This morning as I was perusing through the front page of the internet, a.k.a. Reddit, I came across this 2-minute wedding video that had me laughing till my chest hurt. I couldn't help but watch it three times. The friends and family that helped plan this gypsy wedding sure know how to throw a fantastic dangerous party.
Often when we are editing in Lightroom we find ourselves doing the same tasks over and over again. The key to speeding up your workflow is finding ways to minimize the amount of steps it takes to do these regular tasks and fortunately Lightroom gives us many options to do this. One of my favorites is the 'Export Presets.'
It all started happening in the early 2000's as the once expensive CD-R disc burners began to heavily drop in price and later came pre-installed in every computer. Then clients started asking, "Can I get a disc with the photos?" and a new era of disc burning began which lasted over 10 years. Fortunately, over the last few years other options have become available, which leads me the prediction. This year will be the very last in the 'disc burning era' and quite honestly I can't be any happier about it.
In the last article I shared, "The Most Important Setting in Lightroom is Set To Off By Default", I believe there was a misunderstanding because while talking about auto-saving your edits, I didn't also discuss backing up your Lightroom Catalogs. It is important to back up your catalog and as you will see in this video I'd even highly recommend changing the Lightroom default location for a more secure backup.
"Trevor, I have been editing this wedding for the last few days and now my Lightroom catalog says it is corrupted! When I opened a new catalog and reimported the photos from my hard disk I can't find any of my previous edits I worked so hard on. I am so frustrated! What did I do wrong?" Keep this from happening to you by having Lightroom automatically save your changes, but this setting is off by default. I'll show you where to turn it on.
One of the goals I have set for myself this year is to read and study one non-fiction book each month. I love reading and have learned so much from some great books over the years but just feel like it would be even better if I was able to do this with a group of like-minded photographers so we could read, discuss and learn from each other.
Gravity was one of those movies I went to watch by myself this year. I wasn't sure what to expect and none of my family members were interested in seeing it so I grabbed my popcorn, a large orange soda and sat down for a movie experience I won't soon forget. But, watching this recently released BTS of how the movie was put together made the movie even better!
You finally got that Canon 5D Mark III camera you have been desiring and now you are trying to figure out how best to take advantage of all it's great new features. Here are five ways I have customized my camera to best fit my needs while shooting weddings, events and portraits.
As a writer for Fstoppers I have seen a lot of behind the scenes (BTS) videos, but some of my favorites are those produced by Simeon Quarrie of Vivida. His videos are always top notch and offer the viewers a wonderful opportunity to see real shoots with actual clients while picking up lots of great tips on how he produces such great photographs.
Many of you might already own a Google Chromecast. If you don't yet I would highly recommend picking one up. They are inexpensive ($35) and it's one of my favorite gadgets of the year. Here are some of my favorite things you can do with Chromecast and why I say it's the best $35 you can spend towards your education.
Blogging is a great way to share a series of photos from your work. Sadly though many of us don't do it any longer because let's be honest; it's a pain in the ass. Fortunately a new web service, Exposure, is out that looks beautiful and is a perfect replacement for those that loathe blogging.
The wildly popular VSCO cam app announced that today, December 3rd, they are releasing an Android version of their app which will be available in Google Play for free download. The app will come with 10 free presets and various editing tools. It will be available for devices running Android 4.0 and above.
Tonight Amazon unveiled that they are working on a new system called Amazon Prime Air. The delivery system will use drones that will be guided by GPS. The goal is to have delivery to the customer in 30 minutes or less. I wonder if they can deliver a pizza as well?
There are lots of presets out there for sale emulating the look of film. Enough so that when I heard that Mastin Labs released one I didn't pay too much attention. Fortunately, because of the nudge of a friend, I decided to look into it a little further and I am glad I did. This is the first time I have seen a Lightroom preset designed by a film shooter for film shooters to help them match their digital images from a wedding with those shot on their film. Fortunately for those only shooting digital, you can benefit as well.
Tired of shooting photos of your latest meal for Instagram? Need some new ideas, some challenges, something new and fresh to do with your iPhone camera. Well... ok do this.
Yep you heard that right. Check out OkDoThis.com!
Wouldn't it be fun to see one of your photos go viral? We just never quite know when one of our photos hits a thread with the right person, they share it, and the photo is suddenly being talked about by hundreds of thousands. This evening, wedding photographer Sascha Reinking, suspected he might have seen a celebrity, Zach Braff, photobombing a wedding photo he took while on the streets of NYC and tweeted the photo to him not expecting much to happen. About an hour later the photo is being seen by hundreds of thousands of people.
As a wedding photographer and workshop instructor I travel quite frequently. In the last couple of years I have been all over the world and throughout this time I have picked up a number of great travel tips. Here are six of my favorites that will hopefully make your next trip more enjoyable.
We've all heard the news already, Adobe was hacked. But surprisingly I have found that a lot of photographers haven't taken the 30 seconds to go and reset their password. Have you? If the answer is no, I would highly recommend you doing it now. Even if you haven't yet heard from Adobe. Over 150,000,000 user accounts were in the stolen database, good chance you were one of them.
