creativity

A Complete Guide to Creating and Using Texture Layers in Photography

Texture layers are photos that are normally blended with other images as part of a composite rather than being used on their own. They can be color, monochrome, detailed, or blurred. The idea is simply to add an extra level of interest to a picture. In this guide, we will look at various ways of collecting and using texture layers for your photography projects.

Why You Should Follow Lesser-Known and Local Photographers

Between 2008 and late 2016, I took tens of thousands of pictures and proudly vomited the vast majority of them online. While I’d toyed around with things like depth of field and long exposures, I didn’t understand anything about photography, so my camera rarely left ‘auto’. I’d checked out an online tutorial or two, but as far as I was concerned, ‘exposure compensation’ was something victims got after winning a public indecency lawsuit.

How to Reduce Stress and Increase Creativity Before a Photo Shoot

Being a professional creative means that you don’t always (ever) have the luxury of waiting for inspiration to strike. It means you have to create your work, on demand, regardless of the circumstances. Building practices to help reduce your stress and increase your creativity before a photoshoot will make creativity less illusive.

How to Overcome a Creative Block

There are times as a photographer when you can feel like you’re running out of ideas. You’ve tried a variety of things but now you’re experiencing some kind of creative block and you feel frustrated.

Change Up Your Photography Genre to Unlock New Creativity

As a photographer, it's easy to fall into a rut of shooting the same types of photos over and over again. Sometimes it is easy to slip into a routine once we have a good grasp of exposure and composition.

Yes, Your Funk is Normal. No, It Won’t Last Forever.

The funk sucks. No matter who you are and no matter how long you've been at your art, everybody experiences the funk. Maybe you've even named your funk, mine is named Jeff. No real reason. Just feels a little bit more manageable whenever I've applied a name to it.

3 Film Hacks to Expand Your Photo Creativity

The resurgence of interest in film photography is astonishing. Newcomers revel in the challenge of having only a limited number of photos per roll. They enjoy the suspense of waiting a lengthy period for the film to be processed before they see whether their photos have turned out.

Portrait Photography Challenge: Shoot with a Flashlight and Phone

There can be a lot of gear-envy among photographers when they see others with tons of expensive camera gear, lighting equipment, and modifiers. It is also all too easy to say that you can’t be creative because you don’t have access to a particular light or piece of equipment.

A Photographer’s Kit for Getting Out of a Creative Rut

For photographers, creativity is the difference between a nice photo and a NICE photo. But what happens if you’re not feeling very creative? That’s when I like to dive into what I call my “photographer’s creative kit,” a bunch of different things to try.

Get the Cliché Out of the Way When Doing Photography

I drove 5,200 miles around the country after my junior year in college. And I brought 20 rolls of film — 720 images in all — which was a lot in 1984. I felt like a pro, traveling with a “brick” of Tri-X. When you shoot film you try hard not to waste frames; it’s a natural force function that filters out some of the more idiotic shots you might take.

Anything Can Be a Light Modifier for Portraits with a Little Creativity

Light shaping tools are very expensive. What if you could take any object and turn it into a modifier? That would save you a lot of money as well as give some unique results. In this article, I will share some everyday objects that you can turn into light modifiers to get different looks.

How I Bring My Sketches to Life as Conceptual Photo Art

For a digital artist like me, getting those unique ideas for my images is one of the most important things. I see the ideas in my dreams, when I read a magazine, when I’m out for a walk, or pretty much anywhere. I have learned that ideas are everywhere if you just allow yourself to see them.

If Cameras Are Just Tools, Why Shoot On Leica?

Leica is the butt of many photography jokes for making some of the most expensive cameras and lenses on the market. So if cameras are just tools, why would anyone shoot on Leica with so many other options available?

Book Review: The Meaning in the Making by Sean Tucker

A Google search for “Creativity” will return over 2,600,000,000 results. Many of these results are books about creativity, which offer specific advice and actions to take in order to be creative now.

MSI PS321QR Review: A Gaming Monitor for Photographers

As display technology has improved in leaps and bounds over the past few years, the market has forked into two distinct camps: gamers who prioritize speed, and creators who prioritize color. The 32-inch 2K MSI Creator PS321QR tries to strike the perfect balance between these two needs, offering a compelling combination of refresh rate, response time, and color accuracy for just $700.

