My workflow is the most important part of being a productive and successful music photographer. Other photographers rarely ask about it, but I feel like it's something a lot of people don't think about until they're on the road and freaking out because their workflow sucks. So I'd like to share mine with all of you.
I got a $2,100 Canon 85mm f/1.2L for $145 earlier this year. To be honest, it was more like $145 plus a couple trips to Starbucks, but it was still a great adventure... and the secret to how I get most of my gear with what little budget I’ve got.
Here's my 2014 Christmas card: Santa in Carbonite! At the end of every year my studio collects all of the cool card ideas that we thought of during the season. I then create a calendar event for the next November, listing out the ideas we thought of. Last year we came up with a Star Wars Christmas card idea with the boys guarding Santa Claus, frozen in carbonite. Call them Imperial Elves.
My name is Michael Pistono, and I'm a 28-year-old photo enthusiast living in Honolulu, Hawaii. I was recently playing around with a reflection photo when I had the idea of creating another one out of a puddle -- one that featured both tall buildings and an airplane.
For a new marketing campaign titled "Inspired Light," Infiniti invited Canadian professional light painting photographer Patrick Rochon to Dubai to transform three of its cars into "moving light painting brushes."
Did you know that your ordinary DSLR camera has the power to detect planets orbiting other stars? You don't need a high-powered telescope to look through either. All that's required is a DSLR, a telephoto lens, and a special contraption that helps your camera track stars.
The "Special Moments" camera is a cheap plastic 35mm camera that you can pick up at certain dollar stores for just a buck.
Colorizing old black and white photographs in Photoshop has become quite a trend over the past few years, and communities of retouchers have sprung up in order to share and compare their work.
Here's a behind-the-scenes video in which photographer Nigel Barker talks about one of the craziest photo shoots he has been a part of: capturing models posing with real bulls in a bullring.
New York-based stop-motion creator PES was nominated for an Oscar after his "Fresh Guacamole" short film went viral on the Web. He's back again with a quirky new film called "Submarine Sandwich," which shows a bizarre sandwich being made in a deli with some pretty strange ingredients.
Shooting time-lapse is fun. Watching a big storm devour a city is fun. Doing both at the same time is 'super' fun.
Check out this gorgeous short film in which NASA astronaut Don Pettit shares what it was like to photograph Earth from orbit in the International Space Station. During his time aboard the station, Pettit became one of the most prolific astronaut photographers in the history of space exploration -- one time he clogged up data transfers for three days with photos from a 30-minute shoot.
Using an 8x10 camera requires patience, attention to detail and a whole lot of steps in between. But don't worry if you've never done it before: here to walk you, step-by-step, through the entire rewarding workflow is Tim Layton of Black and White Fine Art.
Here's a really neat little customization trick that Adobe are allowing you to do if you're using Lightroom 5 or newer. You know that splash screen that pops up when you first open up LR, the one with all the developers' names on it? You can now replace that image with one of your own in just a couple of quick steps! …
…And we’re back! After a much-needed summer hiatus, it’s that time of the year again when my comrades in the SNL Film Unit all reconvene on the 17th floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza for another season of filmmaking speed-drills.
It might surprise you to find out that you can detect exoplanets -- planets that don’t orbit our Sun -- from your own back yard. While more expensive and elaborate optics certainly yield better results, the video above shows you how you can detect an exoplanet using gear you probably have in your camera bag right now.
I recently captured this picture of Jupiter, the 5th planet from the Sun. It was well received and many liked it. Lots of people wanted to know how to take a picture like this and what it would cost, and surprisingly I did this on a relatively low budget for astrophotography.
In astrophotography, a star tracker is a piece of gear that compensates for the Earth’s rotation so you can take sharp long exposure photographs of the night sky.
Unfortunately, not everyone can get their hands on one of these, and so we've dug up this awesome tutorial by astrophotographer Forrest Tanaka on how to capture impressive astrophotography images without a star tracker.
Product photography -- even when done with cheap gear like this awesome tutorial using an iPhone, an IKEA lamp and some flashlights -- usually involves multiple light sources. But there is a way around that, as Laya Gerlock over on DIY Photography demonstrates in this awesome tutorial titled "How to Shoot a Perfect Watch with Nothing but an iPad."
Inspired by Alex Koloskov's popular iPhone vs. Hasselblad whisky glass video, photographer Tilo Gockel decided to give cheap gear professional product photography a try of his own -- and he knocked it out of the park.
TIME released this behind-the-scenes video showing a recently photo shoot of actor Benedict Cumberbatch for the cover of the magazine. Cumberbatch will appear in the upcoming film "The Imitation Game" as Alan Turing, the renowned British mathematician, codebreaker, and computer science pioneer.
Photographer Stefan Litster created this "photo adventure" video showing how he shoots portraits on the street with a Tachihara 4x5 large format camera and some Fuji instant film.
Two years ago we dubbed photographer Thomas Shahan ‘the Bob Ross of bug photography.’ Today, we’re back with a video from the macro master in which he dives into his workflow in the field, dropping bits and pieces of useful knowledge as he goes through a daily shoot.
One pesky issue you may have run into with your DSLR is front-focusing or back-focusing, a problem that, in the past, required that you send your camera into a service center along with any troublesome lenses.
