When it comes to portraits, one of the most important factors is capturing an authentic expression -- a real smile. Unfortunately, a genuine smile can be hard to come by during a structured photo shoot. With gear around and pressure on the subject, a fake smile is much more likely, and not at all what you're looking for.
Here's a basic tip that some of you may have overlooked in your DSLR's owner manual: did you know that you can use your TV's remote when reviewing photos on it from your DSLR? It feels much better than holding your connected DSLR in your hands, and as long as you have a compatible TV and DSLR, the process is a breeze.
Art Wolfe has been photographing the natural world for the past thirty years. His work has taken him all over the planet, and many of his adventures are now showcased in his television series, Art Wolfe’s Travels to the Edge, which first aired in 2007.
New cameras, lenses and accessories open up the possibility of fresh adventures in photography. In reality though, most of us have to make do with what we’ve got, upgrading to new camera kit as and when we can afford it. With that in mind, here are 15 suggestions to help beginning and intermediate photographers improve your photography without splashing out on new gear.
Created by photography magazine COOPH, this handy little video follows photographer …
If you care about endangered animals that are hunted for their parts, here's something important you should keep in mind: make sure you scrub the GPS data on the images prior to sharing them online. Poachers have reportedly been turning to geotagged photos on social networks in order to find out where they can make their next kill.
The most recent video to come out of Adobe’s “Photoshop Playbook” series of …
Feel a bit dry when it comes to being creative with your photography? Try taking a walk -- or, more specifically, a photo walk. A study over at Stanford has found that walking around can give you a significant boost in creativity.
The week is coming to a close, and if you find yourself in desperate need of a giggle or two, we have just the thing for you: none other than Kai from DigitalRev offering tips for taking selfies without looking like a tool.
When it comes to product photography, the smallest changes in lighting and setup can completely alter the final image, for better or worse. This applies doubly to objects like perfume bottles where you have both transparent and reflective surfaces to deal with.
Here to help with a rather simple fix for making sure photographing these products stays as hassle-free and gorgeous as possible is photographer Andrew Boey, who gives us a rundown on how to make use of a simple piece of 'hybrid' gear to get "clinique" quality product shots.
Brandon Stanton, the photographer behind the now iconic Humans of New York photo blog and #1 NYT bestselling book Humans of New York recently sat down with some students and faculty at the University College of Dublin to receive the James Joyce Award.
But more important for us than the award is that he also sat down to talk about HONY how it has become what it currently is.
Teaming up with noted NYC wedding photographer Ryan Brenizer, B&H has released the …
In this little video put together by the Marc Silber Show, nature/wildlife photographer Florian Schulz joins Silber to talk about his photography, workflow and overall approach to capturing his museum-adorning images.
One of the biggest hurdles we must overcome when we begin any creative endeavor is getting past the honeymoon phase of, "look at this awesome thing I created" and on to the more realistic and productive phase of, "just because I created it doesn't make it awesome."
Vacation photos rarely turn out the way you want them to. Even if you're a more advanced shooter, you might not have brought all your best gear with you on that family trip to the beach or the Grand Canyon and so, when you get home, you find your photos and your memory of what the scene looked like differ significantly.
Fear not, Aaron Nace and Plearn are here to help with a very useful tutorial that will close that gap in a BIG way with a few easy adjustments in Photoshop.
During the 2014 Burton US Open Snowboard Pipe Finals, photographer Brett Wilhelm gives …
The saying ‘practice makes perfect’ is as valid for photography as any other activity, so we’ve put together a collection of exercises that will help you become a better photographer.
We all know that almost any smartphone nowadays can hold its own against a proper camera when given to a real photographer with the proper setup. But is it possible for a smartphone to go head-to-head with the likes of a Hasselblad?
About a month ago, the folks at DigitalRev TV launched a new series called "Speed Shooter" in which they show you how to take great high-speed shots of various subjects. We didn't get a chance to cover the first episode when it first came out, and so now that episode two has debuted we thought we'd put them together in one.
The video above is going viral, and as soon as you watch it, you'll understand why. Filmed Thursday by a Vancouver man named Dwayne Stewart, it shows how a couple of Air Canada baggage handlers 'handled' the carry on luggage that had to be gate-checked because it wouldn't fit on the plane.
It’s happened. Facebook, aka the free marketing platform we have come to know and love, now wants businesses and organizations to pay to engage with their own fans and followers. If you’ve noticed your reach and “likes” declining lately, you’re not alone.
