Before running out for Botox or for a fancy photographer, here are 10 quick and easy things you can do to improve how you look in photos:

Have a lot of shots taken of you, and only keep the best. Focus on flattering posture and angles. Know facial expressions that work for you. Make sure your eyes are facing the light. Pay attention to what you are wearing, your grooming, the lighting and background.
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It goes without saying; a time-lapse can be difficult to shoot. A transitional time-lapse from day to night can be even more of a challenge and hassle. That is, unless you’re prepared with the right tools for the job.

That’s why photographer and timelapse connoisseur Joel Schat has come around with an extremely informative video walkthrough of creating a remarkable time-lapse with the assistance of a Promote Control. Read more…

Coffee is a wonderful thing. Early in the morning, there are few things that can put you at ease like a steaming cup of hot coffee warming your hands and firing up your brain. But have you ever wondered how those coffee advertisements manage to get the perfect shot of a coffee cup, steam and all?

Well, in the tutorial above, commercial photographer Robert Grant of LearnMyShot shows you how to compose and capture the perfect picture of a steaming cup o’ joe that will have you craving your morning caffeine fix. Read more…

I know there are a few guides out there for home processing, some of which were instrumental in helping me get over my fears. All of these other guides seemed to be a little incomplete and that lack of detail made me wait longer than I should have before taking the plunge. In reality, it’s easy to do your film at home. Let me show you!
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A high-quality time-lapse is a beautiful thing. From the aurora borealis over Norway to the thriving metropolis that is San Diego, we’ve featured many a gorgeous photographic fast-forward through time, each of them put together by photographers that knew how to pull the most out of the time-lapse medium.

But just because there are a lot of stunning time-lapses out there, doesn’t mean that the process is easy or self-explanatory. Creating a great time-lapse takes skills, and it’s those skills that professional photographer Vincent Laforet is partnering with Canon to teach you in an informative 4-part educational video series. Read more…

Freelensing is a relatively inexpensive way of getting the similarly unique effect of an expensive tilt-shift lens, where the focus plane is thrown out of whack with the added bonus of natural light leaks. No, this isnt anything new, and the look that an expensive tilt-shift lens gives has been around for a while, but I wanted to share with you my experience with it and how I did it.
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Ever see those pictures where the stars streak across the sky in a big arc? Or maybe the whole sky looked like it was spinning? What you saw was star trails. The streaks were light left behind on the sensor or film from the star as it traveled across the sky in front of an open camera shutter. In fact, what are being recorded are stationary stars and the rotation of the earth as it spins past them. For me, the images seem to have a certain magic or mystery about them.

You must have heard a photographer talking about capturing that perfect moment in time. Well for capturing star trails you will need to capture the perfect hour or two in time. For such amazing looking images, the technique used to capture them is really quite simple. Keep reading for a complete set of instructions from start to finish.
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Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has been serving as one of the International Space Station’s resident photographers. Every day he posts beautiful photographs showing what our planet looks like from orbit to his Twitter account, @cmdr_hadfield.

Today the Canadian Space Agency released the video above, in which Hadfield takes the time to explain how to best photograph Earth’s landscape from 400km (~250 miles) above the surface.
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Cameras today have many extra functions that are often buried in menus and forgotten. Last year, I bought the Canon 5D Mark III and, after a few months, realized that there were some interesting features I had never played with. After figuring out that there was a way to do in-camera double exposures, I immediately started experimenting. At first it was very hit and miss. (I still hadn’t read the manual.)
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Photographing strangers can be a daunting proposition. It was one of the focuses of the workshops I held in NYC this past summer. What if they get mad, what if they yell at me, or what if they go completely psycho on me? Odds are, most people will simply say no pictures. Even the school of Bruce Gilden photographers have hardly been bothered with their “mugging style portrait.”
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