Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
When I started out, I always thought: If I could shoot in New York City, Tokyo, Paris or Amsterdam, my street photos would be much better…
It turned out that it’s all about your imagination, creativity and patience. To be honest, I’ve captured my favorite street photos in the ugliest of all places. Sure, it’s a bit more challenging to find the extraordinary in the ordinary – but isn’t that what street photography is all about?
A challenging location is not just one you’d call “ugly,” It may just not suitable for the project you’re working on. Your client will have their expectations from you, and the location can make it difficult to meet them. Marcin Lewandowski from Adorama discusses this problem and gives you some great tips for overcoming the challenges and getting the best out of your location.
A few weeks ago, a model friend of mine, Rachelle Kathleen, and I were planning to meet for a fun little photo shoot. Instead of searching out the usual beautiful locations around where we live, I had the idea to do just the opposite. I wanted to go somewhere “ugly” by all conventional photography standards, and then see what we could do with it, and Lowe’s seemed like the perfect option.
As photographers, you’ll often have to deal with the unknown. You won’t always be able to scout locations before the shoot, and sometimes you’ll just have to work with what you have. Photographer Manny Ortiz shares three tips that will help you shoot even in really bad locations. You need to take the most of what you have, and these tips will show you how to do it.
Sometimes even in the crappiest conditions you can make great photos. Although, I thought this was impossible in the part of the city where I live. However, this video from Jordan Matter helped me change my point of view. It shows you how to choose great locations for your headshots even when you’re limited to a very ugly neighborhood.
Jordan wanders around the neighborhood he says to be the ugliest in New York City (I don’t know which one it is, though). Only one block around his studio, he and his model Juliette Garrett managed to find five locations to make excellent portraits.
Everyone has those days when it would be better if they just stayed in bed. Photographers also have them, and often things simply don’t go as you’ve planned. Thomas Heaton shows what it looks like when a landscape photographer has a bad day. And no matter what kind of photography you do, you’ve probably had a day like this, too.
For anybody who shoots outside of a set or the studio, location scouting is almost a necessity. Whether you’re shooting video or stills, if you have a specific look in mind for the final result, you need to have a suitable location. Sure, you can skip the whole planning thing, and just drive around while shooting in the hopes that you’ll eventually find a spot. For some run & gun styles of shooting that might actually work, but for a lot of things, it doesn’t.
Location scouting allows you sort out shooting spots in advance. It lets you plan ahead and account for things that would otherwise be impossible to foresee had you just stumbled across it while out shooting. This free checklist from StudioBinder, helps make your location scouting life a little easier by reminding you of the things that you may need to check when at a location.
Wildlife and their habitat are facing a new threat—from unethical practices deployed by a new breed of nature photographers. An exponential surge in the popularity of nature photography is unknowingly altering species behaviour and creating habitat disturbances.
Shooting with only available light can be quite a challenge sometimes. The same goes for shooting in small spaces, as well as shooting in ugly locations. But what happens when all three conditions meet? Can you imagine taking professional-looking fashion photos in a tiny, ugly backyard shed with nothing but available light? Irene Rudnyk can, and as a matter of fact, she did an amazing job shooting in these conditions. In this video, she shows you how she did it, so you can learn how to take magnificent shots even in impossible conditions.
You’ll find and hear plenty of travel photography tips all over the internet. Many of them are useful, but others may sound pretty obvious. This is why Mitchell Kanashkevich has created this video with seven travel photography tips you aren’t likely to hear very often.
You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube and Facebook.
can change a lens mid-rappel, swap a memory card while treading water, or use a camel as a light stand.
To see more of his work please visit his studio website blurMEDIAphotography, or follow him on Twitter, 500px, Google Plus or YouTube.
JP’s photography is available for licensing at Stocksy United.
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