fbpx

DIY Photography

Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time

Search

Submit A Story

How to take classical musician portraits that rock

by Leave a Comment

 

If you shoot portraits at all I can almost guarantee that you’ll get asked at some point by a musician to have some images taken. Whether you’re a professional or an amateur it doesn’t seem to matter. Musicians are generally hungry for photographs and need a constant carousel of images for their publicity and social media.

However, it’s not always that straightforward to take a great shot of a musician. And generally, they don’t just need action shots of them playing, they need a mixture of headshots, shots with the instrument, full-body shots, atmospheric shots, and often shots that would work on an album cover, even in today’s age of digital music downloads.

[Read More…]

Cinematic workflow tips to save you time on set

by 2 Comments

You know how you get to the end of the day and it feels like you’ve only done half of your shot list? We’re gonna fix this. Today’s episode is all about knives. Knives, and making your workflow extremely efficient.

If your video company is a one-man-band, or even a small crew, running a tight ship on set, will have a dramatic effect on your ability to deliver. And a few tricks can go a long way in terms of doing more with less. My old boss used to say that “anyone can do a lot with a ton of resources, the magic comes when you can do a lot with little“.  So today, we will look at a few things that I found over the year to really improve my workflow when I go on location.

[Read More…]

Here are four ways to find perfect location for your next shoot

Location scouting is one of the important parts of a photo shoot. There are a few ways to do it and in this video, Walid Azami suggests for of them. They’re all very efficient, but don’t come without some drawbacks. Walid reflects on both the good and the bad sides and gives you a whole lot of tips to make your location scouting just perfect.

[Read More…]

The Hollyland Mars 300 is an affordable HDMI transmitter with decent performance

by 2 Comments

I’ll be honest. I’d never heard of Hollyland when they reached out to me and asked if I could have a look at their Mars 300 wireless video transmitter (Amazon | B&H). Will I be keeping my eye out for more stuff from them after having tried read? Read on to find out. 

The Mars 300 is a new entry-level wireless video transmitter. So why would you need or use one of these?

Well, there are a few different use cases for wireless video transmitters.

[Read More…]

Making it work on real life budgets and why Content is King

by 1 Comment

“Content is king” is what people say. Well, recently I delivered a video clip that was part of a series of clips I produced for a client. I wasn’t 100% proud of it on a technical level.  So why did I still deliver it to the client? This was, after all, only one part of a series of clips. I could have delivered all the rest and explained to the client that this one wasn’t quite perfect and so would rather not release it.

I still sent it to the client because I knew that the content in the clip, the story if you would, was very engaging. And if you have a great story and decent audio, I believe you can get away with it if some of the shots aren’t perfect.

First, let me explain why the shots weren’t perfect. This was a corporate shoot and, very often in corporate shoots, you don’t have full control of what and how you’re going to shoot.

[Read More…]

PIXEO uses crowdsourcing to show you the best photo spots around the world

by 1 Comment

PIXEO is a new crowdsourcing app designed to help you find the perfect locations. Whether on vacation or planning a trip specifically for photography, PIXEO wants to be your one-stop shop for finding where to take your camera.

At the moment, it’s limited to iPhone users, and it has quite a small community. At the moment, the website says it has 480+ users. But those users have uploaded more than 13,000 photos of over 10,780 locations around the world. And it’s only been live for a couple of weeks. So, there’s plenty of time for it to grow.

[Read More…]

DIY Options for Charging Drone Batteries Off-Grid

by 10 Comments

If you have a drone, sooner or later you’re going to want to charge your drone battery off-grid.

The problem is that drones use big batteries, so to charge a big battery you need an even bigger battery – a simple solar panel USB charger might be good enough to charge your phone, but it isn’t going to provide enough current to charge a drone battery.

There are a few commercial options available that can charge your drone batteries without an AC outlet, but I decided to build my own…(spoiler – don’t bother!)

[Read More…]

How to approach challenging locations and get the best out of them

A challenging location is not just one you’d call “ugly,” It may just not suitable for the project you’re working on. Your client will have their expectations from you, and the location can make it difficult to meet them. Marcin Lewandowski from Adorama discusses this problem and gives you some great tips for overcoming the challenges and getting the best out of your location.

[Read More…]

3 tips to take great photos even in bad locations

by 3 Comments

As photographers, you’ll often have to deal with the unknown. You won’t always be able to scout locations before the shoot, and sometimes you’ll just have to work with what you have. Photographer Manny Ortiz shares three tips that will help you shoot even in really bad locations. You need to take the most of what you have, and these tips will show you how to do it.

[Read More…]

How to make a studio shoot look like a location shoot

by 3 Comments

I just finished up a handful of promotional shots with actor Levi Fiehler and it went well. One of our shots was an odd editorial photo with a him sitting next to a head in a box.. because hey, why not?! I used a hand painted backdrop and a faux wood floor and I lit it dark and moody. I was happy with the way it turned out except for one factor. I wish it didn’t look like it was shot with a studio backdrop. If it looked like it was on location, the shot might work better. The only “giveaway” that it was done in a studio was the roll at the bottom of the backdrop. So I realized if I put a piece of wood molding along the bottom of the backdrop, it would look like a wall and a floor instead of a backdrop and a floor.

[Read More…]

Recent Posts