Photographer Taylor Jackson shares an intimate behind-the-scenes video with wedding photographer Sam Hurd where he breaks down everything from his personal morning routines to on-site best practices for nailing every shot.
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.
Sam Hurd recently published a video review of the PIXII Rangefinder: a rear-LCD-less, smartphone-connected, M-mount rangefinder developed by PIXII, an upstart camera manufacturer. And while his introductory statement that it is the "worst camera I have ever owned" does more to get the click than convey his actual opinion, it doesn't look like the PIXII is a camera you should be picking up just yet despite some extremely promising design choices.
If you're flying with pricey camera gear, it's often advised that you bring it with you in a carry-on bag instead of risking all the handling issues that could happen behind-the-scenes with checked-in luggage. But your carry-on isn't necessarily safe either, as photographer Sam Hurd recently discovered: he lost $20,000 in gear when a fellow passenger just walked off with his luggage.
In late 2014, I was given a few pieces of piping -- what you might call trash, but which I call the "ring of fire." It ended up being an incredibly useful tool in my photography. I quickly decided to add it to my (now literal) bag of tricks along with Prisming, Lens Chimping, my Broken Freelens, and Anamorphics.
Washington D.C.-based wedding photographer Sam Hurd has quite a wild backup system for his clients' images. In an article and video Hurd posted on his blog, he explains the extensive setup behind his apocalyptical-style backup protection. If you thought you had your files well protected, you might feel otherwise after watching this (unless you're careful to the same degree).
Have you ever heard of an anamorphic lens? If you’re a movie fan then you may have, but if not you’ve certainly seen them used in many films made for the big screen.
So, for a while now I’ve shared photography techniques I’d worked on throughout my career. Every wedding season I try to share something new with everyone and I love seeing what other photographers have done with prisming, freelensing, and brenizer methods (aka. bokeh panoramas).
Now it’s time for my latest technique: I call it lens chimping.
Have you ever considered adding a prism to your camera bag? Washington DC-based wedding photographer Sam Hurd has done quite a bit of experimentation using an equilateral prism -- the kind used in schools to teach properties of light -- to add special effects to his photographs. The results are pretty interesting.
Washington DC-based photographer Sam Hurd has a series titled "Epic Portraits" that consists of portraits of famous individuals captured using techniques such as the Brenizer method, freelensing, and compositing. What's neat is that each photograph has its own behind-the-scenes page detailing how it was created (the gear, goal, vision, story, and lesson learned).