tips on how to get some structure in your life.

Here at Fstoppers we featured many types and brands of camera straps and camera bags in the past. Now it's time to feature a product named Miggo that aims to combine the two: a camera strap that becomes a camera case when you're done shooting. This is could be a great solution for people who like to carry their camera as is, without carrying additional bags and more equipment.

Sharing images on social networks can be great in times, but there are many issues with it as well. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter degrade the image quality and size, and makes it hard to control who can see the photos. When you want to share your images with the whole world these platforms are great. But what if you want to share photos of your kids with just your close friends and family? 'Yoovi' is here to solve that!

Few months back we featured the incredible and unique rock climbing photos of Seattle-based photographer Kiliii Fish. This week Kiliii finished his newest photo series he worked on for a long time - this time survival was the theme. The results? Nothing short of epic. In this interview he explains the whole process and reveals how he shot and edited it all.

After many years of having the same generic domain extensions such as .com and .net, earlier this month brand new domain extensions were introduced to the public. There are many different new domains, but photographers and creatives will be most interested in the following: .photography, .gallery, .graphics, .camera, .lighting and .equipment. This video will explain everything you need to know about the new domains.

Flawless models and perfect-looking celebrities are all around us. We see their perfect bodies on magazine covers and their smooth skin on ads and billboards. Girls today grow up having a distorted view on what 'Beauty' really is, and many of them aspire to look like the photoshopped version of the famous people they love - flawless and perfect. Check out this video of 'real' women react to being photoshopped into cover girls with flawless bodies and perfect skin, the way they always wanted to look like.

If you are a photographer specializing in kids and baby photography, or if you're just using your talents to shoot your own kids and family members, this product may interest you. Young kids have a very short attention span, and it's not always easy to get them to look directly to your camera. The 'Looky Loo' is a new product trying to solve this issue in a very simple way.

If you're anywhere outside of California, good chances you're kind of sick of this winter by now. More specifically - sick of the all that snow and sleet. Seeing the ugly NYC snow this week made me think of all the beautiful snow photos I've seen as a kid. Photos that made me believe snow is a magical thing. Here are some of these amazing images found on Flickr to remind us snow CAN be a good thing.

Have you ever tried to recreate an iconic image? It could take days of preparations to get anywhere close to the original. The location needs to be perfect, the makeup and wardrobe need to be spot on and the lighting needs to be accurate. In this incredible video created by "US" (Christopher Barrett and Luke Taylor) for The Sunday Times Culture, they managed to re-create 6 iconic images, in camera, in one seamless shot. Check out the final result and the BTS showing how they shot it.

When was the last time you printed your family photos instead of just posting them on Facebook? when was the last time you made a real photo album instead of just posting on Picasa? The creators of the 'Flag' app decided to make people print again, and to do that - they created a simple and free high-quality printing service. The catch? An ad will be printed on the back of each print.

Kai of DigitalRev is known for his Cheap Camera Challenges where he gives successful photographers a cheap camera and asks them to create awesome images with it. Photo mogul Chase Jarvis decided recently to turn the tables and give his own challenge to Kai himself, and see how he can handle it. The challenge was to create one of Chase's most iconic images (originally shot with Hasselblad) with a GoPro Hero3+.

Just couple of months ago 'Selfie' was chosen as the word of the year by the Oxford English Dictionary. Now that pretty much everyone have a camera in their pocket, taking self portraits is easier than ever. It seems like everyone are doing it, and you can see it all over social media. The thing is - because the subject controls everything about the creation of the image - from posing to angle of shooting, it's easy for them to hide things they don't like. In this beautiful short film, Dove shows girls how including their insecurities in their selfies can change their opinions about their own beauty.