tutorial

How to Create Natural Light with Strobes: Big Modifiers and Bouncing Flash

Natural light is one of the easiest ways to shoot portraits with minimal gear. More often than not natural light is soft and flattering to the face. Yet, a photographer who is able to create natural light in the complete absence of it is valued highly. That is of course with strobes. Here’s how you can easily create natural-looking light with flash.

Dramatic Portrait Lighting Made Simple

Street portraiture provides the opportunity to capture so much of the urban textures and patterns that give a city its look. The brick walls provide great leading lines as well as murals and large wall art that set a dramatic tone to any image.

A Detailed Tutorial on How to Pose Couples During Photo Sessions

I am a professional wedding, portrait, and fashion photographer and have been photographing couples for nearly three decades and I have been teaching photography for over two years. My goal with this video is to provide simple but very effective posing tips when photographing a couple.

How to Plan Out Milky Way Photos

Plan your work and work your plan. That’s what... someone important once told me? Anyhow, in my opinion, planning out your Milky Way shots is absolutely one of the best ways to increase the likelihood you will be shooting bangers.

How to Photograph Couples: A Detailed Tutorial

I am a professional wedding, portrait, and fashion photographer, and have almost three decades of experience photographing couples. I created this video to provide lighting, posing and location tips and tricks in a few different scenarios to give photographers some inspiration on how to photograph couples.

The Secret to Amazing Cityscape Photos: A Magic 15-Minute Window

After shooting cities all around the globe for the past 15 years, I managed to publish seven coffee table books featuring cities like Paris, Venice, Los Angeles, and New York. I learned the hard way when was the best time to shoot and want to save you the time and effort so you can make the best photos of cityscapes possible.

To Shoot Great Portraits, Learn To Control The Background

If you don’t control the background, you’re not controlling your image. In this video and article, I'll share 7 different ways to control your background and give you better images. These are simple techniques to master to improve your photography.

10 Basic Landscape Photography Tips

In this article, I'll share 10 of the most important things that a landscape photographer needs to keep in mind while preparing and while on a shoot. We tend to forget the most common things and end up getting messed up during shoots, so I'll be sharing some pre-shoot tips and some on-location ideas to help you get better with your landscape photos.

The Ultimate Guide to Fashion Shoots: From Idea to Magazine Submission

Have you ever wondered what it takes to create great fashion work that wows everyone? In this guide, I will break down all the steps you need to take in order to produce something that is of high quality. I'm aware of how hard it is to make fashion work, so in this guide, I am talking about the nitty-gritty, from idea to magazine submission.

Basic Advice About Photography for Beginning Photographers

This article is aimed at people who would like to advance their basic photography skills. I assume that you already make decent photos and are familiar with f-stops, ISO, shutter speeds, etc. But I'm hoping that this read will prove worth your time and lead to even greater photographic skills and enjoyment.

How to Shoot Milky Way Photos with Image Stacking to Clean Up Noise

Aloha, and welcome back to my astrophotography tutorial write-ups. I wrote an article last month on the basics of photographing the Milky Way core season. Today I am going to continue this series and tell you about a game-changing technique that you have probably may have already heard about: image stacking.

How To Get Your Photography Featured in Magazines

To many photographers, getting your work printed in a magazine is the holy grail, especially if you manage to make the front cover. Sure, posting on Instagram or Facebook is great but actually seeing your work in print... to me, there is no better feeling.

How to Photograph the Milky Way: The Preparation

Milky Way photos should first and foremost do one thing: fascinate. When the viewer's gaze loses itself in the vastness of the motif and he begins to dream, the photographer has achieved his goal.

How To Focus Stack the Right Way For Landscape Photography

I can't begin to tell you how many times I've lost a shot because I didn't think through the basics well enough. I would of course have my composition and exposure settings dialed in and with that determined, you would think that I have what I needed to get the shot. But, in some cases, that just isn’t enough.

How to Photograph the Milky Way Core Season

Milky Way core season is right around the corner. I wrote this quickie guide on how to photograph our galaxy for anyone interested in going out to do some astrophotography this season!

How to Make Solid Developer Cubes for Easier Darkroom Film Processing

Over the past year, it seems the whole world has been on hold due to the rampages of COVID-19. In the Facebook groups I’m in, many users were seeing shortages in analog photography supplies. Some online stores stopped shipping Rodinal (a caustic liquid) and other products were just nowhere to be found.

5 One-Light Modifier Setups: Portrait Lighting in 10 Minutes

In this article and video, you’ll get five one-light studio setups, and we’re going to do it in less than 10 minutes. I’m using a Profoto A10 for this setup, but you can use any flash. I’m also going to limit our modifiers to just the basics, so we’ll mainly use an umbrella. For all of our setups, I’ll give you other options, regardless of what I’m using.

An Intro to the Rule of Thirds in Photography

Learn photography rules, learn to apply them, learn their advantages and limitations. Finally, learn to bend them, break them and explore beyond them.

Photographing Rainbow Eyes By Using Birefringence

One of the many fascinating effects of cross-polarization is called “birefringence”, which is responsible for the psychedelic gradients in the seen here.

How to Make a LIDAR-Driven Motorized Film Carrier

Despite what some people think about LIDAR for cars, in the near future it is foreseeable that this technology will take its rightful place in our daily lives. Not just for cars but with almost anything and everything. We have already seen Apple’s new iPad and iPhone utilizing this technology. I wanted to see if I could use a LIDAR, in its most fundamental function, on a film carrier that is printed on a 3D printer.

35+ Rules and Guiding Principles in Photography

A primary question in photography is, “What is composition”? Photo composition governs the manner in which our eyes travel through an image. It defines how objects within an image are placed relative to each other in such a way that generates visual excitement. Used correctly, it transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Making Relative Adjustments to Sets of Photos in Lightroom

Sometimes it may be necessary to make a set of images darker or lighter, more or less contrasty, or otherwise change their appearance but retain their relative appearance. Lightroom has the ability to make relative adjustments on a selected set of images to facilitate that.

How to Use Teleconverters for Macro Photography

Teleconverters are handy lens add-ons that multiply the focal length of the lens they are attached to. They can be mounted in between the camera body and lens (typically a telephoto lens) and increase the focal length of the lens to which they are attached.

How to Fix Sitting Posing Mistakes

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.

6 Editorial Self-Portraits to Shoot at Home

Lake Tahoe-based photographer Tajreen Hedayet made this short, sweet, and inspiring 2-minute video tutorial on six different editorial self-portraits you can try shooting at home if you're looking for a way to exercise your creative muscles.