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Five portrait lighting patterns you need to learn

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It seems that there are always things we “need” to learn when it comes to shooting certain genres of photography. And while many of them for a lot of genres do boil down to personal taste, when it comes to portraits, there are some things that you need to know and understand, like lighting techniques – even if you don’t use all of them all of the time.

In this video, photographer Hannah Couzens shows us five different popular portrait lighting styles that every portrait photographer should really know and understand. She also demonstrates them using both hard and soft light, so that you can see how the light actually hits the subject and how to make it more visually pleasing.

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This beginner’s guide to using strobes will help you decide what to buy and how to use it

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Speedlights and strobes can be quite intimidating to new photographers who’ve never had personal experience with them before. Particularly strobes. They’re really not all that difficult to get to grips with. There is a learning curve, for sure, but it’s a fairly short one to get going with the basics.

Photographer Mark Duffy recently gave a tutorial on the basics of strobes in a live stream for UK gear distributor, Transcontinenta. Not wanting to limit the information contained within to just the live stream viewers, Mark’s also shared a copy of the stream to his YouTube channel for everybody else to enjoy, too.

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How to fake a long exposure effect in Photoshop using Path Blur

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The Path Blur has been around in Photoshop for a few years now, but it’s not a commonly used or really understood tool. Something that is pretty common, though, at least as far as photography’s concerned, are long exposures. But it’s not always possible to get a long exposure of a scene we really want to.

In this video, Julieanne Kost from Adobe’s official Photoshop Channel shows us how the Path Blur works and how we can use it to simulate a long exposure shot from a regular static still image, for those times when we’re not able to shoot it for real in-camera.

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Watch and learn the difference between “YouTube lighting” vs “cinematic lighting”

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I thought this was quite an interesting video. It’s an interesting take on how we light for different subject matter. It isn’t saying that one method of lighting is necessarily better or worse than the other, just that the goals of the shoot are very different, the final use for the footage is also very different and so the lighting needs to be different.

In this video, filmmaker Tyler Stalman shows us how we can light both ways using the same equipment. But as well as simply showing us, he also goes into the why of how we light these two things differently and the motivation behind it.

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5 useful gear and camera tricks to get difficult shots the easy way

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There are certain techniques that ubiquitous to commercials we often see on TV. But achieving some of them can be quite tricky and/or expensive to achieve. They often utilise difficult-to-master techniques or require expensive equipment like motorised camera sliders.

Well, in this video, commercial filmmaker Joris Hermans blasts through five camera and gear tricks that he uses on actual shoots. Tricks that let us get some of those shots without requiring any extra gear. Well, maybe just a little cardboard and some gaffer tape.

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Stop shooting bad b-roll – here’s how to take yours to the next level

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Regardless of what you think b-roll is or how you might use it in your productions, b-roll has become a hot topic lately. It’s something that just about anybody who shoots video needs to incorporate if they want their work to stand out. And while exactly what b-roll is and how it should be used are discussions for another day, how you shoot it is relevant to all potential definitions.

It’s easy to get lazy with b-roll, especially if you just see it as a way to break up boring monotonous shots or a transition between sequences. But even then, it needs to tell a story or expand on what we’re hearing and seeing in other shots. And it’s easy to shoot it badly. In this video, filmmaker Thomas Alex Norman shows us how we can adjust our shooting techniques to make the best b-roll we can.

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Here are five amazing Lightroom Classic tips you probably didn’t know (but should)

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Matt Klowskowski has been a staple in the Lightroom and Photoshop worlds for years. He’s written over 20 books on the subject, was inducted into the Photoshop Hall of Fame (yup, apparently that’s a thing) and is an instructor at KelbyOne. Well, Matt also posts to Youtube. And in this video, he’s bringing us five Lightroom Classic tips that we (probably) didn’t know.

Unlike a lot of videos that just rattle off a bunch of tips without context, Matt actually takes the time to show some quick practical examples for each of these tips and why you might want to use them. He demonstrates how they can help you with your process and workflow to get better results.

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How to transfer your photos to canvas and pimp them up with embroidery – Part I

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I’ve been into creative and artistic hobbies ever since I can remember. About a year ago I started embroidery just out of curiosity – and I got completely hooked! Since I’ve been into photography for ages, bringing embroidery and photography together was only a matter of time. And it happened – I learned how to transfer my photos onto canvas and pimp them up with thread.

In this article, I’ll show you the interesting look of embroidered photos. I’ll teach you how to do everything, from preparing the image to decorating it. I’ll present you with only one of the techniques for transferring your photos to fabric, and more is yet to come. But today, let’s start with the one I learned first.

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How to shoot cinematic Hollywood crane style camera moves with your smartphone

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Some of us only shoot video with our smartphones. And while many of us prefer to use “real cameras”, we often find ourselves somewhere really cool but our smartphone is all we have with us. That doesn’t mean you have to settle for crappy and jerky handheld footage, though. Oh no! Many of the techniques used to create epic footage with larger cameras can also work with your phone, too.

In this video, Steve at Learn Online Video shows us a bunch of different ways we can shoot some impressive looking cinematic camera moves using your smartphone, a gimbal and a light stand (but a monopod would work, too).

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How to use flash if you don’t like photos to look flashy

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If I lay my cards on the table, in my personal and professional work I prefer to avoid the use of flash in favour of natural light. In an ideal world, I like nothing better than working with a fleeting beam of winter sunlight that glances across a face full of character, producing the type of photograph that would typically grace the cover of National Geographic.

The trouble is, as a busy corporate photographer, it’s much more likely I have to take a series of senior executive portraits from a basement office, generously artificially lit with horrible overhead fluorescent tubes, working to shoot directors who can spare about three minutes of their time and are itching to be off back to work.

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