fbpx

DIY Photography

Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time

Search

Submit A Story

We are always looking for interesting and inspiring tings to share. If you have a tip or a new bit, please share it with us in this link.

If you want to guest post, please contact us here, and let us know what you want to write about.

How fine art photography adds more value to your home

by Leave a Comment

Investing in a quality fine art photography print with subject matter such as a landscape scene can be a valuable addition to your home. And to be specific, the ‘value’ that we are referring to is not the price tag attached to it, but rather the feelings and emotions you experience when viewing an art piece that speaks to you.

Although there are many reasons to invest in fine art photography, your home is your sanctuary, and the décor you choose creates an atmosphere that has a strong impact on how you think and feel. Your home is an extension of your tastes and should speak to who you are.

[Read More…]

I saved $250 by making my own DIY contrast filter holder for the Omega B66 enlarger

by Leave a Comment

Have you ever had a repeated inconvenience that finally makes you say to yourself “okay, I’m done with this garbage”? Well, that’s the exact feeling I had with using contrast filters on my enlarger. Anytime I wanted to use a contrast filter, I needed to use tape to hold it in place while I was printing.

The design of some Omega enlargers requires a removable “cradle” that holds the filters underneath the lens. After a bit of searching online, I found that B&H Photo sells a replacement filter holder for B series enlargers for the low low price of $269. Even used, these things are expensive. eBay had a few listed that were selling for about $79. Unwilling to part with my hard-earned cash for such a frivolous purchase I was left with the only other option- to build one myself.

[Read More…]

Everything you wanted to know about social documentary photography

It takes tremendous skill to immortalize the iron-willed defiance of a protester, a mother’s tender touch, or the resilience on the face of a refugee. This type of powerful imagery strikes a delicate balance between documenting real-life and inspiring social change. It is commonly referred to as social documentary photography. As we discuss this specialty, you will notice that its applications often bleed into other related specialties, such as humanitarian photography and brand narrative.

[Read More…]

5 Tips for Stunning Lens Flares

by Leave a Comment

A lens flare occurs when light reflects off the surface of a lens or other bright object and strikes the camera sensor. Lens flares typically happen when the camera is pointed towards a bright light source, such as the sun or a camera flash. When captured unintentionally, a lens flare can cause unwanted distractions and reduce contrast over the affected area of the image. However, when used creatively and with intent, lens flares can create a dreamy, romantic, and aesthetically pleasing effect in an image and add interest to an otherwise bland photo. In this article, we’ll give you 6 tips for lens flare photography to use on your next photoshoot.

[Read More…]

How shooting abandoned churches in Italy prompt us to think about our future

by 1 Comment

For centuries, church buildings have been a mainstay feature of villages, towns, cities and rural areas throughout Europe. From luxurious and majestic cathedrals to quaint country chapels, many places in Europe are home to religious sanctuaries. Today, some of the religious buildings are maintained in pristine shape, regarded as national treasures, while others meet a rather different handling. Whether on a busy city corner or being taken over by nature somewhere in the countryside, there are many religious buildings slowly getting lost to time and fading from collective memories.

[Read More…]

Personalizing my bags with killer zippers

When one of my zipper pull broke, I thought, “well, that’s not a big deal. I will just add some paracord to replace it”. I like the saying from Mythbusters: “If it is worth doing, it is worth overdoing”, so just adding paracord was not an option. I wanted to personalize my pull and add my logo to it.

I designed a little button in Fusion 360 that fits the paracord pull and has my logo in it. It took some test prints to test the right fit, logo recess depth and filling material. In the end, it looked so nice that I ended up adding it also to my other bags, which were perfectly fine. Paracord can be found in several colours so it’s easy to find your brand colour or a colour you just like.

[Read More…]

Lighting Setup: Pastel Colored Light and Gobos

by Leave a Comment

Ever since I started to use colored lighting, I’ve always battled with the issues that many of us face when combining multiple colors and if you’ve shot with colored gels in the past, I’m sure you’re familiar with what I mean. Images involving multiple colored lights can sometimes look messy or display muddy colors that look almost blocky with clipped color data. But why does this happen? Why do our colored lights often look a mess?

The reason for this is actually fairly simple and in this lighting setup I’ll show you how to mix even delicate pastel colors in the same shot, whilst still maintaining a crisp look.

[Read More…]

Photography’s “cool kids” are leaving Instagram… Is Vero the best alternative?

by 6 Comments

It’s inevitable that Instagram will no longer be the main place new creatives share their work.

Some of you, like me, may think we’re already there, especially given some of the recent decisions made towards a very heavy-handed push towards video and a very open move away from stills.

But regardless of the choices made by IG, no matter what they did or do, IG will inevitably fall off as the cool place to share your work and the core reason for this is time.

The brutal truth of this was echoed when Facebook was no longer the ‘cool’ place to be and that happened when fewer and fewer young people signed up to the service. Simply put, nobody wants to be on the same social media site as their parents and when young people fail to engage, creativity suffers.[Read More…]

Why an e-bike might be your next gear investment

by 1 Comment

Away from the world, the city, and the light pollution, I stood in a green forest where the breeze couldn’t even penetrate the trees surrounding me. It was an area that only existed to me in imagination from multiple times of poring over Google Maps and allowing my mind to wander. Off in the distance I could hear the low rumble of a slow moving freight train struggling to climb up the hill that I had perched myself on. As it got closer, I could see the treeline in the distance interrupted by the heat haze cast off from its exhaust stacks. It was at this moment I could calculate my exposure, as I had a visual reference of its speed. And then I saw the locomotive break the vertical silhouette of the trees. It was, in a way, foreign to the landscape that surrounded it, like a metallic dinosaur crawling through some uninhabited land, miles away from civilization. It was an opportunity that I had only seen when I daydreamed, but became possible all due to… a bike.

[Read More…]

Battle of the bokeh: Comparing six prime lenses

by 11 Comments

I own a few odd-ball prime lenses that hover around the 50mm-ish lens length, and offer some unique bokeh, making them interesting choices for portrait photography. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term “bokeh”, its the out of focus area in the image, or rather the quality or look there-of. For many this is very subjective – one person’s AWESOME bokeh is another’s busy, fussy background.

[Read More…]

Recent Posts