DIYPhotography.net

The following post about working with dry ice was made by Morgana Creely.

Working with dry ice can be a lot of fun and certainly adds a dramatic flair to your images. However there are a couple of things you need to keep in mind.

Dry Ice is extremely cold [-78.5°C/-109.3°F] and needs to be handled with care at all times. To avoid burns, keep it away from the skin at all times, and wear heavy gloves where possible.

It's also important that when using dry ice you are in a well-ventilated area. Dry ice is a form of carbon dioxide and use in a poorly ventilated area will cause headaches and nausea. Click to continue ›

Back when I started DIYP, one of the first successful posts was a project called A Burning Light Bulb. The post explains how to break a light bulb and photograph it's burning filament. This is really a fun photography project for a weekend (as long as you are careful with the glass and electricity).

For the new video with lots of great tips from Jon Beard, scroll down after the jump. For some blogging ponders read on.

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It looks like where ever we look HD-DSLRs are gaining momentum and more and more photographers are using videography as a way to express themselves, to offer services to their customers and to create art.

No wonder with HD-DSLRs like Nikon's D300s and Canon's EOS 5D Mark II you can use all your exquisite optics and get results that will not shame a pro video cam.

With all that it is no wonder that video DSLR started getting some hacks and mods.  [image by blhphotography] Click to continue ›

The following sliced fruits shots tutorial is by photographer and artist William van der Steen.

The tutorial will take you step by step toward creating an image similar to that wonderful sliced up banana.

here we go Click to continue ›

With Valentines just around the corner and all, I thought I'd share one of the wedding gifts wifey and I got about seven years ago when we got married. Amongst all the gifts, this gift is the one single gift that helped us hold our marriage through some very rough times. Really, I cannot over estimate it one bit.

That said, it is full of commitment so only give it if you're OK with smelling your current significant other's morning breath for the rest of your life. If you are that serious, hit the jump for more details.

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How did I manage not to burn the house down??

Well, first, my wife was not at home, LOL... and second, with the remote trigger in one hand, and an extinguisher in the other... just in case!! ;O))

This is what Filipe Batista had to say when I wondered how he took that shot. The extinguisher bit is enough to hint that no Photoshop was used to create the fire and as they say it the magic industry. Don't worry, that fire is harmless. Unless you touch it.

Filipe was kind enough to share the secretes behind this fire spectacle with DIYP readers:

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Mrs. H. should have known better than to push Steve Hermitage (Flickr) into doing the dishes.

What started out as an innocent dish washing exercise ended as a lab for shooting tiny worlds of soap, and revenge taken against a Tia Maria glass.

This is just too good of a project not to share. It is a ton of fun and the setup is very simple as Steve explains in his setup shot (after the jump).

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It might be just me, but I love fire. I did a little survey and 5 out of 5 photogs I checked with are little pyros too. Maybe it is part of the requirements of the trade. And maybe we're all still small kids who get a buzz from a little fire.

This is why I decided to create a small startup guide for shooting matches - feel free to add/comment and improve. The more ideas we throw into this, the better this guide will be.

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Yea I know, Halloween is almost a month away, but if you're gonna do something fancy, you'd better start preparing.

Here are three completely safe Halloween photography Hacks.

Between making your own pumpkin, cutting a hole in your body and bringing a full Paparazzi band to the party there is no way you'll get tricked. But, you have to start preparing.

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Panning is a photographic technique that provides great separation of subject from background.

The technique is very simple in theory, but takes some practice to perfect.

Here is how it works, you set your camera to a relatively low shutter speed.  Say 1/80 or 1/40 of a second. Next you find a subject that is moving from one side of the frame to the other. Here comes the tricky part. While keeping the subject in a fixed part of the frame (and you do that by panning the lens from side to side) click the shutter.

If you did every thing correctly, you'll end up with a sharp subject and blurred background. This technique takes a lot of practice with the following focus:

1. Finding the exact correct moment to click the shutter is not always trivial.
2. You'll need to avoid any vertical movement - this will create blur in the subject as well. 
3.  You'll have to be in precise sync with the moving speed of your subject, to keep it sharp while blurring the background.

This is why DIYP labs developed several techniques to get panning pictures without ever moving your camera.

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