As great as infrared photography can be, for most of us, it’s an enigma that is often difficult to nail down since we’re capturing that which we can’t see with our eyes. However, just because we can’t actually see it, doesn’t mean we can’t teach our brain to visualize what the outcome will be when we snap the shutter.
Although they often get overlooked in the Photoshop workflow, clipping masks can make for some very interesting effects in images. A perfect example is the work of Roderique Arisiaman, whose portraiture includes intricately overlaid designs to make for intricate, unique images.
Photographer Dan Vojtěch teamed up with Red Bull wakeskater Zuzana Vráblová for a unique and technologically challenging photo shoot. Vojtěch and his team utilized 3D scanning technology, 3D printing, and studio photography to create some eye-catching images.
Ian Norman, the astrophotographer behind Lonely Speck, is a good friend of the blog and an incredibly generous photographers when it comes to sharing his years worth of expertise with the world.
Photographer Miguel Quiles recently created this quick, informative behind-the-scenes look at how he shot an impressive set of fitness photos using just three lights in a fairly small studio setup.
I’ll admit, there is a lot to learn if you’re hoping to start selling art in galleries. How do you approach a gallery, and then if you do finally get a meeting, what do you say? What are they even looking for? When they ask to see your portfolio, what does that even look like? Do you price your work or does the gallery price your work? How much commission is the normal amount for a gallery to take? …
They say the devil's in the details, and one of the most crucial details of any portrait is the eyes. You want to make sure that the eyes in your portraits are always looking the absolute best without somehow coming off as fake or enhanced.
It’s not news to most of us that the majority of food photography doesn't feature the actual food you'll receive in the establishment. Or if it does, it features a lot more besides.
Los Angeles-based photographer Matthew Jordan Smith has long been photographing some of the best known celebrities. In this video, Smith retells the story of one of his most timeless images, a headshot of Tyra Banks captured using only a simple ring flash.
Photographer and Nikon Ambassador Joe McNally has released a new video that offers a behind-the-scenes look at a recent shoot. The image is an imaginative fairytale scene that required some tricky lighting and careful attention to detail.
British photographer and graphic designer Jake Howe recently began using a mechanical keyboard, and soon afterward he began wondering whether the same sturdy design could be used for a remote shutter release for his camera.
The Canon 1D C is a cinema DSLR that's geared towards video recording. But just because it was built for filmmaking doesn’t mean its value to still photographers is diminished. In fact, it can be the complete opposite, as photographer Michele Celentano demonstrates in a two-part video series recently put out by Canon.
How much weight loss can Photoshop do? As you'll see in the video above, the answer is "a whole lot".
Autumn is well underway here in the United States, so what better way to honor the colorful season than to share with you a post-production walkthrough by Serge Ramelli that will show you how to make your seasonal snapshots ‘pop’ with color.
OK Go is known for its creative music videos that often feature single takes and innovative camera techniques, and the band's latest video continues that trend in an impressive way.
Camera+ is one of the most well-liked third party camera apps for iOS devices. It has sold over 10 million copies, and its robust interface and suite of editing tools help set it apart from the stock camera app.
This is a story about networking, giving back, friendship, trust, #sharingiscaring and steampunk.
Here's a glimpse into a day in the life of a New York Times staff photographer. The behind-the-scenes video above follows 64-year-old photographer Ozier Muhammad as he covers the People's Climate March in New York City last month for the Times with a Canon DSLR and a pair of Leica M rangefinders.
Have you ever wondered how those beautiful beer bottle ads in magazines are shot? Product photography is one of the more complicated genres out there, packed full of neat 'tricks of the trade' and lighting techniques. And if you wanna learn a few of them, this beer bottle product photo tutorial is a great place to start.
Love carving Jack O' Lanterns? Hate the mess? No problem. We are photographers after all, which means we don't need to actually go out and DO things like this... we can just 'fix it in post.' Jokes aside, this short and simple tutorial will show you how to carve a simple Jack O' Lantern entirely inside of Photoshop.
All too often, people ask me to put my camera down and join the party. I get that stink eye on many occasions when I plop myself in the corner of a campsite, drag my cooler within reaching distance, and point my camera towards the night sky. Friends wouldn’t notice at first, but then start to realize that they were missing someone around the fire ring. “Where did Nick go?” I could hear people snarkily asking, like I was off doing something more interesting than they were.
While not all of our photographs end up being printed and framed, it helps to possess the knowledge of what it takes to properly hang them when they are. Here to help is this handy, not-so-little infographic that runs through a number of situations that you might come across when looking to adorn your wall with a photograph.
There are some things in this world that are impossible to photograph without the willingness to make a little sacrifice and step out of your comfort zone. Such was the case with photographer Philip Lee Harvey, who took it upon himself to photograph what is referred to by some as the ‘world’s most dangerous church.’
Ever since I’ve owned a camera I’ve wanted to take photos of the night sky. When I first got a DSLR camera 5 or so years ago I thought getting decent shots wasn’t very likely with the inexpensive gear I had and it was something best left to the pros. It was only after I became comfortable with the manual mode on my camera that I realized that shooting at night was completely doable.
Adobe Photoshop CS6 had a memorable cover photo showing a woman whose face is covered with what appear to be white, circular scales. The photograph is the work of Oleg Dou, a man who says he is not a photographer but rather an artist who uses photography as his medium for his works.
We've shared in the past how a broken lens can be used for "freelensing," or taking tilt-shift-esque photographs.
