A surgeon at a meat market. It's an absolutely simple yet ridiculous idea, so it had to be done for real! China has been harvesting organs from detainees, so maybe this absurd project of mine isn't so far from the truth!
The cheapest watch I could find, that was my mission! I decided I wanted to create a magazine advertising image using a really cheap watch. My goal was to replace the luxurious and expensive aspect of the image with an unknown brand but still maintaining that feel of expense and luxury in the final shot. It was also to focus on the photography and the importance and impact it has on advertising.
Profoto made a splash in 2017 by unveiling the A1, its first on-camera flash and the world's smallest studio light. Now a challenger has appeared: the Godox V1 is a new round-head flash that will provide a cheaper alternative.
I am a fan of light (honestly what photographer isn’t?). Hard light; reflected light; dappled light; low-key light; colored light -- I love it all. Light makes or breaks not only my images but my mood. I’d venture to say that light is sandwiched between “belonging” and “safety” on my hierarchical pyramid of needs.
It has been said that meat consumption should decrease by 90% in the West if we want to avoid dangerous climate warming. And because all of us should be involved to achieve this goal, I of course decided to invite zombies to join in the effort of combating climate change.
Godox has revealed its new S-R1 Round Head Accessories Adapter, a speedlight attachment that lets you mount the company's round magnetic modifiers on traditionally shaped flashes.
Sometimes, you’re forced to work with what you’ve got, even if that means just the flashlight on your phone. In this 10-minute video, you’ll learn 5 ways to light portraits using just a phone flashlight.
“Do you have 9 lights?” The account manager at Oakland University asked me. Somewhat inspired by a Queen album cover, he was looking to create an image where 9 award-winning students stood out in a dramatized version of a newly renovated space on campus. While I understood the goal of the session, I immediately knew rigging 9 lights up would be nearly impossible while showing such a vast space. I told him that it may take some time, but I could get it done with just 2 lights.
In this article, I am going to highlight 5 key things that I see portrait photographers doing that I consider to be "in need of improvement." And although there are no hard-and-fast rules to photography, try to think of it as being similar to an instrument being slightly out of tune or a meal that's perhaps a little too salty. These are glaringly obvious errors to the well-informed but may not be so obvious to those who are just starting out.
Ready to get creative this weekend? Good, because our friends at COOPH are back with 9 creative photography tricks you can try out at home when you have a spare minute. From making your own glitter "snow," to magnifying glass macro and beyond, there are some really fun tips in here.
We hear everyone in the photography industry talking about image quality, image quality, image quality. We especially hear about this in any circle of people chatting (or writing) about night photography. Conversations (and books, articles and blog posts) are rife with opinions and advice about how to push the limits of our cameras and lenses in order to get the best image quality in low-light situations.
Ready for some rapid-fire DIY tips? A team of French photographers who goes by the moniker "Shootr" has put together a simple photo hacks video that offers a few creative ideas for your next portrait shoot.
Here's a fun little experiment to try one night this week. Take that box of crackers (biscuits if you're formal), polish off the last few hangers-on, and then use that box to create some interesting DIY lighting effects with your off-camera flash.
A couple of weekends ago I was playing about with some ideas for a new portfolio shot involving a wall clock. Now, this clock happens to look a bit like a pocket watch, and a pocket watch normally has a chain (see where I'm going with this?). So I figured: "what if instead of a chain, I use some wispy light trails?"
Egyptian photographer Amr Elshamy has shot photos showing whales and dolphins in the sea and polar bears and seals in snowy landscapes. But here's what makes his wildlife photography different than most others: they were all shot indoors on a table in Elshamy's room.
My name is Nick Fancher and I'm a portrait and commercial photographer who specializes in lighting, specifically with the use of small flash in unconventional locations.
I definitely love do-it-yourself projects, especially those that help me out with a project in a niche way.
This foreground bokeh look is actually a setup I played around with a few times many years ago. I thought it would be a good, fun setup to share, as you can get some interesting results whilst playing around the much-loved bokeh.
Typically, the term “gobo” is reserved for the lens filters and patterns that are affixed to theater lights. The terms “flag” or “cucloris/cookie” are actually more accurate for what we’re going to be using in this post, which is an object placed between the light and the subject, but not attached to it.
Recently, I had a portrait shoot with the legendary poet, rapper, and actor Saul Williams. It began with a simple stroke of luck: I saw he was scheduled to perform at a local club near my house, and so I did a quick search for the name of his manager. I easily found it and e-mailed them, introducing myself and explained that I would like to take his portrait.
Light painting has been a basic technique in my photography ever since I learned how to really play with it. I started by just doing the usual of writing names and doing swirls but then I learned how to use it for my professional work.
In a recent article, I spoke about the best ways to perfectly light your background with colored gels. We covered the best things to keep in mind if strong and vibrant colors across your backdrop are your objective. It turns out that gelling your background is actually relatively simple -- it's keeping those strong vibrant colors that's actually the tricky part.
For me photography is not portraying what exists, but portraying what exist in me.
A few months ago I was working on putting together a still life shoot with a fantastic stylist and a friend of mine, Kiki Tse. She had come up with this beautiful idea for a shoot: to represent a person in a still life context by the use of some of their personal effects.
To know someone's possessions; to see a navigational chart from their grandad; an amulet with a photo of their late sister without ever seeing a face to attach this narrative to invites the viewer to form their own account devoid of judgement of background, race, age or physical appearance.
I was recently contacted by my cousin because a group was looking for volunteers to photograph 10 cancer survivor children. Without any hesitation, I contacted the person in charge and booked the shoot.
I love hard light. I love the shadows it creates and the colors it brings out. I also love the convenience it affords. I work exclusively with small flash, and by using predominantly hard light in my images, I am able to travel extremely light, as I need few to zero modifiers.
Want to play around with studio lighting from the comfort of your own home without dropping any money on …
I received a Rosco Gel kit a week ago, and after a few tests I can say I really love using all the awesome colors for my photography.
The kit includes 20 individual 30x48cm square sheets for color corrections (e.g. CTO, CTB, ND) and a range of different colors, all of them contained in a protected and resealable packaging.
Looking back at this year, I was fortunate enough to photograph a lot of cool things and meet a lot of great people. It’s only right that I write about my biggest shoot this year -- well actually, the biggest shoot of my career to date. I'll start off by saying that everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong.
Enjoy playing around with Arduino and want to try your hand at making your own digital camera? Photographer Coralie Gourguechon has come up with a DIY digital camera called Craft Camera that consists of a simple cardboard body and Arduino guts.
Spinlight 360 is a relatively young startup company that makes modular flash modifier systems for speed lights. Its products are based around a ring assembly attached on the head of flash units that various modifiers can be mounted to, allowing it to be a "jack of all trades" of sorts when it comes to controlling light and shadows.
Want to shoot photographs of rainbow-colored smoke? Just strap some color gels to your flash(es). Photographer Sean Wyatt used three snooted flashes with two colored gels on each flash to create a rainbow blend of color. He then used the setup to photograph smoke from burning incense sticks.
Well, lets just say I've gotten better at this over the last couple of years. The left image was one of the first I've "scanned" with my DSLR, and the one on the right I've just rescanned using the techniques described below (higher resolution available here). Right now I can get higher resolution and better image quality that what street labs give you on CD.
Flash diffusers come in all shapes and sizes, from DIY Home Depot versions to more expensive professional grade equipment. None of these solutions seemed adequate for 30 year photography veteran Les Tirmenstein, however, and that's why he designed the FlashPipe.