Probably like most of you, I have a plethora of different memory card sizes from 2GB up to 32GB. When I head out on a big shoot I tend to wonder if it would be better to use the smaller cards and spread the shoot out across a number of cards or shoot entirely with one. It seems every photographer has a different opinion on this one, here's what I think.
One of the most popular lens lengths on the market is the 50mm. As a Canon shooter I have a few different choices to pick from at that length, but the three most popular seem to be the 50mm 1.8, 50mm 1.4 and 50mm 1.2. While on a shoot last week I decided to play with all three lenses and shoot a few photos to see how different each lens was from each other. Here are my results.
You've been out shooting for 12 hours, you've got 4 cards full of data, it's midnight, and you have another shoot first thing in the morning. Wouldn't it be nice to have a solution that allows you to pop all those cards in a reader at one time thereby getting your download done 4x faster than if you did it with one card reader. Now there is with the new Lexar Professional Workflow Reader Solution.
Have you ever been driving around and saw an amazing place that would be perfect for your next shoot? Only to forget all about it later. This evening my friend Jeremy Kester, owner of H.H. Boogie, shared with me an innovative way for photographers to share shoot locations. It's free, it's easy and it's probably already on your phone.
About every 6 months we see a new trend happening at weddings. It wasn't long ago that bridal parties were running for their lives while being chased by dinosaurs, or Star Wars AT-AT Walkers among many other things. The latest new trend, thanks to the Tumblr site Brides Throwing Cats, oh and of course a little Photoshop, is replacing the flowers being tossed with a cat. It's so simple, yet genius.
Like a kid in a candy shop, I stood on the bright fresh green grass, eyes wide open watching the Arizona Cardinals on their practice field. I wore my media badge like an Olympic gold medal. This was my first time shooting professional sports and I was quite excited to be there. At the end of the day I walked away with some great photos, but even more important I learned a lesson in the art of mastering your craft.
This weekend is the Worldwide Annual Photowalk, the largest photography event on record. This will be the sixth year for the event and the best part about it is that it's entirely free. The photowalk, which will take place on October 5th, is an amazing way to meet local photographers in your area, spend a couple hours shooting around town with them and make great friends.
The hot topic for wedding photographers is the guests and their smartphones getting in the way of photos or video during the wedding. The topic has been covered on a number of photography blogs and finally beginning to get mainstream attention as well. Fox40 News out of Sacramento, CA published this video yesterday for their viewers sharing great advice for people attending weddings.
Today registration opens around the country for the new Affordable Healthcare Plans (a.k.a. Obamacare) which will take effect on January 1, 2014. People on both sides of the fence are fired up and expressing their support or disgust for the plans. It got me thinking though: What does this mean for self-employed photographers?
I am a big fan of automating as much as I can in life. As a husband, a daddy to 5 kids and a busy wedding photographer I am always looking for life hacks that can save me time in my day and help me live more efficaciously. One free program that I'd highly recommend to anyone who is looking for a little automation in their life is IFTTT. Here's why.
There is no wrong or right way of naming the folders on your computer. It is really just a matter of preference and what works best in your workflow. Having been doing this for a number of years though I have experimented with quite a few different ways and this is by far the one I like best. Here's a quick video, less than 2 minutes long, that shares with you how I name my folders and why I chose to do it that way.
Often as photographers we put in long hours on our feet, walk quite a bit, bend, crouch, shimmy and shake all while carrying heavy gear on our shoulders and back. At the end of the day my feet would be sore, my legs tired, my thighs chaffed and my back aching. If you have felt the same way, here are three things that will help you be more comfortable and pain free while out on long shoots.
Mark Joseph Solis, a student attending the University of Philippines, won a $1000 prize and round trip tickets to Chile and Brazil for his winning photo in the "Smiles for the World" competition. However, the photo is not his, he stole it right off Flickr. Further investigation has revealed that Solis has won numerous competitions over the last 3 years using other photos he never took, but rather stole from others online.
How would you feel if you were taking photos of some train tracks and suddenly found your name on a list formed by the government of people acting suspiciously? What about photos of planes taking off and landing, sea ports or industrial buildings? NPR reported today that such a list exists and I'll post some shots of it below. If your name shows up on this list be ready to have the FBI knock on your door or give you a call as one photographer in LA experienced.
This morning our community tragically lost an amazing photographer, Marvell Smith. I have had the opportunity to get to know Marvell, or as his friends call him "V" or "Vell", over the last couple years and have a tremendous respect for him as a person and talented wedding photographer. When news got out this morning about the loss, I was truly amazed at how a community of photographers came together over social media groups to pay tribute and make sure V's client's needs are met.
Lightroom released their lastest update today (5.2) which added some new features, addressed some bugs introduced in previous versions and added additional camera raw support as well as more lens profiles. Here's a break down of what has been added and fixed.
According to the Hindustan Times the Darul Uloom, India's leading Islamic seminary, has issued a ruling that "photography is unlawful and a sin." The ruling came from an authority at the seminary after an engineering student requested to pursue a career in photography because it was something he was passionate about doing.
