Tips

Landscape and adventure photographer Michael Shainblum has taken another trip to Iceland and shares some tips on how to get great photographs no matter what the weather condition.

Lightroom presets are all around us. You might love them as a 1-click solution to your batch editing needs or you might think that they are useless and that all the photos for which one was used look the same. Still, the truth is they are here to stay and maybe we should start thinking of how to integrate them into our professional workflows as more than crutches for your next Instagram post.

We’ve all been there. Walking into a room of complete strangers, business cards at the ready, with a feeling vaguely reminiscent of stepping onto a used car lot. Welcome to the monthly Chamber of Commerce networking luncheon: a hellscape of desperate Realtors, indifferent bank managers, and the guy who just quit his job at the car wash to become a personal trainer.

When I work on a blueprint for a potential documentary project most of my attention goes to unpacking whatever it was that drew my initial interest – usually a collection of themes, locations, and characters that I will visit in order to discover what direction the story will end up going in.

As far as my group of photographer friends is concerned, I am an oddity. Our studio operates 9-5, Monday through Friday, with no holidays and very little emotion involved. Specializing in headshots and commercial photography has its perks. No babies in buckets, no couches in fields, no wedding weekends.

To be a wedding photographer you need to be able to consistently take good wedding photos. You need to be able to nail everything from the first kiss to the newlywed couple's sendoff in a way that delights your clients.

As a photographer, you know that your job is more than just crafting beautiful images. As with any job, you spend a lot of time on things outside of your main job description. One of the hardest but most important parts of photography is finishing the photos, which means culling and determining which and how many photos to give your clients.

Photographers learn to see light but creatives also find themselves trapped in the darkness of their doubt. If you’re stuck in your fear of starting a business, I’m going to help you break through some myths and mental blocks to remind you that another word for fear is excitement. At the end of the day, would you rather be someone who faced their fears or gave into them?

Most photographers don’t have an unlimited pool of money or a vast unending studio to collect and hoard gear in. For this reason, it’s especially important to choose gear and accessories that allow them to get the most bang for their buck, like a simple large white backdrop.

Today I’m going to answer the question that’s been burning on your heart. What oh what should I wear when photographing a wedding? It’s a more important question than you might realize but not for the reasons you think.

A video has revealed the tricks that real estate photographers use to make properties look better than they do in reality.

You have a photograph in mind and now you want to try and make it a reality. Or, a client has contacted you to help them realize a photograph they have in mind. What now?

At some point in time during your photography career, you will probably decide to start offering limited edition prints of some of your best work. It’s a good idea to sell your prints as editions because it’s the way you can court collectors and galleries to purchase or represent your work.

Time is money. That’s nothing we don’t already know but it’s probably the reason you’re interested and wondering how to cull and edit a wedding quickly. Maybe you’re overwhelmed with work during the wedding season or your clients are bugging you for a faster turnaround.

Let’s talk about wedding photography flash and what you need to know. Shooting with flash can be intimidating if you’re just starting out but it can be freeing the more you know how to use it. There might be times when you need to use flash and there might be times when you choose to use flash.

I'm surprised by the number of people I meet who love to shoot but hate to process. For me, seeing what I captured and what kind of art I can make of the image is half the fun! Printing, of course, is part of that equation.

My wife and I recently spent some time updating our estate plans, or what will happen to our “stuff” after we die. Since we don’t have children and our other family and friends all know us in different ways and for different reasons, it seemed prudent to go ahead and get a first draft of our obituaries going.

Let's consider a situation. You went out for a photo shoot with your trusty camera or phone. On location, all the photos looked sharp on the small screen and when you returned to base and opened the photos on your computer you found some photos had missed focus. Worse in some photos the entire image seemed shaken and out of focus.

Adobe Lightroom Classic is an incredibly powerful raw-processing tool, but it has so many layers and features it can take a long time for users, especially beginners, to discover them all.

There are lots of misconceptions about street photography made by people starting out or itching to try this ultimately most challenging (unless you want to take boring photos), most rewarding, and most accessible of photographic genres.

In this era of ubiquitous high-resolution color screens, it seems hard to recall that photography established itself without color. The medium earned its position in the worlds of journalism, popular culture, and fine arts long before Kodak introduced color film. But this does not relegate black-and-white photography to the basement. The genre remains powerful, present, and widely practiced today, with both film and digital cameras.

Wedding photos provide memories of your big day for a lifetime, so choosing the right wedding photographer is an important part of wedding planning.

One of the questions I get most often is, how do I price my art photography. In this article, I will share some advice and tips on things you should keep in mind when determining what you will charge for your fine art photography prints.

The period of time when the sun is just below the horizon is commonly referred to as “blue hour,” and comes directly before or after golden hour depending on the time of day. While most people know about golden hour’s benefits for photography, blue hour is often left out when thinking about optimal lighting conditions.

