Photographer Lori Nix spends weeks and months creating extremely detailed miniature scenes — called dioramas — and then photographs them using an old fashioned 8×10 large format camera. This video offers a look at what goes on behind-the-scenes at Nix’s Brooklyn studio, and how she goes about creating her unique images. You see some of her photos in this post we published a year ago featuring her photography.
If you’re looking to get started in studio portraiture, here’s a great tutorial by prophotolife teaching three different lighting techniques (Rembrandt, butterfly, and edge) you can do using only one light.
Who says you need uber-expensive lighting equipment to shoot nice-looking studio portraits? In this video, photographer Bert Stephani shows us what you can do with cheap halogen work lights (you can find them for about $30-$50) and a couple shower curtains.
If there was an MTV Cribs for photographers, it would probably look something like this. In this video Yuri Arcurs gives us a tour of his new photo studio, and the €300,000 (~$400,000) of lighting equipment that he has lying around in it. It’s a studio fit for the king of microstock — one who sells over 2,000 photos a day and over 2 million a year.
Light Studio is a new iPhone app designed to teach you the basics of studio lighting for portraiture. In addition to sections with examples of setups and tutorials, there’s a 3D modeling feature that allows you to position up to three hard light sources and watch how the lights affect the 3D face model. The app is available for $1.99 in the App Store.
Meet the Inflatable Photo Studio (IPS), a giant plastic bag that inflates in 3 minutes to provide you with a super-portable temporary photo studio. This might be an elaborate, outdated April Fools joke, but the website looks somewhat legitimate, and there’s even a video demonstrating the thing in action.
If in fact the IPS is real, you can purchase a large one (with fan included) for $500, or a small one for $400.
Editor’s note: This walkthrough was originally published on Clint Decker’s Flickr account. We found it pretty informative and asked him to share it here.
Here is a little video on how I did the photography with Canon Speedlites while dropping items into a tank of water.
With a white background, I used a Canon Speedlite 580ex II on the left and right of the fish tank with water. They were set to manual 1/128sec.
I had a Canon Speedlite 430ex II on a chair behind the fish tank pointing towards the white background so it would come out pure white. This was set to manual 1/64th of a second (I would of done 1/128 but the 430ex II can only go down to 1/64). You want to go 1/128 so it freezes the splash mid air. Read more…
Here’s a really neat video about the making of a Speedo ad campaign that is running all across Europe right now. The video traces the production from its conceptualization to its final post-processing and illustration. The actual shoot and filming took place at the Pinewood Studios Underwater Stage in the UK, where several major films were also shot, including many 007 and Harry Potter movies. It’s pretty remarkable to see so much equipment underwater.
Here’s a pretty cool idea: StudioShare.org is a website through which individuals can rent studio gear or space from each other. Members can either simply sign up to rent, or if they’re a studio owner, they can sign up to both rent and to rent out their studio space. All members can rent out their gear if they wish, though it’s probably a good idea to get equipment insurance first.
Photographers can also set up collaborations with each other using the site, as well as offer their creative services for studio shoots — and services aren’t limited to photographers, it could include stylists, makeup artists, and other creative talents.
The site streamlines all the prep for a photo shoot, from the creative services to the gear, lighting, and space. The site also emphasizes the human element of photo shoots, allowing users to network with each other and to share portfolios and resumes.
Membership starts at $49 and StudioShare takes a 20% commission on rates set by resource owners.
One drawback to the service is that it is relatively small right now, with less than 2,000 members in the United States with a rather thin distribution. Since the available stock and resources depend on that number and location of members, it might be a bit early to jump in as a renting member until the pool of studio and equipment owners grows.
Earlier today, photographer Chase Jarvis announced his partnership with creativeLIVE, a free, live online class site. Each class presentations is filmed live, to an in-person audience in Seattle, and streamed on the creativeLIVE website.
“The goal here is to help democratize creativity,” Jarvis wrote on his blog.
Jarvis said that he had been working on the site for the past year, in order to create a live, interactive classroom. As an innovative model, Jarvis is offering the actual live, streaming footage for free, but the recorded versions of past classes must be purchased. The revenue goes towards supporting the site and the instructors.
The growing list of instructors boasts some pretty big names: Vincent Laforet tweeted that he will be leading a live three-day HDSLR workshop at the end of the month, and Zack Arias said he will be leading a studio class.
The calendar of upcoming webcasts and course list are available on the creativeLIVE site.
Here’s a pretty cool idea: 
