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My Photo Shoot with Jennifer Lawrence

We all have our dreams. Some are simple, while others are complex, buried under an overwhelming mountain of hurdles. It’s not often that people live out their dreams. But, what happens when you do? What happens when you achieve every single goal in your path? How do you plan for the future when you have nothing to chase?

This Oldest Surviving Photo of a U.S. President May Sell for $250,000+

Back in March 1843, the sixth US president (serving from 1825–1829), John Quincy Adams, sat for a portrait photo in a Washington studio. Fast forward to the modern day, and the photo is now the oldest surviving photo of a U.S. president. It's going to auction and carries an estimate of $150,000 to $250,000.

A Shaded Path: A Large Format Portrait of Kyrgyzstan

My name is Elliott Verdier, and I'm a French photographer who recently returned home from Kyrgyzstan. I spent four months making a portrait of the country with a 4x5 analog large format camera.

An Interview with Photographer Richard McLaren

What do President Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Tina Turner, Halle Berry, Gwyneth Paltrow, Pierce Brosnan, Jon Bon Jovi, Marc Anthony, Mariah Carey, Eva Mendes, Orlando Bloom, Patrick Swayze and Heath Ledger have in common? The magical lens of Richard McLaren has captured them all. And this is only a small sampling of famous people who McLaren has photographed in his four decades in the industry.

The Most Common Amateur Portrait Retouching Mistakes

Here's a 6-minute video in which photographer and retoucher Nino Batista looks at some of the most common retouching mistakes that amateur photographers tend to make. Eliminate these from your post-processing workflow to take your photos to the next level.

Parody: A Fast-Posing Tutorial with the Model Who Pioneered It

Fast-posing for rapid-fire portrait shoots has been getting quite a bit of attention in recent times -- last week we showed how Chinese models pull of two poses per second for retail fashion photos. Photographer Slater King has a humorous take on the trend: he made the 2-minute parody tutorial above with one of the models who helped pioneer fast posing.

Shooting a Dramatic Portrait Using a Beauty Dish

This 12-minute tutorial from photographer Joel Grimes demonstrates two methods for creating dramatic portraits using a minimal amount of gear. Both techniques use a beauty dish; the first with a single light source and the second with the addition of 2 edge lights.

Photographer Travels the Globe to Capture ‘The World in Faces’

Alexander Khimushin is a Queensland, Australia-based photographer who has been on the road for 9 years. During that span, he visited 84 countries. 10 months out of a year he's on the road shooting photos in remote places. He's currently working on a series titled "The World in Faces."

How to Give Portraits a Dreamy Glow in Photoshop

Hollywood photos and still frames often look fairly dreamy with a bit of a glow to the subject in the image. In this tutorial by the guys at Photoshop Cafe, you can learn a number of ways to do this to your own portraits.

Pro Tip: Don’t Pose Your Models, Direct Them

Commercial photographer Derek Heisler has some key advice for the novice portrait photographers in the audience: don't pose your models. This might seem counterintuitive at first, but Heisler explains why 'directing' your models instead of posing them, will make a huge difference in your photography.

Demo: The Sony a9’s Eye-Tracking Autofocus is Crazy Accurate

Sony claims the a9 is an autofocus tracking monster—its 693-point AF system performing 60 AF/AE calculations every second. But that's not limited to regular subject tracking; as this demo video shows, the eye-tracking AF has been significantly improved as well.

‘Make It’ is a New Weekly Video Talk Show by Adobe for Creatives

The Creative Cloud team at Adobe has launched a new weekly interview series title “Make It”. The show runs at around 10 minutes, and features members of the Adobe team interviewing guest creatives, including photographers. The first episode featuring a photographer is embedded above, with Lindsay Adler in the hot seat.

Quick Tip: How to ‘Open’ a Lazy Eye in Photoshop

They say the devil (or is it God?) is in the details, and this quick Photoshop tip from portrait photographer Bill Larkin is all about making sure you nail those details. Specifically: he shows you how to quickly and easily 'open' a Lazy Eye in Photoshop.

Why Zooming with Your Feet is NOT the Same as Zooming with a Lens

You've probably heard it a million times: "zoom with your feet!" This advice comes up almost any time the prime vs zoom lens debate resurfaces, but as anyone with even basic lens knowledge will tell you, zooming with your feet is NOT the same as zooming with your lens.

Be Warned: Shooting with the Leica M240 is Addicting

A word of advice: if you don’t intend on buying a Leica, don’t play with one. The feeling of shooting with one can be quite compelling, and before you know it you'll do what I did.

Photographer Shoots Phoenix Wings by Light Painting with Fire

Photographer Derek VanAlthuis took his light painting photography to fiery new heights last week when he captured this photo. In it, his model is flying away on wings created by light painting with actual fire. In fact, that fire is the only light used in the shot.

How to Add Front Bokeh to a Portrait Using Christmas Lights

We're all familiar with the fuzzy circles that bokeh creates usually behind our main subject, but this lesson is about creating bokeh in front of the subject. And that is what Mark Wallace is about to show us in the 6-minute video above. This episode of Adorama TV is about getting a kind of outdoor feel and adding depth to your indoor portraits.