While the Victoria Falls are neither the widest nor the highest waterfalls in the world, they are undoubtedly the largest. At 1,708 meters wide and 108 meters high, they combine to form the largest single sheet of falling water anywhere on earth.

Working with your spouse in a photography business can have huge advantages as long as you’re ready and able to overcome the challenges. While there are many benefits of self-employment, one of the main drawbacks is that a photographer has to wear many hats. However, if you are part of a team then you can divide those responsibilities between you and your partner.

Boston-based sports photographer, Paul Rutherford, shares what it was photographing the last three games of the 2022 NBA Finals, including his multiple photo positions, coverage of the pregame and postgame, and how he sends images to editors.

I recently heard a photographer say he’d spent 17 hours going through 10,000 images, deciding which ones were worth saving. My first thought was, “I hope he’s retired.” My second thought, though, was that he badly needed a lesson on speeding up his workflow. Which led me to write this guide on how to turbocharge your photography workflow.

“You don't take a photograph, you make it,” Ansel Adams once said. Great point, but let's take it a step further. An important thing to remember is that photographs are just a type of picture, and pictures are made of lines.

If you have ever uploaded a photo to your social media feed and found that the image quality isn’t as good as you’d like it to be, you're not alone. Most sites that allow you to upload images will use their own set of parameters to resize and compress uploaded images to save file space and bandwidth.

If you’ve been outside during a nice sunrise or sunset, chances are good you’ve heard the term “golden hour.” It’s one of the best times to do many types of photography and a beautiful time to be outside. This guide will help you understand golden hour, when it happens, and how to make the most of it through various types of photography.

There are countless marketing strategies used by wedding photographers, but referrals are key in marketing your wedding photography. When starting or growing your business you’ll likely have to implement a variety of marketing techniques. As you fine-tune your process it becomes easy to see the value of referrals.

What are the ingredients of a fashion photograph? This question may be rarely asked, yet it's an important one to think about. After all, is fashion photography really about the technicalities, or is it about content?

The megapixel count of a camera is often viewed by consumers to be the benchmark number for telling whether or not that camera is "good." If that were true, however, why do photographers not just buy a 108-megapixel smartphone to use as their primary equipment? The answer: because image quality has to do with far more than just megapixels.

We have all heard that “real photographers get it right in camera.” Whether it is attached to some asinine argument about shooting RAW vs JPEG or a preachy lecture about the pitfalls of using anything but manual mode, there can be a lot of pressure to get perfect images right out of the camera. There can also be an apathetic tendency to just “fix it in post”. Both extremes have their downfalls and I have found that a balanced approach is essential for personal development and happiness.

Videographers who transition between shooting in Log and RAW video might find that it isn't always smooth, especially when it comes to color grading.

Perhaps you’ve been through this scenario. You see an interesting subject doing something truly unique, you hesitate and sometimes miss the shot altogether. When you do gather enough courage, your heart races, your palms get sweaty, and a quiver can be heard in your voice as you nervously ask if you can take a person’s picture. Sounds familiar? It can be discouraging if you miss the opportunity and the shot.

Negative space is a powerful concept in art and photography that allows you to say a lot with very little. In this article, we will look at the basics of negative space and how you can use it as a tool for creative and powerful photo compositions.

If you are a photographer and travel by air then you know that some of the views from an airplane window can be absolutely stunning. Carrying a camera with you when flying can not only work as a nice diversion to kill time but also allow you to capture some incredible images. While your fellow travelers are busy on their tablets, phones, or sleeping, you can be enjoying and capturing some amazing views!

We've all heard of the classic rule of thirds, leading lines, and other composition techniques. But going with the most common rules can get a bit boring at times.

Landscape photography is one of the most popular photographic genres. It's easy to get started with the genre, but it can take a lifetime to master landscape photography skills. You don't need a sophisticated camera or expensive lens, and the skills you learn when doing landscape photography translate to other types of photography.

If you’re new to photo printing, different print sizes may be a bit confusing to you. One that you’ll regularly come across and should know about, however, is 4x6 – which is the most commonly used throughout the industry.

Mother’s Day is about a few things: flowers, lunch or dinner together, and of course, family photo time, a good opportunity to update the archive with images of us all together again.

Wedding photography is one of the most challenging yet fulfilling genres of photography, one that will challenge your people skills, technical abilities, and physical stamina. To succeed as a wedding photographer, you will need to become an expert in a wide of subjects, from how to work your camera to how to market your business.

With the advance in computer technology, you would think editing photos is faster than ever before. It's simply not the case - far from it. Software such as Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic has become far more sophisticated, and with the increasing file sizes improving your workflow speed and productivity becomes a necessity.

In the past few weeks, I’ve received a lot of requests to share my process for organizing and archiving negatives, and the timing was perfect because a big batch just arrived from my friends at Carmencita Film Lab. Look at this sweet sight of fresh negatives!