Chef April Bloomfield is an avid smartphone photographer who has made something of an art posting largely behind-the-scenes shots of the work done in her kitchens. Rather than express horror at the low quality of food photographs swirling out on the Internet, Bloomfield embraces the medium, advising potential culinary photographers to hold out for good lighting or hold off altogether. Click through for a sample of her images on Connect.
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
This week and next we are featuring a series of articles on portraits. Earlier today I shared some portraits of women for you to enjoy and get inspired by. So you can probably guess what the weekly photography challenge is, right?
You got it – portrait of a lady!
By Ryan Seyeau
Surely there’s a lovely lady in your life that deserves a great portrait of herself. Now’s the time to create one of her, maybe as a gift. Or perhaps if you are a lady, a self portrait is in order.
Use natural light or flash, whatever you prefer and are most comfortable using. Practice your lighting skills. Try shooting or processing in B&W. Experiment with some LR Presets or try out some new processing tips like adding a texture overlay.
Here are a few images to get you thinking, spark the ideas.
By Chris Bailey
By Wen Chen
By Zuhair A. Al-Traifi
By Dan Finnen
By Michael Yan
By Priscilla Santana
By Alex Dram
By Mysi(new stream: www.flickr.com/photos/mysianne)
By Kris Kesiak
By Elizabeth Anne
By dawolf-
By acearchie
By Ji?í D?cký
Once you’ve taken your “portrait of a lady” we’d love to see them in comments below. Simply upload your shot into the comment field (look for the little camera icon in the Disqus comments section as pictured below) and they’ll get embedded for us all to see or if you’d prefer upload them to your favourite photo sharing site and leave the link to them.
The post Weekly Photography Challenge Portrait of a Lady by Darlene Hildebrandt appeared first on Digital Photography School.
[ By Steph in Art & Photography & Video. ]
It’s amazing what a few strokes of a black eyeliner can do – like create an unsettling optical illusion that makes it seem as if a girl has two faces. The ‘Doublefaced’ project by Sebastian Bieniek is deceptively simple, requiring no trick photography or Photoshopping. It’s just a girl with two cartoonish faces, but the results are more compelling than you’d think.
Glimpsed between messy locks of hair, a single drawn-on face gives the illusion of a tiny head on a normal-sized human body, as if a figure from a drawing or painting has gotten up off the page and walked into the real world.
The effect is even creepier when the model splits the two faces with a pole, a branch or her own hair. She becomes a set of twins that, at first glance, are almost disturbing on a level worthy of The Shining.
The artist not only captures a sense of duality in the model, but also a mash-up of two-dimensional art in a traditional medium and reality, much like a recent series that combined large-scale drawings with photography to produce incredible illusions.
These cool portraits combine more than one image to create fun, crazy illusions that you have to see to believe.
Click Here to Read More »»
Aerial photography takes on a whole new perspective in this enchanting series. Photographer Alex MacLean highlights the fascinating in the mundane.
Click Here to Read More »»
When photographers intentionally capture more than one image per frame, surreal, complex layered images like these 33 eye-catching multiple exposures can …
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[ By Steph in Art & Photography & Video. ]
[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]
Urban exploration is one’s exploration of man-made structures that are typically abandoned ruins or elements of the man-made environment that are not readily seen by most people. You may have seen TV shows documenting urban exploration, but it’s not a subject we’ve really tackled in-depth at Photodoto…until now, that is. Recently, I was contacted by Miki Lansdowne, an urban exploration Continue Reading
The post Urban Exploration Photography 101 With Miki Lansdowne appeared first on Photodoto.
Starting a photography business is extremely easy with the accessibility and affordability of digital cameras and processing programs. Often the lure of entrepreneurship, with these low barriers to entry, leads to many photography business owners of all business experiences. Experience levels range from lack of business competence, to the need for growth in photography skills to a mixture of skills with varying weaknesses and strengths. Before entering into business it is important to evaluate whether you are technically proficient, ready to deal with business legalities, have a good grasp of business operating costs, engaging in market research and client management.
The first step is to determine if technical proficiency is at a level to provide a quality, consistent product to each client that comes through the door. The importance of delivering consistently rests in word of mouth marketing and preventing disappointment when a client’s expectations are not met.
