How to Fake Caustic Light (Like What’s on the Bottom of Swimming Pools)
For many years I’ve played with the idea of recreating various lighting looks that many of us may know and love from the natural world around us.
For many years I’ve played with the idea of recreating various lighting looks that many of us may know and love from the natural world around us.
Photographer Geo Leon is known for his easily-recognizable portrait photography style full of detail and vibrancy and has shared an insight on what drives his creativity.
When is the best time of day to shoot portrait photos outdoors? Should we shoot only during the golden hours and avoid midday altogether, or is it better to use the brightest daylight hours to take our portraits with a few simple light modifiers? In this guide, we explore the best times of day for outdoor portraits.
The Cooperative of Photography, also known as COOPH, has shared four simple ways photographers can add additional visual interest to images by creatively using affordable lighting sources.
Photographer Dimitar Karanikolov has captured a series of aerial portraits from a wide variety of locations around the world. His photos stand out thanks to his use of a human element which add a sense of scale.
What kind of lighting do you use as a portrait photographer? Softboxes are great and popular, but that also makes them potentially overused and boring. If you want to spice up your portrait lighting, you can look into expanding your toolbox beyond the softbox and into other kinds of lighting.
This photo is of a woman known as "Aunty Moser," who was possibly 102 years old when she sat for a daguerreotype portrait in 1852, making her one of the earliest-born people to be photographed.
Photographer Tawny Chatmon created a series of portraits in which she uses a multi-layer approach and adorns her photos with gold and jewels, which she says signals the importance of appreciating loved ones before it's too late.
Special effects are a fantastic and fun way to tell compelling stories through images. While they may seem complicated, the truth is, many special effects are easily done in-camera using tools you likely already have. In this video, I’ll be walking through how to create one of our signature portraits, the “Day vs. Night” effect.
Some of the earliest photographic portraits taken in America were recently discovered in an unheated shed on Long Island. The historically significant find contains photographs from some of the first experiments with the daguerreotype process.
Diffused and soft light are often used interchangeably among photographers. Indeed, to an untrained eye, the two can sometimes appear to be the same. Furthermore, modifiers such as softboxes that give both soft and diffused light make it hard to spot the difference. Nonetheless, diffused light is not necessarily soft, and soft light is not necessarily diffused.
You’ve likely already heard of the “Ring of Fire” photography technique. This is a visual trick popularized by famous wedding and portrait photographer, Sam Hurd. The Ring of Fire is created by using a piece of copper tubing to reflect light coming into the camera.
Australian photographer Oli Sansom has created what he believes is the first isometric couples photo. It's 500 different portraits of one couple doing everyday couple things, all crammed into a single image using some of the rules of isometry.
Street photographer Eldar Khamitov immerses himself in his art in order to combat frequent anxiety attacks that he now experiences as a result of the stress caused by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Well-known portrait photographer and YouTuber Manny Ortiz made this 5.5-minute video in which he shares his go-to beauty lighting setup that guarantees stunning and flattering studio portraits time and time again.
I’m a big fan of zoom lenses. For my photography and budget, they provide great value and versatility, and modern zoom lenses sacrifice little, if any, image quality compared to prime lenses.
Sometimes photographers may be in a situation where they only have a single light source at their disposal during a portrait session. The good news is there are many ways you can use a single light to create unique and dramatic looks for portrait work as Dima Metkin demonstrates.
Taking photos of white subjects on white backgrounds or black subjects on black backgrounds is a skill that requires photographers to skillfully bend light in various ways. Photographer Zach Sutton has shared tips on what works best in each scenario.
The International Portrait Photographer of the Year 2021 has announced its winners across multiple categories with top honors going to Australian photographer Forough Yavari for her incredible image titled "Solitude."
Portrait photographer Jerry Ghionis has published a detailed video that gives advice on how to pose men in front of a camera in such a way as to create more relaxed and natural-looking portraits that accentuate the subject and bring out their features.
