Often a scene can be visually confusing, especially if there are multiple colours and objects in focus that are fighting for our viewer’s attention. This simple technique that I’m sharing here uses a single dominant coloured gel to simplify the scene visually, then we can draw the attention of our viewer with our Lensbaby Sweet 50 lens. One of the key characteristics of this shot is the blurred focus effect....
With the recent polemics surrounding a certain image that won a photography competition this week, I feel like we need to talk about travel photography. About people photography, in our case. And to set up boundaries as to what’s acceptable in both cases. Honestly, in my opinion, it’s a matter of common sense – but it seems that’s not enough. We still witness some shocking scenes in the world of travel photography these days....
It’s that time of the year again – New Year’s resolutions! In this article I am going to take a look back at the photography business goals I set for myself last year, and re-calibrate my resolutions for 2018. Everyone has different goals and business targets so I hope you’ll leave a comment and share yours too! Let’s re-cap: here are the Five Photography Business Goals I set for myself in 2017:...
Tyrifjorden is one of Norway’s largest lakes. Along its shores I have found a spot which I have visited frequently the past years. It has become my favorite location for sunrises especially during winter when the sun rises right in front of me. The images included cover a stretch of roughly twenty meter of rather photogenic rocks. Due to various water levels, snow, perspective and other factors almost every image has a unique quality in spite of being shot at the same place....
Has anyone used your photo without permission or credit? What would you do if it was a worldwide famous supermodel, posting your photo to millions of her followers without crediting you? This is exactly what happened to photographer Don Mupasi. Tyra Banks posted one of his photos to almost 5 million of her followers without crediting him as the photographer. And it seems he’s not the only one whose photo she used....
While not strictly a photography topic, all of our cameras use USB, as do our card readers, many of our flashes, flash triggers, and other devices we use during the course of our daily photographic lives. And the numbering system used with our equipment is about to get a bit more complex. Yes, the current USB 3 protocol is being renamed. Again. USB used to be so simple. We just had whatever the current version was....
Shooting video on a smartphone has become far more commonplace now than it used to be. Even for quite serious projects. And, sure, it was part of a Samsung Promotion, but even The Tonight Show has now shot an entire episode using nothing but Samsung Galaxy S10+ Smartphones. But what can we do with our own phones to help up the production value in our smartphone videos? In this video, Zach Ramelan shares 7 tips to help you get the most out of your smartphone video footage to produce better results....
This is the second part of a three-part series of articles on LED lights for photographers. Part 1 looked at the pros and cons of commercial level LED lighting for photographers so if you missed it, here’s a link – Do LED Lights Have a Place in Your Kit? – Part 1: Pros & Cons. In this weeks article, I aim to test a selection of cost-effective, coloured LED bulbs that can be used in your strobes instead of regular tungsten modelling bulbs....
The world of smartphones moves thick and fast these days, and a lot of them all start to look the same after a while, but this is one announcement I’ve definitely been waiting for. Chinese smartphone company, vivo has today announced their expansion into Europe and they’ve announced a new phone – sort of. It’s the X51 5G, which is essentially the European release of the X50 Pro, from the company’s flagship X series and it features a gimbal stabilised camera....
On its August issue covers, Vogue features the amazing gymnast Simone Biles, photographed by Annie Leibovitz. While people are thrilled to see her on the cover, the photos themselves have caused quite an outrage. People have called out Leibovitz over “poor lighting” and “washed out” skin tones, adding that Vogue should have hired a black photographer who better understands dark skin tones. Simone Biles shared her story with Vogue in a truly fantastic interview....
Iceland’s Fagradalsfjall volcano erupted on March 19th following a flurry of earthquakes that split the ground open. But unlike most volcanoes, this one has provided something of a viewing platform due to the surrounding geography. Filmmaker Donal Boyd lives in Iceland and along with fellow filmmaker Frank Nieuwenhuis, he created the short film above – Volcano For the People. It’s an absolutely fascinating look at a very unique volcano that allows people to get much closer to it (safely) than just any other eruption in living memory....
Photographing time-lapses where the camera moves a long distance is not easy. You can set up tracks, but this is a long and laborious project. Plus, you need to make sure the tracks are not in the shot. This is where cable cameras come into play. It may look like a hard thing to set up, but this video by Morten Rustad will take you through all the steps you need to take to create fascinating time-lapses....
Nobody can throw a spectacular light show like nature can. Timelapse photographer Ron Risman is well aware of this, so he chased a storm to create a magnificent timelapse of thunderstorm raging over a field in Kansas. He shot it in 4K and combined it with epic music (reminds me of music from Warcraft). As a result, he got spectacular thunderstorms striking at the beat of the song. It’s amazing for both watching and listening....
You know those parodies that are funny, but at the same time painfully accurate? Well, Jacob a.k.a. MasterChiefin1 has one just like that. In this video, he pokes fun of “high school photographers” and their perception of photography at this age. I believe all of us know a photographer like this… Or we used to be one. “We all knew the one person in high school who thought they were put on this earth to take photos and think deeply and no one else could understand them,” Jacob writes....
While some people are training eagles to take down drones, and others are using nets, it seems there are much simpler ways to take down a drone. Daniel Eggert took no more than a roll of toilet paper and some strings to do it. And the funniest part is that he didn’t even do it on purpose. Daniel and his friend had a random discussion how much weight they can carry with their DJI Mavic Pro drone....
If you’re new to video editing, it can be difficult to start figuring out a good workflow. How do you manage and organise all those huge files? How should you arrange them in your editing software? And is there some trick to editing to make things more efficient? It can be a tricky process if you’re just trying to muddle through it by yourself, and you’ll likely make mistakes along the way....
Even if you shoot to two cards at once with a dual slot DSLR, one of the biggest issues that many location photographers face is that of creating backups when out in the field. I’ve long recommended the Western Digital My Passport Wireless as a self contained solution for such a need, but it can be painfully slow, especially if you’re backing up multiple cards at the day. This situation is now hoped to be resolved with the new Western Digital My Passport Wireless Pro....
Using fans to blow hair is one of the most effective ways to add a little life to a portrait or headshot. But it’s not easy. It’s not as simple as just throwing a fan, ramping up the power and hoping for the best – although that’s the method that seems to be most commonly used. There are potential issues with blowing air at your subject’s head, though. In this video from photographer Joe Edelman, we learn what some of those problems are, and how we can get around them....
What is a model? A set of skills? A beautiful aesthetic? A combination of both? Is there a bias in either direction? Is that bias shifted by our personal preference of what we believe to be a “beautiful subject”? We’re taking photo’s because of first and foremost the subject matter. Take a bowl of fruit for example. Sometimes the perfect fruit might be less interesting subject matter than that of mouldy / decaying fruit....
Over the last few months, we’ve seen quite a lot of gear theft in San Francisco. Thanks to ABC 7 News, one of the locations where stolen gear ends up has been found and identified. Reporter Dan Noyes spoke to a San Francisco man who revealed that many of the stolen goods are sold in the street, often hours after the theft. One of the locations for these transactions is an open-air market at Garfield Square in the Mission District, and it’s all happening in broad daylight!...
