Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
It’s the holiday season and I have a few cool tips to help you upgrade your portraits of family and friends this year. I am going to show you how you can make some glorious DIY portrait backgrounds, complete with bokeh balls, from your Christmas decorations. And if you don’t celebrate Christmas, no worries, you can hit up the Dollar Store and make them from scratch for about 10 bucks.
Be sure to read to the end for My Top 3 Tips for Great Holiday Photos.
It’s time we put some updated sensibilities’ behind the statements “fix it in post” and “getting it right in the camera”.
A few people mentioned these phrases to me recently and honestly, I was surprised to hear how they interpreted the meaning behind them. I was even more surprised and disappointed when I posted the topic on social media today and quite a few people weighed in with very strong opinions and RULES for how things should be done.
I know, I know — I shouldn’t be surprised by people arguing their opinions on social media.
Blinking is a problem that every photographer deals with and while it frustrates many, most photographers come up with little tricks to avoid the blinks, but even those tricks aren’t fool proof and usually don’t account for the real reason the blinks are happening in the first place.
So right out of the box — I want to debunk a common misconception. When you are shooting with flash — doesn’t matter if we are talking speedlight or studio strobes — the flash does NOT cause the blink that you photograph. It very likely does cause your subject to blink — but that blink happens AFTER the shutter closes.
We all look at the most successful photographers and wonder what would it take to “be them”. There are some things that we can point to with certainty that are the key to their success. Skills, intelligence and very importantly, discipline.
You have probably heard the phrase “Work smarter, not harder”. My experience has shown that most successful photographers actually do both, They are definitely hard workers, but they work smart by embracing a set of values and adopting behaviors that help them accomplish their goals and dreams.
The eyes are the window to one’s soul. What truly brings out the eyes in your portraits is a small, yet important detail: catchlights. In this short but very informative video, Joe Edelman takes you through the basics of catchlights – the psychology and science behind them, their importance, as well as plenty of useful tips to get them right and make the best out of your portraits.
Photographing eggs is something Joe Edelman’s become quite well known for, and something he often recommends. 10 years ago, he made a video specifically about the topic and how it helped him to “see the light”. It’s a lesson he often suggests to people who are struggling to understand how light works, and it’s brilliant in its simplicity.
Well, now, Joe has turned that decade-old 4-minute video into a 43-minute experiment for his “Stuck at home photography challenge” series to help stave off the boredom while we’re all stuck at home and isolating ourselves from the outside world.
It’s a strange time. Spring is here and it’s starting to warm back up outside after the winter chill, but no matter where we are in the world, we’re still mostly stuck indoors. For photographers, this can be frustrating. We’ve spent the last few months just itching to get back outside, and now we can’t. What can we do?
Joe Edelman has been thinking about this and over the past few days, he’s been doing a series of videos with photography challenges to try when stuck at home. Naturally, it’s a multi-part series, because we’re going to be here for a while. This one covers some pretty interesting creative macro tips for you to have a go at.
How would you like to have an infinite number of different backgrounds for your portraits? What if I told you that you can? In fact, it’s very likely that you already have this “infinite background machine” at home? Any ideas what it might be?
If you thought of a TV, you were right. In this video, Joe Edelman will tell you all the benefits of using a TV screen as your backdrop, and he’ll also teach you how to use it to make the most of it.
Christmas is over and you may want to pack up the decorations for the next year. But before you do it, there’s a simple, cheap DIY project to try out. In this video, Joe Edelman shows you how to make a bokehlicious background for portraits with the stuff you probably already have at home. And even if you don’t, you’ll need about $10 for this build.
Traveling is wonderful, but it can be stressful if you’re flying with photography gear. You need to transport everything safely, plus avoid any potential misunderstandings at the airport because of the electronics you’re carrying. So, if your photography or video work takes you abroad often, Joe Edelman offers plenty of tips to make your life easier. In this video, he suggests the best bags and gear to carry, as well as packing tips to make your gear safe and make you carefree during a flight.
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