Light can be one of the most challenging topics when it comes to learning photography. It takes a lot of trial and error to understand light, as there are very few resources available that teach light beyond setups.
National Geographic teamed up with famed actress, director, and humanitarian activist Angelina Jolie in order to raise awareness for bee conservation and a new program to empower women beekeepers around the world. As part of the effort, Jolie was photographed covered in bees.
Shooting in natural light can be quite difficult. In fact, many photographers gravitate towards studio photography to avoid natural light completely. However, natural light can be manipulated in a way that will produce great work.
All About Photo (AAP) Magazine has revealed the names of the 25 photographers from across 12 countries who won recognition in its "AAP Magazine #17: Portrait" competition.
The White House has released the official portraits of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. They were shot by Chief Official White House Photographer Adam Schultz using a Sony a9 II full-frame mirrorless camera.
Brzz, bzzzrrr. The rollers on the vintage Polaroid developer start to suck in the 8×10 Polaroid. Dan Bosman, a Mars Cafe barista of 14 years, and I are chatting just like we always do.
We’re going to walk you through common posing mistakes, particularly for sitting poses, and how to fix them. I want to cover this subject from both a masculine and feminine body language standpoint so you can see the differences and know how to fix issues on the spot no matter who you are photographing.
Capturing cool reflection portraits might seem like a breeze—you just put someone behind some glass and go ham, right? But as photographer Matt Granger explains in this tutorial, even a basic understanding of the "key variables" involved can open up more options for you.
Portrait photographer Oded Wagenstein recently sat down with Canon to share the most important lesson he's learned over the course of his career. Namely: how to build meaningful relationships with strangers and capture more authentic portraits as a result.
Of the many creative photographic genres, it is perhaps portrait photography where two camps—the representative and the artistic—can be most clearly observed. Whilst the former requires context through captions and backstory to elevate it, in the later, the absence of such requires creative aptitude. Attempting to merge both camps in one photograph can often diminish its effectiveness.
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.
I used to think that skin tone was irrelevant to lighting setups. When I photograph people with a flash, I don’t have go-to numbers for the position of my light (distance, height, and angle). My workflow is placing my light somewhere I think it’ll work and fine-tuning from there.
Photographer Dan Roberts recently collaborated on an "intercontinental light painting." Using a projector and the power of the Internet, he and Frodo Alvarez captured a light-painting portrait in real time from across the world: Frodo's light from Spain ended up on Dan's camera in Denver.
A one-day initiative that took place around the United States yesterday shows the impact photographers can have when they team up to make a difference. It's called "10,000 Headshots," and it involved booking and shooting free headshots for 10,000 unemployed Americans across the country in a single day.
Believe it or not, the "levitation" photo above isn't a multi-shot composite. Some lighting equipment was removed from the edge of the frame, but the main image of the woman "floating" above the water is actually a single exposure. It simply took some patience to capture it just right in-camera.
Here's an interesting tidbit from the world of smartphone photography. Google is proposing a significant change to the Camera API in Android 11 that will prevent smartphones from using face altering algorithms that change geometry, skin tone, or apply smoothing.
Photographer Drew Gardner has been recreating portraits of some of history's most famous figures by finding and photographing their direct descendants. One of his latest recreations features Thomas Jefferson's sixth great-grandson.
In 1987, choreographer Margo Sappington came to Houston to set her dance "Rodin, mis en vie" on the world-famous Houston Ballet at the invitation of Artistic Director Ben Stevenson. Not knowing who she was, but attracted by her energy and persona, I introduced myself.
Photographer Miguel Quiles has created a quick, crash-course style video that explores the different types of backgrounds you can buy as a portrait photographer, and then explains why collapsible backgrounds might be the best option if you're just starting out.
Whenever something is bothering wet plate photographer Markus Hofstaetter, he captures his anxiety with striking, creative imagery. Lately, the idea of "division"—in ourselves, our societies, and our world—has been on his mind, so he set about capturing a "division" portrait. The twist: he didn't want to capture any visible light.