Urban Hubs Are No Longer a Living Requirement for Creative Success

The "Creator Exodus" is a phenomenon that has been accelerated by the COVID-19 era. With the requirement for non-essential businesses to operate from a remote-first capacity, the 2020 experience has encouraged creators at all levels to redefine their metrics for productivity and success.

2020 Helped Us Rediscover the True Value of Photography

When I look back on 2020 in 5 or 10 years, I don't think I'll remember it as the year when a pandemic brought the photo industry to an economic standstill. I don't think I'll remember the CIPA numbers, or the R5 overheating debacle, or any of the virtual product launches. I'll remember 2020 as a year that helped us rediscovered the importance of photography.

5 Books that Will Help You Conquer Creative Block

It happens to the best of us... and in 2020 it happens all the time: creative block. Whether it's a lack of inspiration, a lack of motivation, a lack of free time, or some combination of all three, we've all hit that wall where it feels like every one of our ideas is stale, everyone else is better or more prolific than us, and there's no real reason to keep trying.

Capturing Emotion Through Light

I saw a post from a fellow light painter that grabbed my attention and implanted itself into my brain -- something that I haven’t been able to let go of. He asked: “We know by looking at painters' brushstrokes how they were feeling at a certain time. In light painting, we "paint" with light. I would be curious to see if emotion could be shown in the brush strokes of light painting too.”

What it Takes to Not Fail at Photography

When I was young, I had a vivid imagination but no real inclination towards art and creativity. I distinctly remember having trouble keeping my crayons within the lines of any coloring book I attempted. Fast forward to today and I’m 35 and have been a full-time professional photographer for seven years and a shooter for 13 years.

How to Shoot ‘Water Hat’ Portraits On the Cheap

The temperatures have been soaring lately. Depending on where you live, you might’ve even seen record heat over the last couple of weeks. Normally, such weather makes staying indoors (so long as you have air conditioning) sound ideal. However, in this article, we’re going to share a fun, creative photography idea (inspired by Tim Tadder) that’s perfect for getting outside on hot, sunny days.

Creativity, Not Negativity: A Call for an End to Brand Bashing

As a photographer, wishing for the departure or death of a camera company is like a musician getting excited to have one less guitar to choose from. In many ways, it is the most self-destructive thing that one can hope for their art.

Photographer Uses DIY Reflecting Pool to Capture Beautiful Flower Photos

Landscape photographer Lewis Carlyle was recently trying to figure out a photo project to do at home, when he came up with a totally unique, never-before-tried idea: close-up photos of flowers. Okay, fine, it's not exactly revolutionary, but he did manage to put an interesting twist on the concept and create some beautiful images in the process.

New York Rhapsody: A Cinematic Love Letter to the Creative Heartbeat of NYC

Adorama has just released a stunning cinematic tribute to the city of New York that could not come at a more poignant moment. At a time when the creative flame at the core of the city has been snuffed out by a small piece of genetic code, New York Rhapsody stands as a testament to the fire that is waiting to come roaring back.

Shoot Productions in COVID-19 Times

The sudden global stop of many types of content production, ranging from full-blown TV/film through to commercial photo shoots, has hit the creative industry hard. With agencies unable to organize a shoot for a brand in the usual manner, and most photographers unable to leave their homes, we are in a situation where we are having to really think outside the box.

The 2020 Adobe 99U Conference Will Be Held Online, for Free

Adobe's annual 99U conference is usually an expensive, in-person event in New York City for creatives who want to get some hands-on education and inspiration from experts across artistic disciplines. But this year, the event is moving online, and it's going to be free for everybody.

This LEGO Olympus OM-1 Camera Could Become an Official LEGO Set

Architecture student David Hensel loves both photography and LEGOs, and he recently brought these dual passions together to create a LEGO version of the classic Olympus OM-1 that's been gaining a lot of traction on the LEGO Ideas website. If all goes well, it could even become a real LEGO product.

Three Creative Photo Techniques to Help You Embrace Imperfection

This period isn’t easy for anyone. Professional photographers are struggling with the implications of being on lockdown and suddenly having to stop all work from one day to the next. Hobbyist photographers may be in a similar situation with jobs, children and household duties all being juggled in an unprecedented dance that is completely new and unknown.