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Five composition mistakes you should avoid with your photography and how to fix them

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Composition is one of those things that often gets talked about in photography. After all, it’s one of the fundamental aspects of it. If your composition is bad, it doesn’t matter whether you’ve got the exposure good or if you’ve even got your subject in focus. We all know about the “rule of thirds” and the “golden ratio”, but there’s so much more to composition than that.

In this video, photographer Joris Hermans talks about the five compositional mistakes he sees being made all the time. Mistakes you should avoid, and how to avoid them.

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Here are Five product photography tips and tricks to get those creative juices flowing

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Product photography is a lot of fun to experiment with, even if you’re not a product photographer. It can teach us things about composition, light and how different surfaces react to that light which we might not otherwise have discovered. But once you’ve gone past the basics, how do you push yourself to go that bit further?

In this video, the folks at COOPH offer up five great tips for creative product photography that you might not have thought of. Some will challenge your technical abilities while others are just to get those inspirational juices flowing.

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This is how food and drink commercials can fool you with their trickery

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It’s not much of a secret that a lot of commercials including food and drinks aren’t really showing you what you think they’re showing you. But this video shows off quite a few “food” photography tricks that I hadn’t seen before. Screwing a pizza down to a wooden board? Who does that?

Anyway, while you do have to be careful using some of these tricks if you’re actually selling the product you’re claiming to show – you don’t want to get into legal trouble with advertising standards authorities – this video does present some very neat tricks indeed.
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This genius trick gives you an infinite white background for shooting small products

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This is one of the coolest “hacks” I’ve seen in a while. When tasked to shoot a bunch of small products on a white seamless, you have two options. You can either build a white seamless set, light it and get everything just perfect. But that takes a lot of time and effort.

The other option is what filmmaker Justin Gustavison did. He strapped a white piece of card to his camera, placed the camera on a turntable and then surrounded it with the subjects he had to shoot. Justin posted the results to Instagram and it looks like it works brilliantly.[Read More…]

How to create a perfect (fake) burger for a photo shoot

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You probably already know why burgers look delicious in ads, yet they usually look pretty sad when you unwrap them. It’s because food photographers often use some dirty tricks to make food look appetizing. In this video from Well Done, food stylist Rishon Hanners transforms a sad, drive-through cheeseburger into a delicious-looking Whopper. She will show you how to create a perfect burger for your photo shoot – well, at least a picture-perfect one.

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These are four lesser-known “secret weapons” of wedding photographers

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When we do a photo shoot, there are a lot of things to think about if we want to take great photos and make our clients happy. We focus on choosing the right gear for the task, organizing our time and so on But there are some things we can do that seem so small, yet they can be of great help. In this video, Wes Perry will share with you four of these lesser-known, but powerful “secret weapons” that will make you more efficient as a wedding photographer. And they have nothing to do with gear.

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Ten tips to speed up Photoshop that no one told you about

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When you purchase Photoshop CC license, you can start using it straight away. However, there are some adjustments you can make to have the program run much faster and more smoothly. In this video, Colin Smith of photoshopCAFE will give you ten lesser-known tips for speeding up Photoshop that will make your workflow much faster and more efficient.

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Six ways to film like a cinematographer but think like an editor

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Grinding an editor’s gears is easy, most cinematographers can do it blindfolded. If you shoot video – for any reason at all – and you’re not an accomplished editor – you’re undoubtedly indulging in at least one of the Six Sins of the Cinematographer.

If you want to master video production — and become every editor’s favorite shooter — here’s how to avoid the Six Sins:

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These 10 life hacks will turn your studio into a photographer’s Batcave

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Having a photography studio is fun, but it is even more fun when you start applying simple and cheap solutions, plus common sense to make your shooting experience (and your clients’) smoother.

This is the list of what I think are the smartest and most useful photography studio life hacks.

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How to show your camera some love this Valentine’s Day

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It’s that time of year again. That time where we show those nearest to us how much we love them. Perhaps you’ve been neglecting them a little recently? Maybe it’s time to show them a little affection and give them a good scrub?

This video from the folks at COOPH offers up some good care and maintenance tips for keeping our cameras running in tip-top condition. While we can’t always protect them the way we’d like – after all, gear’s for using – there are things we can do to help reduce the chances of early death.

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