fbpx

DIY Photography

Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time

Search

Submit A Story

How to create a natural light portrait studio in your garage in under 5 minutes

by Leave a Comment

While I’m a big proponent of using flash in my photography, particularly portraits, there are times when the natural light gives you everything you need without the addition of flash. And sometimes, it’s almost there, but might need a little help from a reflector or two to help wrangle the natural light to fit the look you’re after.

That last bit is the principle used here as Pye Jirsa walks us through building up a home portrait studio in a garage in under 5 minutes. It’s a setup that lets you create some great looking portraits that look like they could have been done in a large studio with a ton of fancy expensive lighting, except, it wasn’t. It was a garage.

[Read More…]

Understand the difference between high and low key portraits and how to shoot them both

by Leave a Comment

There seems to be a lot of confusion as to exactly what high and low key portraits are and the differences between them. At least, there seems to be whenever I spend some time browsing on social media. A lot of people seem to think that high key means “overexposed” and that low key means “underexposed”. But things couldn’t be further from the truth.

In this video, fashion photographer and educator Lindsay Adler walks us through the process of creating both high and low key beauty portrait looks. She explains exactly what she’s going for with each look, why, and how she’s going to achieve it.

[Read More…]

How to create lighting gradients in your shots with coloured gels

by Leave a Comment

Using coloured gels can be a little unforgiving, especially if you’re new to using strobes. But one of the biggest reasons using gels can be tricky, is due to how hard it can be to use multiple coloured gels in the same setup. Coloured lights do not play well together and unlike paint, where you can create new and wonderful colours by mixing them, mixing coloured light often results in dull, washed-out colours. Coloured gels do not mix and consequently must ordinarily be kept separate in your shot at all times.

Thankfully though, in today’s setup, I will be showing you how to mix coloured gels with incredible ease, in fact, it’s so easy, we’ll only be using one light to do it!

[Read More…]

Here is your perfect lighting setup for shooting high school graduate portraits

by 2 Comments

Having been a school and graduation Photographer for 20 years, I have changed my lights several times, always looking at improving my workflow, quality and stability light output, photographing hundreds of pupils per school per day, the importance of stable, colour consistent lighting is essential for fast post-editing and printing.

By far the best and most rewarding move was to go all battery-powered lighting in 2015. I will give a few details of how I have tweaked my kit over the years to get to my perfect balance of power, weight set up and transport.

[Read More…]

Take these five steps to instantly improve your portraits

by Leave a Comment

Although I generally believe in “instant improvement” as much as I believe in fairytales, there are situations in which you actually can instantly improve your photos. You just need to pay more attention to what you’re doing and take a few steps to make your images a whole lot better. In this video, Matt Granger gives you five steps you can take to shoot significantly better portraits.

[Read More…]

This in-depth Photoshop retouching tutorial covers everything you need to know for fantastic portraits

by 1 Comment

Coming to us from photography Eli Infante is this 33-minute long retouching tutorial that covers a whole range of processes you might want to subject your portraits to in Photoshop. Eli classes it as an “intermediate” tutorial, focusing on some slightly advanced techniques including Frequency Separation, Dodge & Burn as well as colour grading.

But Eli also touches on some of the other important aspects of processing portrait photography and Photoshop in general, including Camera RAW, Selective Colour and Colour Balance, to produce a fantastic final result.

[Read More…]

Watch these four awesome one-light portrait setups in just 10 minutes

by Leave a Comment

Most of us end up getting so bogged down with gear at some point that it can be difficult to choose exactly what gear we’re going to want to take to a session – especially when it comes to lighting. I’m sure I’m not the only one whose bags are comprised of 20% gear we’ll use and 80% “just in case” gear that we hardly ever use.

Sometimes, though, it’s nice to bring it down to the bare basics, carry less gear, and keep things simple with just one light. And for those just starting out, perhaps one light is all you may have. But fear not! In this video, photographer John Gress walks us through four very effective lighting setups that each use only a single light.

[Read More…]

This photographer sees letters as colors and turns them into stunning conceptual art

by 4 Comments

Synesthesia is a phenomenon I’ve always found fascinating. And have you ever thought about what it would look like to turn it into photos? Finland-based photographer Dasha Pears has synesthesia and sees every letter in a specific color. She decided to turn these letters into conceptual photos – and Synesthetic Letters were born. This project is not only unusual but also colorful and super-creative. Dasha kindly shared her photos with DIYP, so let’s see what color is the first letter of your name!

[Read More…]

Don’t upset your photographer – they’ll always have the last laugh

by 6 Comments

Many people outside the UK might not know who “Sir” Philip Green is, so let me fill you in a little bit. He’s the “business tycoon” who ran Arcadia Group – a company his wife owns – into the ground. Arcadia owns Burton, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, Miss Selfridge, Topshop, and a number of other big UK high street chains that were recently sent into administration, putting over 13,000 jobs at risk.

Needless to say, he’s not a very popular person in the UK right now. Neither amongst his friends nor the general public. So one would think that when he’s about to have his photo taken for press coverage, he’d do as little possible to upset the photographer and present a positive image. Well, apparently not, as Jake Walters discovered before proceeding to shoot him as the “prick” that he says he was.

[Read More…]

Confused by lighting terms? Here’s what they all mean

by Leave a Comment

If you’re new to working with flash, especially when shooting portraits, all of the different terms for different lights can be quite confusing. With no context whatsoever, “key”, “fill”, “rim”, “kicker”, etc. are all kind of vague and non-descript. Once you understand the purpose for each, though, the naming convention becomes quite obvious.

In this video, photographer John Gress walks us through each of the different terms used for different types of lighting position, as well as how and why each of them are used when shooting portraits. He also mentions some of the names different photographers seem to use for the same thing – often a big cause of confusion judging by some of the posts I see on social media.

[Read More…]

Recent Posts