Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
Because the snowdrop shoot what so much fun, I wanted to do something like that again. After I saw the cherry blossoms on my tree, it was crystal clear what comes up next. I wanna shoot one of these with my wet plate camera, but this time I will shoot them on the tree.
When I was little, this tree was my climbing adventure. This tree has seen better days – the weather from the recent years started to ruin some parts of it. But it is still beautiful in the springtime.
Chances are, most of you arriving here are aware of the backstory to this article, but just in case, I’ll quickly catch you up.
A few weeks ago I announced a community competition on my Facebook page; all you had to do to enter was to submit a ‘before’ photo (the raw) and an ‘after’ photo (the final fully retouched photo). There would be two winners; one chosen by a populous vote and one chosen by myself. The winners would then receive their entries fully retouched by myself.
I can almost guarantee that, in terms of modern-day travel, there’s no such thing as secret location anymore. And unless you’re willing to travel hundreds of kilometers deep into the alps or rainforests of distant lands, you’re not going to be the first to discover a picturesque scene.
A recent article from Annabel Claire discusses whether photographers should share the locations of their photos, and to what extent it becomes beneficial over being detrimental.
So is there really any reason to keep the location details of your latest photo a secret?
I wanted to share one of the images created for a tutorial I made, and chat a bit about one of my greatest compositing tips – hair extraction. You’re welcome. But if you’re all, “Thanks for the great tip about compositing Robert!” … But that’s just not enough. I want to know more!” Then you can go buy my tutorial and help pay off my epic student loan debt ….
Working on hitting the trifecta, Tamron has released a new lens which includes a very respectable 70-210mm focal range, a quality packaged compact footprint, and a price targeted at starting shooters. The folks at Midwest Photo and Tamron were kind enough to provide me with a pre-release copy, so I happily took it for a spin.
Before we get too deep into my first impressions, let me tell you that I wouldn’t normally consider a lens in this focal range, with anything less than a f/2.8 aperture available to me. I decided it would be worth considering what this lens had to offer, so here we are. I won’t jump to the conclusion just yet, but let me quickly summarize here and let you know that I enjoyed shooting with this lens and it has some surprising features in store for its price point.
I’d love to have access to a massive studio space with all of the latest amenities. Who wouldn’t?
But in many cases, a living room is all you need to get the dynamic shot you’re looking for. Nearly all of my favorite studio shots were done with my Oliphant backdrops in a 10′ x 15′ room.
You might be wondering, “What if my walls are red? What if I have low ceilings? What if my carpet is burgundy?” Don’t stress — there are simple ways around all of these problems, and I’m here to walk you through them.
She came in for her senior session. Her hair was a mess of tangled waves, unruly and uncooperative. Her face was covered with freckles and dotted with acne. She wasn’t model proportions and the clothing she wore required careful adjustment to keep it from bunching up in places.
She was sweet and shy, a girl not used to attention being focused on herself. But 10 minutes into her session, the shyness wore off, leaving behind a girl full of life and laughter. The session ended, she came back for her screening and the order went into production.
If you can look beyond the painfully obvious click bait nature of the title for a moment, I promise you that the following 5 things need to become a mandatory part of your pre-upload checklist.
Remember you only get one chance to impress with your shots and I know we all get very excited to share an image as soon as we’ve taken it, but just take a few moments to check these 5 things are done before you do so and I promise you’ll thank yourself later.
Most of you have probably heard of the name Laowa by now. They were a rather unknown brand up until recently when they made name for themselves in the landscape photography world with the Laowa 12mm f/2.8 wide angle lens that was well received. Laowa (Venus Optics) is a Chinese brand known for their innovative lenses. Laowa is showing support to the Sony E-mount with releasing their 15mm f/2 that was specifically designed for the E-mount making it possible to make it smaller and lighter than the lenses they make for DSLR mounts. 2 years ago I met the Laowa guys at Photokina and I already briefly tested the prototype of the 15mm there. I was impressed with the sharpness across the frame and was eager to try out the final version. Now that I have this lens for a while I feel confident to write a decent review about it. I used this lens in my own country the Netherlands and took it to Dubai, Norway and Iceland. I have seen a bunch of reviews online but they were mainly technical without a lot of real world examples. In this review I’ll discuss how this lens performs in ‘real world usage’. Most people who are reading my articles know that I am a landscape photographer so you can expect a lot of landscape photography use with this lens.
Lead by spunky frontgirl Ashley Miles, Vinyl Rhino is my favorite cover band in Frederick, Maryland. For years, they’ve rocked our bars with high energy hits from the 80’s to what’s current. Saturday night they stopped by Champions and blew the roof off the place. I was there to capture it on the newly re-released Kodak TMAX P3200.
You can find out more about John on his website or follow him on Facebook and YouTube.
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.
Find my work on My website or follow me on Facebook or My page