After technical proficiency comes the battle of business legalities including (but certainly not limited to: business formation, filing appropriate tax documents, acquiring required permits and licenses and using quality contractual documents. These legalities can be acquired through outsourcing to lawyers and certified public accountants, but a good, knowledgeable grasp of business legalities and the requirements placed on business owners is paramount to the success of your business.
Following the previous two business necessities comes the costs of running the business. Having arms around the operating costs will assist you in setting appropriate pricing, and in making future investment decisions. Business operating costs are expenses that are directly related to the operation of the photography business. This is calculated by ascertaining costs of resources used to maintain the existence of the business. Operating costs include: rent, utilities, licenses, fees, insurance, maintenance of equipment, office supplies, income taxes, and wages.
Note: It is a good idea to also include a “rainy day savings” into the operating costs for you to have to fall-back on in times of need.
An ever-required and demanding aspect of business is the initial and constant research on market influences, demands and overall factors that impact how the business will be maintained and marketed. Engaging in research is an organized effort to obtain information about the local market and potential clients. In order to effectively create and implement a successful business strategy, research must be done. Research should include identifying marketing information, trends, and the SWOT (SWOT = Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threats to the business) analysis of competitors. The strategies decided upon from out of this research are a key factor to maintaining a competitive edge over competitors and a higher probability for engaging clients.
Juggling all of the previous “business things” can get even more complicated when adding on managing of clients. Having a solid business workflow filled with automation, organization and constant revision is necessity to keep the business moving forward when it becomes easy to be distracted with client management and production of the products and services.
Having the right answers to these considerations does not guarantee a successful business but will increase probability for success, higher level of client satisfaction and less frustration along the way.
The post 5 Things to Consider Before Starting Your Photography Business by Rachel Brenke appeared first on Digital Photography School.
Urban Exploration Photography
Dark halls, narrow wet cold rooms, rusted metal, chains hanging from the ceiling – it`s like you`re moving through a horror movie setting. It appears to be a pictorial journey through a strange world – a nightmarish world of shadows and darkness as after an asteroid impact.
Lost places, abandoned buildings and infrastructure are my favourite locations to take pictures. “Urban Exploration” also known as “Urbex” is the exploring of urban, (mostly) abandoned structures.
In this article I will tell you how I became an urban explorer, and show you how you can take pictures like you see here and on my website yourself. Hopefully you’ll be inspired to go outside to find more of those lost areas.
The first step is to know the location of such abandoned places. When I got started with this hobby there was nothing on the internet about urbex or lost places. I had to search the locations for my pictures myself. But since then, a few things have changed. If you have a quick look on pages like Google Earth or FlickR you will soon find some adequate places to go. Of course you can also find them by walking attentively through the town you live in.
Ok, you have found some interesting places, and you are the owner of a DSLR or a camera to adjust exposure and aperture – now let’s get started!
For most of my urbex photos I take more than just one picture of the same scene with different camera settings to create an HDR later, so it’s important to use a tripod. With this you can set your camera’s f-number (aperture value) to a higher level around f/8 or f/16. This affects the depth of field. Using a tripod makes it possible to take shots from exactly the same spot, important for the HDR in the post-processing.
You can manage the brightness of the exposure with the shutter speed. It’s easy and the result is a much sharper picture. For example your camera settings might look like this:
Now you can take six or more shots with various exposure times. Sometimes three is enough, sometimes you need more than six. This depends on the differences of brightness (from shadows to highlights) in the certain situation.
The exposure time is a variable value which can not be set in a tutorial. But let me give you an example:
To take this indoor scene of the Car Parking Space image you see above, I took 8 different shots; the brightest one was 10 seconds (to get shadow detail) to the darkest one at 1/30th second (to get the details in the windows).
After the “outdoor work” is done you can start the post-processing. I take my shots in RAW Format, so I start editing in the Raw Converter. However, that is another tutorial. For the HDR I use PhotoMatix to edit the pictures.
Here you have to try different settings. I usually create a tone mapped image and save the result as a TIF file. After this I start Photoshop and the creative work begins…
In PS I work with different layers, contrast and tone correction, color changing etc. Here you have to be creative and find your own style to make your picture a unique one.