Dean J. Tatooles specializes in fine art panoramic landscape photography, wildlife photography, and indigenous portraiture from remote locations around the world. He also works with top-rated travel companies and fellow professional photographers to lead photographic safaris in Iceland, India, Kenya, and more. Fresh off a trip in Iceland, Tatooles and colleague Tim Vollmer answer some common questions about the eerie natural anomaly known as the Aurora Borealis. If shooting the Northern Lights is on your photographic bucket list, be sure to check out their tips below, which have been gathered from years of experience.
The video above is only about one minute long, but in that minute The Face host, former model and …
In a perfect world, we'd all have the studio of our dreams, and it would be filled with all of the best of gear. Unfortunately, we don't live in such a world, and more often than not we're constrained by a (sometimes very tight) budget.
Here to help overcome that challenge is Jay P. Morgan of The Slanted Lens, who has put together a video that shows just how easy it can be to build a very viable studio out of fairly cheap materials/products in a spare bedroom.
We never thought we'd write that headline, but thanks to Magnum photographer David Alan Harvey you can now learn how to best pack your bags for an assignment from the one and only Steve McCurry -- the iconic Nat Geo photographer behind the Afghan Girl photograph.
Ryan Brenizer is back again, talking through some more useful wedding photography knowledge with B&H. Last time Brenizer shared some tips on how to capture great engagement photographs; this time, he's sharing how to really define your style as a wedding photographer.
It’s probably every photographer’s worst nightmare. You’ve shot gigabytes worth of images, ready to be imported for post-processing, when suddenly: card is unreadable. Your captures are all gone. All that time and effort lost to a corrupted card. It happened to me, and this is how I got them back.
Update on 12/16/21: This video has been removed by its creator.
On April 15th, a rather rare astronomical event is taking place: the "blood moon." While technically nothing more than a lunar eclipse, this particular event will the first of four lunar eclipses to happen over the course of the next two years.
One of our favorite Photoshop tutorial websites, Phlearn, yesterday put out a tutorial that is both incredibly useful and a bit scary. Useful because making eyes pop in post is probably one of the most sought after Photoshop skills. Scary because this kind of manipulation is a slippery slope that could lead to photographers getting lazy and using the "fix it in post" excuse... so proceed with caution.
Leave it to none other than award-winning wedding photographer Ryan Brenizer to create a wonderful breakdown on how best to approach engagement photography. In this eight and a half minute video created by B&H Photo, Brenizer does an incredible job of running through all of the critical aspects of planning for and going through with an engagement shoot.
When it comes to taking product shots of glossy items, one of the most difficult aspects is getting the correct amount of diffusion when using softboxes. When the incorrect amount of diffusion is applied (or the right amount is applied incorrectly) this can lead to harsh reflections and minimal gradients, which isn't usually the look you're trying to achieve.
Taking a family portrait is never an easy task. There's often a small child involved, and parents who are trying to make sure said child is on their best behavior. Beyond that, as the group grows in size, the difficulty of organizing everybody and capturing a quality photo increases dramatically.
No worries though, help is on the way.
Tax Day is right around the corner, and the best thing you can do before you file (if you haven’t already) is to educate yourself. The second best thing you can do is keep good records, as you can often use the tax laws to your advantage if you’ve got the documentation to back up your claims.
Composition and the rules that accompany it are some of the most basic aspects you learn when first picking up a camera. If you've been a photographer long, it's probably safe to say that the "rule of thirds" and "golden mean" are ingrained into your brain so well that it's second-nature now.
That being said, every once in a while it's nice to take a fresh look at the rules and the underlying concepts behind them -- if for no other reason than because you have to know the rules in order to break them properly.
One of the challenges if you're just now carving out your niche in this crazy world of professional photography is figuring out how to price your work. How exactly do you determine how much your photos are worth, what expenses can you expect to run into, what contracts are you likely to run into and what exactly do they mean?
All of this and more is explained in a series of free guides that PhotoShelter has released over the course of the last year. Starting with Magazine Photography, then Corporate & Industrial Photography and finally finishing off the series with a guide for Photojournalists.
As a photographer, there is nothing more intriguing to me than the unknown. What’s out there and where will it lead me on my next adventure under the stars?
Upon taking my first photo of the stars, I came to realize it wasn’t even close to replicating what was in the skies above me. Nothing man-made will ever be perfect. There are always improvements to be made in the never-ending journey to replicate what nature has been producing for billions of years.
With practice, however, I was able to break down the physics behind capturing high quality star shots and start to produce some nice results. Over time, I’ve been able to perfect this recipe with actions and inputs in my camera; and, with words and knowledge, teaching others to capture this beauty on their own. With that in mind, here is my tutorial that will teach you how to take some awesome shots of the Milky Way and night sky.
