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Secrets of A Full Time Travel Photographer: Q&A With Sara Melotti

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Next in our ongoing Photographer Spotlight series is Sara Melotti.

Sara is an Italian photographer, content creator, storyteller and world traveler, currently based in New York City. Sara’s work has been featured by many international brands and publications including the New York Times, Vanity Fair and Glamour.

In 2015 Sara created Quest for Beauty and began traveling the world to photograph women immersed in their everyday life “to show that real beauty can be found in every woman no matter the age, size, bone structure, skin tone or background”.

(We have also featured Sara before with her sensational article: Instagram Created a Monster – A No Nonsense Guide To What’s Really Going On.)

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Photographer builds up over 3 million followers with his horror photography

If you use Facebook, you may have come across a 360 image featuring a psych slasher murdering his victims shared by one of your friends. If you have, then there is a high possibility that you have already seen the work of Adam Martyn Ewings. Through the creation of these 360 images and a bucketload of creativity, Adam has amassed over 3 million followers on his Facebook page. I contacted Adam to get some insight into the dark depths of his mind.

[warning, strong graphics ahead, jump at your own risk]

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A Visit to KelbyOne and Interview With Scott Kelby

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I recently had the chance to visit the KelbyOne offices and studio space near Tampa Bay, Florida and sit down with President and CEO Scott Kelby for an interview.

I have always been a big fan of Scott’s concise, open and honest approach to photography education.

My first Kelby book was the The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book back in 2008 (which I still refer to once in a while) and I regularly follow Scott’s Photoshop Insider blog and catch The Grid when I can.

I’m even more impressed after touring the KelbyOne space and finding out more about what goes on behind the scenes to produce all of that KelbyOne content and Scott’s approach to photography education.

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Photography at 200mph – An interview with motorsports photographer Kurt Bradley

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Kurt Bradley is a former competitive driver turned motorsports photographer. He’s shot top-level international racing events such as Formula 1, MotoGP, and WEC, but also attends regional track days and car shows, plus the X-Games.

Kurt has experience with photographing the unique setting of nighttime road racing. Few races go into the night – two of the most famous are the 24 Hours of Le Mans and 24 Hours of Daytona – but the visuals are one-of-a-kind. Kurt attended Daytona this year and was able to share some his insights from the race, which he shot for Jalopnik, a popular automotive blog.

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This photographer creates crazy Toy Stories using practical effects

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I’m amazed by the art talented photographers can make with toys, and one of such photographers is Mitchel Wu. He creates “Toy Stories” using the toys from the popular Pixar’s franchise. His photos show action frozen in time, but he doesn’t add the objects in Photoshop. Everything you see is created in the scene and in real time. So, it’s real water and coffee splashes, real “flying” objects, and even real fire! A real mess, but most of all, real fun.

Mitchel was kind enough to talk to us and tell us some more about his work and how he creates these amazing photos that freeze the action in time.

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How focal length AND subject distance affect your headshots

We’ve all seen the animations showing “how focal length affects your subject“. Whenever one gets posted, the smart ones chime in with “It’s nothing to do with your focal length, it’s all about subject distance”. And, they’re right. The confusion really all comes down to equivalent framing of the subject. If you stay where you are and just change focal length, nothing happens to the distortion in your subject’s face. They just get smaller or larger in the frame.

But, if you want to keep your subject the same size regardless of lens used, you have to move. With a longer lens you go further away. With a shorter one, you have to get closer. To illustrate this, the folks at Fstoppers have put a video together showing how the two work in combination with each other. The correlation between changing focal length and subject distance.

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Photographer creates surreal moody art with only stock photos

Recently I got involved in the old debate on using stock images in personal art. The outrage of not taking the images in a composite yourself. This is a debate that will probably still be going until the end of time. My stance is that art is art. It’s not how you create it that matters, but the end product. This is why today I am featuring an artist who creates his art purely with stock images.

Pulkit Kamal, also known as Polka, is a self-taught artist from Mumbai, India. He makes surreal and ambient atmospheric images only from stock pictures available online under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. His visual art depicts dormant human emotions such as depression and anxiety, and are often accompanied with poetic excerpts from his unpublished fiction novel ‘The cold you, the cold me.’ Pulkit holds a master’s degree in business administration from UPES, Dehradun, and is currently managing advertising and branding for a brand in Mumbai.

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Using both Blender and Photoshop can create the most surreal photos

Domenico Sellaro is a rising talent! A young Digital Artist who specializes in Creative Retouching, and Matte Painting. He began to teach himself Photoshop in 2008, but has since taught himself how to use 3D programs like Sculptris and Blender too. During these years he has been selected for international exhibitions, become featured in the Wacom gallery online, and received features in international Photoshop magazines. He is now Founder and CEO at The Creative Dot and he’s working as Freelance Digital Artist for some clients from Europe and other countries.

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Mark Rodriguez’s work is too dark to handle

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When it comes to photography, Photoshop, and all things related, I tend to lean towards the stylised work. Not just my own, but in people whose work I admire. So I am pleased to bring you the work of Mark Rodriguez a.k.a Godriguez. I always hear people complain that they don’t know how to find inspiration, or can’t find it. Well Mark must have stolen their share, because it feels like every other day a new image is released on his social media. If there is such a thing as an inspiration tree, Mark has silently ripped it from the ground and hidden it in his wardrobe! Maybe this was his secret to winning 2015 Photoshop world Guru!…….or maybe it was just his amazing talent, meh, I prefer the tree story haha.[Read More…]

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