Articles from Rebecca Britt

Have you ever wanted to film yourself while doing a photoshoot for some behind the scenes action, but not one of your videographer buddies wanted to get away from whatever indie marathon was running that weekend and help you film it? Well, now with SOLOSHOT you don't have to worry about picking up the phone and degrading yourself by begging to your cinephile friends, you can do it yourself.

If you're looking for a way to really make your highlights stand out in your images, look no further; PHLEARN has released a new Photoshop tutorial dealing with accentuating highlights.  Using Levels, Channels and Layer Masks in Photoshop PHLEARN shows how you can take highlights to the next level and make your images just a little more brilliant and detailed. Also, free 'Brownie points' to anyone who can guess what is used to create the slick effect on the model in the photo. 

The Slanted Lens is back with another amazing lighting tutorial. This time they venture onto a 1700's Naval ship, the U.S.S. Constitution in Boston, MA. The portraits include an early Naval captain and his shipmates loading cannons. This tutorial specifically goes through how to light creatively during the nighttime hours where lighting might be more difficult for some.

According to gossip site TMZ a paparazzo photographer was killed while trying to take pictures of Justin Bieber's Ferrari during a traffic stop earlier today near the Getty Center in Los Angeles. Details are still developing, but apparently Justin Bieber was not in the car when it happened.

Marvel's 'The Avengers' is the top grossing movie of 2012 and the third of all time, ensuring that the superhero genre of movies are here to stay.  Industrial Light & Magic have finally released the behind the scenes and walkthrough for the post production on one of the most amazing scenes in the movie, a long take of all the heroes fighting off the Alien horde that is uninterrupted and seamless with New York City as its backdrop.

 Jaroslav Wieczorkiewicz  best known for his amazing milk dress series  is back with another amazing lighting tutorial. In this video he explains how to create some pretty nifty looking light streaks to create a fiery effect in your photographs. Using both a modeling lamp and normal flash from some Paul C. Buff Einsteins he shows how you can drag your shutter to create the effect. 

Sometimes if opportunity doesn't come knocking you just have to build the door yourself, or in Judson Collier's case an epic website as an intern proposal letter. The website/fancy letter was written to famed photographer Jeremy Cowart. I was blown away at the sheer creativity, not to mention ballsy approach to asking someone for a job. Judson goes into great detail on why he would like to intern, his strengths and why he believes he would be great at the job, including making a mean cup of coffee.  

Earlier I posted about Instagram's new terms of service. Instagram has now released a statement concerning their new terms of service that was under the scrutiny... of the entire internet. Following in the footsteps of sites like Twitpic it seems that Instagram either got ahead of themselves or didn't think that users would catch on to its confusing and/or misleading jargon on its TOS update announcement. In a statement entitled, 'Thank You, and we're listening...' on their blog, Instagram clears up some of the perplexing language on the new terms of service.

Instragram just updated their new terms of service today, and the fine print, while not shocking, certainly is concerning especially if you use the service to show off your work.  Instagram has stated that starting on Jan. 16 the service will be able to use and sell your images for advertising without your knowledge and without offering compensation leaving users with the short end of the stick. 

The incredibly young and talented, Joey L. has released a new documentary that was shot while shooting his intimate series of photos, 'Holy Men'. Set in the breathtaking backdrop of India, the documentary filmed by Cale Glendening shows Joey while at work with his assistant Ryan, but more importantly proves that capturing an amazing portrait isn't just about the latest gear or technique, but truly the subject.

Quebec photographer, Patrice Laroche, took an interesting approach to his personal maternity photos. He took several self-portraits of himself with the mother of his child, Sandra Denis at a convenience store air pump machine. The series of photos were taken a different times within the nine months of waiting for their daughter, Justine, to make an appearance into the world. A very unique and humorous way of documenting the whole length of the pregnancy, that I hope becomes a trend. 

I love being a photographer. I also love showing the world my love of photography by wearing clothing that boldly states my profession. I've seen several t-shirt designs that have interested me, but none that catered to the old film cameras that I was brought up with. I was introduced to a new t-shirt brand a few weeks ago and my search was abruptly ended. Dodge & Burn, which hails out of New York City, develops designs based on historic cameras of yesteryear. I caught up with company founder, Ted Rybakowski, for a quick chat. 

