It’s December again, which means lots of us are sitting there wondering what to buy for ourselves or the photographer in our lives this holiday season. We’ve been saving up all year to get that something special, but we don’t want to deal with in-store queues – or maybe we’ve just slacked on our Christmas shopping this year. We want to stay at home where it’s nice and warm and see what we can find online that gets delivered straight to our door!...

You see, this week I’m giving some love back to the age old concept of “The best camera is the one you have with you”. By that token, the best reflector is the one you have with you! So what’s small, reflective, portable and weighs less than a feather (A large one)? PAPER! Now, onto the good stuff! First things first, I don’t come to you empty handed, I’ve come brandishing my nuts and took a picture of them pleasantly laid upon a wooden board....

Colour grading seems to be the buzz term for video these days. It didn’t really exist until O Brother, Where Art Thou? but it quickly became standard practice. Colour grading helps to set the mood and feel of your footage, as well as make it more pleasing. When you’re using multiple cameras, colour correction and colour grading is almost a must just to help them all look like they belong to the same project....

It can get a bit monotonous in isolation, especially if you’re out of work right now. But hey, there’s always something to do, and Mathieu Stern has some crazy ideas and makes them real. After the crappy lens made from toilet paper, he now turned to Lego and made another working lens. And unlike the previous one, this DIY lens actually does a pretty good job! Like most of us, Mathieu is in isolation....

As fears of coronavirus (COVID-19) balloon in the U.S., many freelance photographers have begun to contend with the economic impact of event cancellations and social distancing policies. Freelancers are accustomed to seasonal slowdowns or the occasional cancellation, but the uncertainty around the breadth and duration of this outbreak has resulted in anxiety, frustration, and anger. Adweek photo editor Kacy Burdette recently asked photographers on Twitter if they had lost jobs due to coronavirus, and received responses from around the country with stories of cancellations....

I love creating images with plenty of story and I need to use certain techniques to get the light the way I want. On location I use limited gear, usually two Einchrom ELB400 which I use to create interesting light to my subjects and the environment. My most used composite image technique is where I combine multiple exposures into one seamless image. Camera is fixed on a tripod, I have selected the composition and framing of the image, fixed the focus and selected the aperture to use....

G’day from Australia, my name is Jason De Freitas (@jase.film on Instagram), and I’m a photographer mostly known for my analog astrophotography. In this article, I’ll describe the process and decisions I went through to take this lunar eclipse multi-exposure sequence on medium format film. The Aim There are two common but very pleasing eclipse sequence shots that I’ve seen a lot. The first kind of sequence is the process where you take several different photos of the moon during different phases of the eclipse with a long focal length to combine them later in Photoshop....

It all started as a joke. When watching Vikings (History channel’s hit show on HBO Nordic) together with my wife, I pointed out several times that she seemed to share both the looks and a similar attitude with Lagertha -surprisingly similar considering that the other one is a scientist / mom from Finland and the other one a shieldmaiden from 13th century. We were binge-watching all the seasons, and by the end of season four Lagertha was a favorite Viking for both of us....

The average overnight success takes around 10 years. Yes, you read that correctly, and I’m not joking. That’s in most creative fields, not just photography. So how long does it take to become a professional photographer? By professional, I mean able to derive the majority of your income from photography or photography-related activities. My gut response is that again, it takes most people around 10 years to really make any kind of headway....

Photography Dustin Dolby has been putting a lot of effort into his short series on photographing wine and wine bottles. Part 1 introduced us to the basic principles shooting such a subject with minimal kit and getting good reflections. Part 2 focuses on getting a richer, more bold, hero-like shot. A look that’s become very popular recently. In this third part, we see the moodier side of photographing a wine bottle....

With the speed boosts and memory capacities of modern computers, stitching multiple shots together to make larger panoramic images has become a very common technique used by many photographers. Chances are, if you’re reading this, you probably have too, or you’ve at least thought about giving it a go. While most stitches go pretty well, there are times when Photoshop isn’t quite sure what you want it to do, and gives you a result you definitely didn’t expect....

We’ve all been there, we see a gorgeous beautifully lit scene before us while we’re out with friends or family, but we don’t have our camera with us. So, we go back… every day.. for a month… and nothing. No matter how often we may return to a location to try and recreate that day, the light just doesn’t play as nicely as we’d like. Well, Jimmy McIntyre’s here to save the day and show us how to use Photoshop to create those gorgeous light rays that didn’t quite make it back to the landscape in front of our camera....

Photographer Ed Verosky admits in the opening line of this video that he’s not a creative genius. But then, very few of us are. Just coming up with something creative out of thin air isn’t easy. We need inspiration. And I’m not suggesting we copy. Just something that inspires us, gets us thinking and starts those creative juices flowing. Different things inspire different people. What might inspire me may not inspire you, and vice versa....

Whether you’re a photographer or videographer, there are many ways to make money from your work. In this video, Matti Haapoja from TravelFeels gives you a couple of tips how to get brands to collaborate with you using social media. After all, we all use social networks, so why not put it to best possible use and start gaining clients through them? Give value to your work The key to attracting audience and brands to like your work is to provide value....

The World of analog photography keeps surprising me every day a bit more! I recently read about a technique called Stand Development so I have decided to try it myself. For those of who never heard of it before, let me explain you the differences between a normal development process. When developing, as recommended by manufacturers, we are supposed to make regular agitations to ensure that the exposed film is always in contact with fresh developer....

Backing up is always a hotly debated topic. Even just whether to back up or not is often a cause of conflict in a lot of social media photography groups. And even if you have chosen to backup your work, you’ll see three million responses describing exactly how you should back everything up in order to ensure you never lose anything – and they’ll all be different. Ultimately, everybody has the workflow that works best for them....

Did you know that you can make your own 35mm daguerreotypes without using dangerous substances (such as mercury)? Also, you can do it without expensive gear. In this video from George Eastman Museum, historic process specialist Nick Brandreth will teach you how. So if you’d like to experiment a bit, let’s see what you’ll need. You’ll need a 35mm silver plate that you’ll polish to a mirror finish. You’ll need to fume it over iodine, expose it in your camera, and then develop it with the help of a piece of orange or red glass....

Trying to overpower the sun seems to have become a popular thing again lately. The go-to technique for these results is a fast shutter speed and high speed sync. But the limited power available in speedlights often falls a little short. Now, with more powerful HSS-capable strobes on the market, like the Godox AD360II and AD600BM, it’s become a more common look. This look has been available for a long time, though, with the use of neutral density....

Scanning film is one of the biggest issues with shooting film today. It’s not that it’s particularly difficult, it’s just a pain because most of us tend to do it so little. Maybe a roll or two every few weeks. Pulling out the scanner and hooking it up can be a chore, so we put it off and just never get around to it. I’ve got plenty of rolls here that have been developed but not scanned yet....

So you had a photo shoot on Saturday morning and it seems that your model partied hard the night before? She’s holding up well, but there are eye bags that give her away. This video tutorial from Mathieu Stern will show you how to remove the eye bags in under a minute. Instead of using the Healing Brush or Clone Stamp, it relies on modifying curves and masking. It preserves the texture of the skin and removes the dark areas under the eyes, and it takes a few steps in Photoshop....