To take photos in bunkers like my series of the Maginot Line, you need to bring all the light to the place by yourself. The technique is nearly the same as in a “normal” abandoned place. You will just need additional flashlights and lamps in your bag to create the lightning you want. The trick is to set up the lamps and flashlights so they do not shine directly (flares!) back toward the camera, while still brightening the space evenly.
The most important part of the process is shooting at the location. That is where your photo comes into existence. You will need a little operating experience to figure out how it works. It’s all about continuing to practice and experimenting.
I hope I was able to bring you a bit closer to my way of working . More inspiration you can find on my website.
Editor’s Note
Do have any Urbex places you’ve discovered that you’d like to share? Please do so in the comments below.
Need more information on doing HDR – check out these resources:
The post Urban Exploration Photography – Urbex by Ben Schreck appeared first on Digital Photography School.
Architectural photography is for people who have an eye for buildings and structures. It’s the art of taking pictures of buildings as well as structures that are aesthetically welcoming and trustworthy representations of their subjects. Many of the best photographers who specialize in this discipline are normally well-trained in the use of both sophisticated equipment and methods. Architectural photography is Continue Reading
The post Architectural Photography Tips to Make Any Building and Structure Look Fantastic appeared first on Photodoto.
Self portrait of Yousef Karsh from his official website
This is the next instalment of my series on the masters of photography, last time we looked at The Decisive Moment with Henri Cartier-Bresson. Something that my photography instructors gave me was an appreciation and love for the history of photography. If you are not familiar with some of the masters I will be featuring one now and then to help you become acquainted with some of the best in history.
Today we’re going to look at a man that was considered to be the world’s premiere portrait photographer in his time, perhaps of all time, and his images still stand among the best today. The word “iconic” is often used when speaking of his images of people like:
Just to name a few! If you haven’t already guessed, or read the title, yes I’m talking about the legend, Yousef Karsh.
I’m not going to give you his bio or list his accomplishments here. I want you to do your own research. Google his name and find his famous portraits. Study them. Watch the interview below (ignore the age and quality of this video, instead really focus and listen to what he says). What can you learn from him?
As I ultimately found myself doing portraits and weddings early in my photography career Karsh was highly influential on my style. I wanted to created the dramatic lighting he used on his subjects, but more than that I wanted to strive to connect with the person in front of my lens the way he did. He was not only a master of lighting, he was a master of getting the expression and making his subject feel at ease.
Keep in mind this is Part One of this interview. Make sure to view Part Two and Part Three as well.
Want to take better portraits? Well you are in luck! Starting tomorrow, over the next two weeks we will be doing a Portrait Photography Deep Dive. What that means is we’ll be publishing articles on all things portrait related by both regular and guest authors. Make sure you’re signed up for the newsletter so you don’t miss anything!
If you want to read some past articles on portrait photography you can try these:
Here are a few books. I personally have the middle three in my library!
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The post Masters of Photography – Yousef Karsh Portrait Photographer by Darlene Hildebrandt appeared first on Digital Photography School.
creativeLIVE is hosting a five-day course on the fundamentals of digital photography presented by John Greengo. The course is free to watch live, and runs through tomorrow, Jan 24th. Some of you may remember John as one of the expert photographers that contributed to our Cyber Monday ‘DPReview Live’ broadcast. Click through for a link to the course at creativeLIVE.
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
Earlier I shared 35 stunning night photography images. I hope you got inspired by them because now it’s your turn!
By Simon & His Camera
This week’s challenge is night photography!
There are so many things you can do at night including:
By Justin Brown
By jason
The possibilities go on and on so you have no excuse for lack of subject matter or ideas. So grab your tripod (you’ll need it), your remote trigger, and a friend (helps if you’re light painting and is infinitely more fun than by yourself) and head out into the night to take some photos.
Check out these articles:
By Bill Dickinson
By Adrien Sifre
Once you’ve taken your ‘night photos we’d love to see them in comments below. Simply upload your shot into the comment field (look for the little camera icon in the Disqus comments section as pictured below) and they’ll get embedded for us all to see or if you’d prefer upload them to your favourite photo sharing site and leave the link to them.
The post Weekly Photography Challenge – Night Photography by Darlene Hildebrandt appeared first on Digital Photography School.
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