Just a few weeks ago I announced that the Fstoppers Forum was re-opened and was available to our readers. We are now looking for someone who can help us run the forum and is well versed in all things vBulletin. We're looking for someone who has experience working daily with the forum software as an active administrator on other websites and can help with the technical side of the software.

If you're a fan of the immortal and time-traveling Doctor Who, then this VFX breakdown might just be for you. The Mill, who works on the visual effects of BBC's Doctor Who, have been with the show since its re-imagining in 2005. Sit back and watch as they explain how they create their episode opening sequences, seamlessly incorporate map paintings with computer graphics and creature creation in this two part video series.

The people over ar Prime Focus World who are responsible for the special effects and/or 3D conversion of films like 'Total Recall', 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows', 'Wrath of the Titans' and 'Tron', have made four videos in which Jon Thum, visual effect supervisor, sits and explains the filming process and post for the slow-motion sequences for the movie, 'Dredd 3D'.

Kevin Margo, a VFX/CG Supervisor at Blur Studios recently released his directoral debut with his short science fiction film titled 'Grounded'. The film, while the general audience may not fully appreciate it, will entice cinephiles with its stunning graphics and read between the lines themes. In the following video he breaks down the CGI that was used in the film. The film was shot with a Canon 5D Mark II and post processed using 3DS Max and Fume FX.

Air New Zealand has been known for their original, themed and very well made safety videos. Just recently they released their newest safety video featuring a plane full of Tolkien fans called, 'An Unexpected Briefing'. Air New Zealand partnered up with the people over at Weta Workshop to create the amusing safety briefing. The video made in anticipation of 'The Hobbit' features a few actors from the movie, real Tolkien fans, J.R.R. Tolkien's great-grandsons, actual working Air New Zealand employees and even has a cameo from the man, Peter Jackson, himself.

As most of you know a few months ago we were having issues with a malware attack scare that turned out to be false positives. We cleared up the issue and as a precaution took our forum down to make sure that the entire Fstoppers site was in proper working order. I'm happy to announce that the forum is back up and running. You can now access the forum here: http://forum.fstoppers.com  OR you can click the forum link at the top of the main page.

Earlier this year Stoli rolled out their most recent advertising campaign that revolved around three 'original' nights with their product. The first night, a lavish paint party (Dayglow anyone?). Second night, a club party in a power plant in West Berlin. The third, in an abandoned amusement park in East Berlin. They recently released three short, but interesting behind the scenes videos that accompany the commercials, showing how they set up the scenes and even showing a glimpse of the ARRI that they used to shoot with. 

I have a deep admiration for wedding photographers. I believe wedding photography is probably one of the most challenging things you can tackle in photography. The pressures of shooting and then editing hundreds of photos from the event can become daunting. For photographer, Sasha Leahovcenco, he takes on the added pressure of same day edits. Sasha explains how he accomplishes his wedding reception-ready slideshows. 

First, let me start off by saying that I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Yes, I am Mormon. When a fellow Fstopper writer posted this piece in our writer's group at first I was saddened to see the material within the link, but then I took a step back and really processed what this series of photographs meant. The photographs depict a pair of Mormon missionaries in various sexual positions. The photographs may be quite simple, but the message is not. Warning: Some of these photographs might be offensive to some readers. 

A couple of nights ago a close friend of mine, Jesse, gushed over Justin Bieber's new music video, 'Beauty and A Beat'. How it was entirely shot with the new Olympus TG-1 (a point-and-shoot camera) and how I should write a post about it for the site. So, taking his lead I went ahead and did some research on Justin's new music video.

The next chapter in Preston Kanak's 'The RAW Timelapse Tutorial' series is now available for free on Preston's Vimeo page. In this chapter Preston goes over the importance of planning your timelapse  (pre-production) in three different sections: Story, Scheduling and Scouting. This tutorial will help you plan your production accordingly to help your margin for error decrease, so that your shoot runs smoother.