Professional wedding photography is dead. Change is afoot. I see it all around me. Photographers who once charged £2,000 (~$2,700) for a wedding, now putting themselves forwards for jobs less than a grand. Award-winning photographers getting part-time jobs to supplement their income because they can no longer afford to shoot weddings full time. And it’s all a dirty little secret.
She came in for her senior session. Her hair was a mess of tangled waves, unruly and uncooperative. Her face was covered with freckles and dotted with acne. She wasn’t model proportions and the clothing she wore required careful adjustment to keep it from bunching up in places.
My daily stroll through the newly-built but already-decaying park near my apartment in Hanoi while listening to Spotify on a brisk (by Southeast Asia standards) morning has me in deep thought. We only get this type of weather for a couple months a year here and I absolutely love it.
What if your house burned down? Have you still “made it” as a photographer?
Visual artist Simon Cade of DSLRguide created this 2.5-minute video that can give some inspiration and encouragement to you if you're photographer (or any other type of artist) who's feeling defeated and unsure of whether or not to push forward in your craft.
SLR Lounge recently published this 8-minute video on 10 ways you can light and shoot the same scene. But it's the short monologue at the end, starting at 6m38s, that has received quite a bit of attention in the online photo community. Pye Jirsa talks about how every photographer can help foster a culture of supporting one another.
In this great video from DSLR Guide, Simon Cade talks about discontentment: how it can be harnessed as a fuel to keep driving forward, and as a signpost to assure that you’re on the right track.
Here's an encouraging 14-minute video by landscape photographer Thomas Heaton about the truth of failure.
The joy of photographing on the street comes from close and engaging photos. Displaying the human nature and emotions in a way that the audience can relive these moments requires the photographer to be close and engaging as well. Unfortunately for a lot of us, it is not easy to stand out from the masses and overcome artificial social boundaries.
I think you can look around at a lot of the content based around photography on the Internet and extract a theme: people want to be better photographers.
A week and a bit ago I was in Falmouth, on stage, in front of maybe a bit less than 100 or so students. It was Tuesday, around 2pm. I felt oddly calm and eager. They looked expectedly unenthusiastic.
Before last week, I hadn’t talked about this outside of my circle of close friends, but I can no longer afford to keep it quiet. As a woman shooting assignments around male photographers on a daily basis, I commonly feel the need to act with bravado in order to prove myself worthy around other -- primarily older, primarily male -- photographers.
If you're just starting out in photography and your goal is to eventually make a living from your photos, one of the big obstacles you'll need to overcome is being bogged down by insecurities. Business and marketing guru Vernon of Shoot and Prosper has created an infographic to guide and encourage those struggling with this issue. It's called "The Ultimate Guide to Building Confidence as a Photographer."
Ted Forbes of The Art of Photography made this 7.5-minute video in which he talks about a brutal truth of photography: the fact that "nobody is interested in seeing your photographs. Nobody cares about the work that you're doing as a photographer."
The doctor looked straight to my mother's eyes. He wanted to break eye contact but he couldn't. There was bad news to deliver first.
Remember your first time taking photographs? I'm talking about before you joined Reddit or a camera forum, before you started posting pictures to Instagram or sharing them with your friends. The time when you considered yourself a hobbyist. The time when you were considered a tourist in your own neighborhood.
“Fauxtographer” (according to Urban Dictionary): A person that claims to be a good photographer when in reality they just set their camera to automatic mode a start shooting. This person also happens to fumble over photographic terms or has no knowledge of the terms or switches the color mode to monochrome and calls it artistic no matter what the hell is in frame.
How long does it take a person to learn photography? Can -- or should -- you make the jump from newbie to working professional professional in a heartbeat? That's the question discussed in this insightful video by photographer Mike Browne.
Frustrated with your failures in photography? Here's an inspiring comic titled "Be Friends with Failure" by artist Stephen McCranie of Doodle Alley.
One of the things I love about photography is it appeals to both the geek and the artist in all of us. On the geek side you have the technical considerations of making an image; the f-stops, shutter speeds, depth of field, histograms, dynamic range, all the stuff we must all master in order to communicate our vision.
Of course we can’t forget about all the ‘geeky’ gear, super telephotos, focusing rails, tele-converters, extension tubes, fill flash, and such. On the artistry side things are a little tougher to define, shape, color, composition, mood, balance, and that fickle mistress light, to mention just a few.
In a world obsessed with views, likes, and viral hits, it can be discouraging to feel like no one is paying any attention to the art you make. If that describes your photography, then you should watch this fantastic 10-minute video essay titled "Painting in the Dark: The Struggle for Art in A World Obsessed with Popularity."
In it, Adam Westbrook of Delve takes a look at the life and work of Vincent van Gogh. Although he is now one of history's most celebrated artists, Van Gogh struggled through years of poverty and obscurity during which no one cared about his efforts.
Dear young, aspiring artist,
It is no secret that today’s society raised an eyebrow on you when you decided to pursue that degree on photography, graphic design, or whatever you’re passionate about but “doesn’t pay well”. And if you haven’t come to that point in life, give these words a thought.
The next time you are frustrated, having a bad day or negativity is simply surrounding you, break the cycle and turn everything around with your photography. It always amazes me how incredibly powerful photography is in bringing light into the darkness of life. While most of the things don’t have this almost magical power, your photography has. It’s one of the most positive things you could do, especially in moments when you need it the most.
Are you improving at photography? We probably all ask ourselves the question, yet often we don’t know how to find the answer in any meaningful way. It is something that has nagged me for years, so I finally decided to find out if I really have been improving. Here is how I did it.
Here’s an inspiring 3-minute video in which veteran fashion and portrait photographer David …
I am often asked for advice by those starting out in the photography industry. And if there’s one thing I have no shortage of, it’s advice. So with that in mind, I present you with my 8 Tips for Starting a Photography Business.
Alright photographers, here’s something esoteric from a person that isn’t esoteric at all. For a minute, let’s just forget about all the settings, lenses and cameras we photographers love to talk about all day long. This article is solely dedicated to your inner creative soul. That deep, underlying voice of your photography that influences all your creative decisions. What is it in you that actually leads to hitting the shutter?
Dear photographer friend,
I wanted to write you a letter on the concept of “killing the masters of photography”. It is kind of a Buddhist philosophy, as well as a philosophy I gained from Seneca, my stoic philosophy hero and mentor.
Dear friend,
You might have heard the term “YOLO”, which stands for “you only live once”. However, I think most people misconstrue the word. They think that it means to live a life of hedonism and pleasure, and give themselves the license to do stupid stuff and waste their time and money.
Last weekend I went to the small city of Ballarat in Australia for the Ballarat International Foto Biennale. I took a portfolio of prints of my most recent project with me in the hope I would get some nudges in the right direction. I also took part in a one-day workshop led by the very experienced and inspirational Stephen Dupont. While it’s still fresh in my mind, here is what I learned from the experience.