Water photographer Sarah Lee (recently featured in a behind-the-scenes artist profile for the SmugMug Film series) grew up in Hawaii, surfing and swimming competitively. One day, while at a swimming competition, she was handed a camera and hasn’t looked back since.
Avoid making an embarrassing or expensive photographic mistake with these top tips from the pros. We spoke to professional photographers in a number of different genres and put together the common pitfalls that plagued them all.
Krystle Wright has documented her expeditions a little differently from some of her fellow adventure photographers. Using her breadth of knowledge of photojournalism from her Agence France-Presse and Sunday Telegraph newspaper days, Krystle’s images weave together, depicting the full experience of what it’s like to be exploring different lands, from Pakistan to Antarctica.
Here, we talk with Krystle about how she edits down her images for an essay, what kind of gear she takes with her on a journey, and how keeping close tabs on World Press Photo, POYi, NPPA winners helped shape her critical eye.
Years ago, well-known Seattle photographer Chase Jarvis went through a collection of the gear he takes on his photo and video shoots. But given the great deal of change in technology -- and capital on his side -- since then, he recently created a completely new and updated video showing, again, his must-have gear for photo and video shoots.
A new video celebrating the composition style of director Wes Anderson is currently making the rounds on the Internet: a beautiful ode to the power of symmetry and Anderson's ability to use it better than just about anybody in cinema.
Online resources for learning about photography are anything but lacking. But every so often a new one comes around that changes things up a bit -- usually because it's created by a well-known, respected pro.
Last week we told you about Zack Arias' new site DEDPXL, and this week we have yet another educational resource to share. Joey Lawrence (affectionately known as Joey L), one of my personal favorite photographers, has put out his own aptly titled resource: Learn From Joey L.
Nokia recently teamed up with light painting photographer Ian Hobson to prove to the world that a smartphone as advanced as the 1020 was capable of capturing awesome light painting shots. The resulting video is part tutorial, part inspirational, part Nokia ad -- and if you can ignore the last part, the first two make it well worth a couple minutes of your time.
Since its conception almost five years ago, Instagram has single-handedly changed the way individuals and companies represent themselves and interact with clients. Knowing this, and apparently feeling generous, they recently put together five tips for more successful marketing on Instagram that photographers might do well to take note of -- after all, build a solid enough following and you might make $15,000 overnight selling prints...
There are many ways to remove color casts from your images in Photoshop, but this tutorial by photographer and retoucher Michael Woloszynowicz offers one of the quickest, easiest and most effective methods we've seen.
In yet another impressive (and sexual innuendo-filled... you've been warned) DigitalRev Cheap Camera Challenge, Kai has Benjamin Von Wong try to create some of his epic fire imagery using nothing more than a crappy Ricoh point-and-shoot that was probably bought at a Best Buy... on clearance... five years ago.
As part of a new campaign, Profoto has teamed up with photography pair Justin and Mary Marantz to create a twenty-part video series aimed at educating (and promoting) how best to capture the vital moments of a wedding using TTL lighting.
As with most fields that are technology driven, in photography, if you don't keep moving you'll quickly find yourself dead in the water. This is why seasoned pros and amateur hobbyists alike should always be learning and expanding their abilities. It's really the only way to stay competitive. And I don't even mean that in a financial sense, I mean that just in terms of your skill set.
Commercial mountain photographer Alexandre Buisse is a natural adventurer. When it comes to rock climbing or going for his major dream client with a cold call, Alex is a brave soul with immense talent to match. His client roster includes Patagonia, Red Bull, Sports Illustrated, Outer Edge Magazine, and many more.
We talked with Alex about his experience cold emailing and calling, what he’s learned about negotiating licensing rights, and his key marketing strategies. He also lays out the three things a budding adventure photographer should do when looking to get work -- including the importance of a work/fun balance.
Within a few short days, thousands of photographers will descend en masse upon that neon playground known as Las Vegas for WPPI’s annual conference and expo. The conference is held at the MGM Resort, or The Emerald City as I like to call it.
The MGM is located directly across the street from another resort featuring a fake skyline of New York complete with a fake Statue of Liberty. Across from that is a fake castle, down the road one way is a fake Egyptian Pyramid, and down the road the other way is a fake Eiffel Tower and volcano. Can you think of a better place for a photography convention?
Now, first time attendees of the conference can be a little overwhelmed, not just with the fakeness, but with all the things to do while at WPPI. You want to make the most of your time, and with so many options, you need a guide. So, in the interest of assuring that everyone has the best time possible, I’ve compiled my list of “Tips for Photographers Attending WPPI.”