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Dear Model…, kindest regards, Other Model. XXX

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A short while back Jen Brook wrote an open letter to photographers on behalf of models. Here is a second letter from her to her fellow models. It is actually packed with information for photographers as well.

Dear (new’ish) Model,

My name is Other Model. I have spent the last couple of years finding out a few things that I wish I’d known from the start. Please don’t think I’m patronizing as I mean this only in goodwill, as there is absolutely no gain for me by sharing these cheats. Not all of my points will be valid for you as posing varies in each genre. Just take what you can and ignore the rest. If only one suggestion helps your future career then my time has been well spent… [Read More…]

Making People Look Like Individuals In Portraits

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Today’s post by Andreas Bergmann is about communications with your subjects and making them feel good so they look good on camera.


Robyn isn’t just “a person”, she is sparkly, cheeky and silly, and it shows!

So, this turned out to take quite a while writing, and it is loooong, so get your caffeine pills ready people, today we’re talking about making people look like individuals in portraits.

A portrait is more than a topographical description of the face of a human being. It is indeed a topographical description, but it is more than that. A portrait says something about the depicted human being’s attitude, their emotions, their personality, their passion, their job, their life and it makes people who see the portrait go “That’s the person I know right there”, and people who don’t know the person feel like they know a bit more than just how the person look. Getting this into a portrait has very little to do with technical stuff, and a lot to do with personal interaction. Obviously in order to create a technically competent image, or at least to make an image look the way you want it too, you have to be technically competent. Googling for 2 seconds will give you a ton of guides to technically good portraiture, that isn’t what we’re talking about today, we’re talking about making people look like individual human beings, so get ready for fuzzy subjects, weird ideas and stuff that generally intimidate the hell out of technical introverts like myself.[Read More…]

Why I Started Creating My Own Locations

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I guess none of you’d be surprised if we start this post by saying that location matters. In fact it is probably one of the more dominant elements of a photograph.

This is pretty much what most photographers gather after a few months of shooting. Actually, it is bigger than that, a location can make or break a photo, and if you have a “picture in your head” the further your location is from your vision, the more work (or compromises) you’ll need to get to your final image.

So, why am I telling you what you already know? Because until recently (actually until I made this very photograph) I have always looked for a location that would match my vision and will need as little changes as possible to get to that final result.[Read More…]

Saying No To Jobs And Getting Paid

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This post by Andreas Bergmann explores some of the business aspects of being a photographer. Mainly, Should you work for free, and should you accept under paid jobs

One of the hardest lessons to learn, and not only learn but accept and incorporate into your way of doing things, is that sometimes you just need to say no to jobs. For your own sake, for your client’s sake, and for your career’s sake. I think this is proportionally harder the earlier you are in your career as a photographer, and making these decisions can feel like walking a tightrope, but I sure would have benefited from someone sitting me down and telling me this a looooong time ago. So today we’re going to talk about saying no to jobs, and getting paid.[Read More…]

I Took Headshots Of 80 People In One Day. It Hurt

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You know that moment when you agree to do a favor for a friend and it turns into something a bit… well, more? This weekend I ended up taking headshots of 80 people during six non-stop hours of shooting. Here is the story, what I learned, and some random thoughts on the experience.

I’m not a professional photographer (I don’t accept payment for my work), but I do enjoy it and spend quite a bit of time on it. A few months ago a friend planning a single day DC area startup networking event asked if I’d be willing to spend two hours doing simple headshots of people who wanted updated pictures to use on their Linkedin profiles or bio pages.[Read More…]

Photographs Of Little People Show An Alternate World Hidden In The Streets

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London based artist, Slinkachu, uses model humans and everyday objects to create and photographs alternate happenings that may have been in your everyday-normal street.

In his project titled Little People, Slinkachu creates tiny installations of small people and leaves them on the street (as his clever tag line goes – Abandoning little people since 2006).

While the installations are an art by themselves, the photos of those installations are an important part of the art.

Each project is accompanied by a set of images (usually 3 ) showing the world (1) as seen by a fellow little person, (2) as seen by us humans, and (3) something in between. Here are the ones that go with the title image:[Read More…]

Cera Hensley Creates Fantasy Worlds On A 3 By 3 Feet Table

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Cera Hensley, recreates fantasy worlds from everyday objects, and she does it all on a 3×3 feet table.

Cera photographs custom crafted landscapes, and completes them with miniature photos of models separately taken in front of a white backdrop. Playing with perspective and angles, the worlds are mischievous, annoying or surreal yet completely believable.

The process involves pre-visualizing the scene, building the landscape and posing the models to fit. Here are some more samples of her work along with some behind the scenes of their creations taken from two f her projects: Here Nor There and Mime Adventures.[Read More…]

Liftoff 360º Shows Si-Fi 3D Light Paintings

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Today on the blog we are hosting master light painter Patrick Rochon who collaborated with Eric Pare on a 360 light painting project. That means that unlike “regular” light painting which are 2D, the 360 light paintings can be rotated and viewed from any angle.

This part of the project is called Liftoff Liftoff 360º and is summed in the video below. More info, awesome light painting and gear satisfaction after the jump.[Read More…]

The Comprehensive Tech Guide To Pinhole Photography

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If you’re somebody who likes to take film photographs, you know the satisfaction you get from a film photo that you just don’t feel when you use digital. Just imagine seeing the first photo you get out of a camera you designed and built yourself!

The process of designing and building a camera may seem daunting, but with a little patience and the help of this guide and some further reading, you’ll be able to do it. You can use this information to figure out what you want to build, gather some simple materials and tools, and build it!

I want it to be clear that building a pinhole camera relies on your abilities, available materials, and your desired outcome. As a result, this guide is less of a step-by-step and more of a lesson on how pinhole cameras work, the physics and math involved, and some practical knowledge I gained while researching and building my own cameras. [Read More…]

Watching The Exposure Cycle In Slow Mo Reveals Some Impressive Engineering

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Watching a camera shutter go in slow motion is both educating and amazing. The exposure cycle is well known:

  1. Mirror goes up
  2. front curtain moves down, exposing the CCD
  3. back curtain slides down blocking the CCD from further exposure
  4. front curtain moves back into upwards “ready” position
  5. mirror goes back down.

Actually there is a 1.5 step where the back curtain moves up, getting ready to go down later, but this step is hidden from us as it happens behind the (still closed) front curtain.

This cycle can go as fast as 1/8000 of a second on some of the more professional camera bodies.

I thought it would be fun to watch different cameras go at the shutter sequence in slow mo. Note that some of the clips were not taken with a pro camera but rather with the $450 Nikon V1. Personally I was surprised at the backlash the mirror goes through on the rerun step.

[Read More…]

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