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How I create Hollywood glamour portraits in the studio with continuous lights and DIY cookies

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If I look back at how I learned to take pictures, the path isn’t straight at all. But this isn’t necessarily just because I took wrong turns (yes including selective colour, and cheap tripod). It’s also down to my goals changing. Constantly. One of the things that has changed significantly over the years are my goals for light.

I remember when I first saw someone take pictures of a model, he was using a big soft-box and was really impressed by the technical quality of the result – pin sharp due to a very small aperture, which in turn was made possible by tonnes of light. The light was also big so the result was perfectly even but directional light with soft shadow transitions.

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7 DIY gobos using items from around your home

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Gobos can be wonderful things. They’re essentially stencils or templates that go between the light and your subject. They’re designed to help shape the light and project patterns. But you don’t have to cut them out of card yourself. You can use pretty much anything to cast a shadow on your subject or the backdrop. In this video from photographer Bill Lawson, we see 7 household items that we can turn into DIY gobos.

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How to get awesome photos with a boring background

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Shooting indoors, especially in somebody’s home, often leads to some rather dull backgrounds. Usually, you’re stuck with just a bare solid coloured wall. But whether you’re using flash or continuous light, there are things you can do to make things more interesting.

This video from photographer, Svitlana Vronska shows us one way to make things more interesting. With the help of a large sheet of white board from the dollar store.

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How to light a bathroom portrait mixing natural light with LED lights and cookies

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A bathroom might seem an odd place to make a portrait, but then most of our bathrooms aren’t as appealing as this one.

In this video from Fuji X-Photographer Damien Lovegrove, we see how we can light such a scene using continuous LED lights, and cookies to help break up and scatter the light for a more natural appearance.

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How I Shot This Farm House Environmental Portrait with a Perforated Cardboard

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I took this photo as part of a lighting class in Costa Rica. The theme was people who represent the spirit of the farm where the class was held. It was a colonial building hidden in the country side of Costa Rica. While we were fortunate to have a  great model, I used a few simple tricks to make the scene work.

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Cameras You Want To Eat – Camera Cookie Cutters

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Things have been busy here at DIYP headquarters. I am very exited to be adding a new member to the DIYP family of products – A Camera Cookie Cutter set. Here we go:

Have you ever loved your camera so much that you wanted to eat it? Well, now’s your chance. Through the cutting edge technology of Camera Cookie Cutters, you can not only frame your dough but eat it too!![Read More…]

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