Articles from David Strauss

Fstoppers is teaming up with SLR Lounge and B&H to put a brand new Canon EOS RP Mirrorless camera in the hands of one lucky community member. All you have to do is enter the giveaway below. 

The winner has been announced. Congratulations to...

 Brian Page from Tennessee! You have been selected as the winner of the Tamron 70-200mm F/2.8 Di VC USD G2 Lens. We will be sending you an email for your brand new Christmas present.

Being a great photographer doesn't guarantee success in the photography industry.  On one hand, some of the best photographers struggle to keep up a sustainable business, and on the other, some average (and even below average) photographers do well for themselves. 

Next year, we are planning on creating more video content than ever and the vast majority of it will be available for free on the Fstoppers YouTube channel. We want to cater our videos around the aspects of photography and video that you want to learn. Will you help us with some feedback? 

Peter Hurley is a master of headshot photography with his ability to connect with clients and draw out the most flattering poses from his subjects. This Black Friday, Fstoppers is discounting all of Peter Hurley's tutorials. See the details below or visit the Fstoppers Store to see every deal being offered during the holiday season. 

We at Fstoppers do our best to keep the photography community informed of noteworthy holiday deals. Since Black Friday week is here, we wanted to let you know about some deals we've heard of from various photography and video companies.

Selling your images online can be seriously complicated. You can try to submit images to some of the larger stock image marketplaces, but getting approved is tough. Even if you do get some of your images through, the marketplaces will take up to 85% of your royalties away from you. 

Our friends at SLR Lounge have announced a Black Friday sale for 30% off of their education and resources.  If you're unfamiliar, Pye Jirsa and his team create some of the best photography education outside of Fstoppers, with complete and comprehensive education focused on wedding and portrait photography.

Notable workshops and resources include the following:

Every couple weeks we release a new episode of Critique the Community where Fstoppers members can submit their best images to a genre specific contest for a chance to receive feedback and win a free Fstoppers original tutorial. This week, we changed things up and selected only 5 star images to discuss. 

One of the most difficult aspects of professional photography is dealing with business. This will help. 

For all you creators out there! LG understands there’s more to the final output. There’s also the “process.” All the hours spent working, toiling, creating, that no one ever sees. The endless brain-strain and ideating a creator dedicates to their goal is what makes up their UltraWide Time. Few will ever see or understand the process, where all the work and magic happen.

Congratulations to the Winners! Fstoppers teamed up with SLR Lounge and B&H to give one lucky person their choice of a premium camera from Nikon, Canon, or Sony. Here are the entrants who won. 

As any filmmaker knows, time is money. Falling behind on a project doesn’t just put a dent in your schedule, it can also put a dent in your income. That's why it’s so important that you have some time-saving strategies up your sleeve to ensure that if some unforeseen delay occurs, you have the ability to steer your project back on course. 

There are times when the kind of image you want to create just isn't possible on the day of a shoot. Don't let practicalities get in the way of your imagination; take advantage of stock images. 

Internationally acclaimed nature and travel photographer Richard Bernabe said, “KelbyOne offers the best and most comprehensive photography instruction on the internet.

We own two Canon PIXMA Pro 100 printers at the Fstoppers office and love them. They print fantastic looking prints, are dependable, and for a limited time they are being sold for only $60.

Stock video marketplaces are handy little operations. They provide a smorgasbord of top-quality footage and graphics all in one convenient place and all for one very reasonable price.

It's always frustrating as a photographer to spend time shooting, editing, and printing an image only to see different results throughout various steps of your workflow. 

As professional photographers, there's no doubt in our minds that making photography into a career should be considered "a real job." However, the path you take to become a professional may make or break your career choice.  

At the beginning of 2018, I set a goal to read one book a week to broaden my mind and seek inspiration from new places. So far, I've stuck with it. Lee Morris, Mike Kelley, and I decided to sit down on camera and discuss the experience.  

Fstoppers is bringing you our first ever tutorial that deals with video rather than photos: "Intro to Premiere: A Video Editing Tutorial." 

So, you’ve been told time and time again that royalty free music is the way to go when it comes to selecting beats for your videos. But part of you can’t help but wonder about the alternatives. 

Like, seriously, how bad would it be if I just included ten seconds of that Macklemore track for my opening credits? I mean, what's the worst that could happen?

Around two weeks ago, Lee and I made a bet over my image, "Atlas and the Sun." In a limited 50 print run the goal was to sell 49 in ten days and make Lee buy the last one to place above his desk.  The photo that I'm referring to, which I've titled "Atlas and the Sun," has been a source of controversy in the Fstoppers' office for a couple years.

Almost a year and a half ago, I undertook the most technically challenging photo shoot of my career. I was fairly proud of the results and the community rallied around it but Lee and Patrick have publicly criticized the image. This will hopefully settle the debate between us.

Episode 27 of Critique the Community took one of the most popular genres here on Fstoppers and added a twist. We asked the community to submit any landscape or cityscape shot taken above 50mm.  Creating a compelling landscape photo with a telephoto lens can be a challenge but Lee picked out some incredible submissions and even gave out a few 5 star ratings.

A week and a half ago we asked the community to submit their best environmental portraits to be critiqued by Lee and Patrick. We got some awesome submissions and one lucky entrant won a free Fstoppers tutorial.

Our next episode of Critique the Community will offer a slightly different take on landscape photography as we will be focusing only on shots taken over 50mm. Submit your best telephoto landscape or cityscape shot below and receive a chance to win a free Fstoppers original tutorial. 

For many photographers, separating your subject from the background can be a time-consuming nightmare. What if you could just click your camera's shutter once and have a perfect mask ready in your camera? Freemask by Hensel lets you do that. 

To celebrate our most recent tutorial release with Brian Rodgers Jr., this weeks episode of Critique the Community features product photography images. We chose 20 of the images and rated them using the Fstoppers rating system. We also gave a free tutorial away to

Do you think you've taken an incredible environmental portrait? Would you like to hear what we think about it? The next episode of Critique the Community will feature a selection of 20 environmental portraits which we will give feedback to. Make sure you do the following to be eligible to be chosen. 

 To submit your environmental portrait images, you must:

If you have a camera, a love for video, and a couple of hours to spare each week, then a sneaky little side gig in stock video creation might just be the perfect thing for you. 

Not only can stock video footage earn you some seriously easy cash, it can also lead to new a career in video production (wink wink anyone looking to bail on their boring day job).

To celebrate the release of our newest product photography tutorial, the next episode of Critique the Community will be focused on product images. After having spent weeks with Brian Rodgers Jr. and watching him work, Lee and Patrick are ready to see how your images stand up against the highest rated product photographers on Fstoppers.

This week's episode of Critique the Community brings a lively discussion between Lee Morris and Mike Kelley on what makes a quality fine art photograph. We received hundreds of image submissions from the Fstoppers community and Lee and Mike hold nothing back with their critique. In the midst of everything, we also play a prank on Mike. 

Our next episode of Critique the Community will be focused around fine art. If you would like to receive feedback for your best fine art photo and have your chance to win a free Fstoppers tutorial, make sure you follow the instructions below. We will be selecting a total of 20 images next week so make sure to get your submissions in before Wednesday, January 24th at midnight. 

This episode of Critique the Community ended up being our biggest ever with over 500 comments on the submission post. Thank you all for your participation.