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.
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.
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.
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.
2,692. That’s how many full wedding ceremonies wedding photographer Matthew Solis alone has photographed in the past five years, and yes, you read that number right.
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.
Photography or any other creative pursuit requires us to be consistently creative, which means we need to tap into a reliable source of inspiration.
Are you an artist who struggles with releasing your work to the world because it's not yet perfect? It's a common problem many creatives grapple with, but learning to let go of your idea of perfection can actually allow you to move closer toward it.
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.
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.
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.
These cameras do not exist. As real as they might appear, they were created using an artificial intelligence system called DALL-E 2, which can make realistic images based only on text descriptions.
As he set out to overcome his creative block, photographer Antti Karppinen shot a photo that portrays the feeling of creative exhaustion and lack of inspiration that so many creatives can relate to.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Paypal has reportedly offered to buy the digital pinboard site Pinterest for $45 billion, which could bring more tie-ins to financial technology and e-commerce.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
Capturing creative photos of miniature worlds is definitely not a new idea, but you don't need to be a small-world master like Tatsuya Tanaka to give this kind of photography a shot. As this COOPH tutorial shows you, all you need is some creativity, a few mini figures, and a smartphone.
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.
Photographer Kyle Roper is no stranger to unique camera creations; he was the producer for the viral Skyscraper Camera Project. But his latest project is a bit smaller and more intimate. Amid the pandemic, he turned his front door into a camera to capture beautiful large-format black-and-white portraits of his neighbors.
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.