Photography Tutorials

Adobe has recently released it’s latest version of Lightroom into beta and reviews of it’s usability and new features are already beginning to garner widespread positive attention. Some of the features have been long awaited, while others come as a pleasant surprise. In the video below, Lightroom 5 Beta user, Trevor Dayley, takes a few moments to show us some of his favorite new additions to the popular photo editing software, take a look:

Most of you already know what causes it, but for those who don’t, the “red-eye” effect is the result of your flash being too close to the lens. When the light source is close to the lens, like with an on camera flash, when the flash is fired, the light goes from the flash into the pupil of the subject’s eye and straight back out into the camera’s lens.

Most studio photography is done on relatively small scales – a person or an object is lit, usually with between one and three lights that cover the breadth of the subject. Shooting something large is an entirely different story; there isn’t a soft box large enough to cover the size of legendary photographer Joe McNally’s (unpublished) project for National Geographic Magazine, which he discusses in this video from AdoramaTV.

Flying through the air at speeds exceeding 155 mph (250 km/h) in nothing more than a wingsuit is scary enough for most of us, but let’s take a minute and consider the photographers who are tasked with standing in the target area as this human bird, Alexander Polli, flies straight towards them like a heat-seeking missile! Take a look at Polli’s jaw-dropping feat and listen for the photographers:

We’ve discussed the concept of light painting before, but this video taken at the Orlando Watersports Complex brings the practice to a whole new level. Instead of premeditated shapes and patterns being drawn onto the image, photographer Patrick Rochon (in a project sponsored by Red Bull) attaches strip lights onto wakeboards and has athletes perform their manoeuvres in the dark.

We’re are becoming rather spoiled when it comes to all the stunning timelapse footage we come across and, without fail, we always make to sure to express how time consuming and laborious they are to take from a concept to a finished clip.

When it comes to protecting your online photography there are many ways to prevent people from copying or distributing your artwork.

We often look at the photos of some the of the best commercial photographers and think, if only I had the equipment they had… But the truth is that the photography is more in the photographer than in the camera. Take, for instance, this video of professional photograhper Douglas Sonders who uses a broken Holga film camera for the first time since he was in college.

Amateur photographer Alan Friedman combines his passions for astronomy and photography by capturing photos of the sun, moon, and other celestial bodies from his own backyard. At a TEDx event, Friedman explained how, with relatively simple equipment, he gets stunning photographic results that you might expect to see from NASA satellites or sophisticated observatories:

There are a lot of things that make for a great photographer. Understanding composition, light, and the technique required to make a great picture are only part of the puzzle. One of the most important aspects of being a really great photographer is being able to make your clients feel comfortable in front of the camera.