Best Features of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

Use a simple angle to make a shot more dramatic

Here is a quick tip for you that can make a big difference in your shots, try adding a little angle to your shots when you take them. The following two images show what a …

Skills You Need To Thrive as a Wedding Photographer

Wedding photography can be a very lucrative endeavor for a budding, talented photographer out there. However, it takes a specific skill set to really thrive out of the gate, and you should be aware of …

Simple Yet Effective On-Location Portrait Lighting Setup

I often get asked to do portrait shots during local charity events and getting a simple lighting setup is the key to having a successful event. If you just use on-camera flash you will get …

Mastering Your Flash 101 – Learning to Love eTTL/iTTL

For many people the thought of taking their flash off of eTTL/iTTL mode is as intimidating as BASE jumping off a bridge, this is because they haven’t even fully mastered these automatic settings yet. …

The Sunny 16 Rule in Photography

Although you may think that no two situations are alike, the fact is that there are quite a few constants that you can rely on to give you a good starting point. The sun is one of these things you can count on to be consistent. Of course there are things that affect the sun’s output like the time of day, haze, fog, and clouds, but on a bright sunny day the light output is very consistent and knowing the camera settings for this condition will give you a guideline to make adjustments. This is where the “sunny 16″ rule comes into play.

The Latest Fujifilm FinePix SL1000 Review

Fujifilm is a Japanese multinational photography and imaging company which has been consistently presenting an array of digital cameras in the world of photography. Lately the company has come up with its latest product i.e. …

Building your own snoot

What is a snoot? Simply put, a snoot is a tubular structure that is used to limit the throw of a light source to create a narrow beam of light. While commercial snoots are actually pretty affordable, from $14 to about $20, so why would we want to make our own? Because we know what we want and because for $20 we can make a dozen or more experimental ones and end up with a handful that we could use in different situations. So guys. go break into the wife’s scrapbooking supplies and get ready to make your own customized flash snoot.

Lighting Basics – Using a single light source

Along with dissecting different photo shoots like we have done in the past, we are now beginning a new “Lighting Basics” series that will start with a single light source and work up through multiple …

Getting Flash Exposure Fast

In this episode of our Friday Photo Tips I answer a common question about how to get flash exposure dialed in quickly when using manual strobes. This will work whether you are using manual speedlights …

How to hold your camera

In this week’s Friday Photo Tip I show you some different techniques for holding your camera to help prevent camera shake. Accidentally moving the camera when taking a picture is one of the leading causes of fuzzy …

How to clean your DSLR sensor

In this episode I show you how to clean the sensor on your DSLR or mirrorless camera. To clean the sensor I use a LensPen SensorPen and KlearLoupe. This kit allows you to easily see …

Posing Basics: Using V’s for Composition and Framing

Using V shapes is extremely pleasing to the eye and can help add a lot of dramatic flair as it really makes the subject stand out. The V shape can be used for both composition …

Using a reflector

In this episode, Kerry Garrison (http://kerrygarrison.com) shows how to use a reflector to bounce sunlight onto a subject to help improve your natural light portraits

Join the forum discussion on this post

Posing Basics – The Naked Shoulder & Full Back

Continuing in our series on posing is The Naked Shoulder. In this pose the subject’s face is turned towards a naked shoulder with the face in either full frontal or 2/3 view. Of course the …

Friday Photo Tip – Understanding ISO

The ISO setting of your camera is used to adjust the sensitivity of your camera’s sensor, allowing you to shoot in darker situations than normal. There is a trade-off as increasing the ISO setting will …

Classic Portrait Lighting Styles Part I

As we continue our series on portrait lighting we now need to look at the different types of classic portrait lighting and see the effect it has on someone so we can decided when to use each type. By choosing the proper lighting for a particular person, we can help them to look their best by making them appear to be thinner or wider or to accent or minimize certain facial features.

Posing Basics – The Step Up

Most of the poses we have seen so far in our posing series have been used to show a woman’s curves or can even be used to hide unwanted curves. This pose, which I call …

Posing Basics – Knees in or Out

In the second installment of our Posing Basics series we will look at another simple technique to add a little style to your subjects with just a little knee action. The result is very similar …