Shoot Adventure Silhouettes for More Marketable Imagery

Often when we photograph we are concerned about good light throughout our subjects and light that provides enough detail to tell the story we want told. We might use reflectors, flash, or HDR techniques to maintain important detail with strongly lit subjects.

But there are also times when we can create simpler photographs that tell a strong story and silhouettes are easy way to do that. They can tell just as effective of a story, set a mood, or create mystery and it’s those storytelling images that buyers of imagery look for when licensing images.

Last year we ran a post on creating nature images using the silhouette technique. These images included Sajuaro cactus,  lighthouses, forests, and windmills. What’s different is these images are adventure images and add the human element, a proven ingredient of top selling images. If you are an adventure photographer then silhouettes are one more approach to telling the adventure story and create more marketable images. … Continue Reading

When Spectrums Collide: Selective Processing With Infra Red

by Lee Mandrell  

A Simple Infrared Selective Color Project

As they so often are, it was another perfect day in the Smoky Mountains. I’m an avid color landscape shooter, but I am always on the lookout for infrared shots as well as anything I think might separate my shots from the norm. I happened upon this scene at the end of ‘The Roaring Fork Motor Trail’, just at the edge of Gatlinburg, TN. My wife and I asked the shop owner if we could shoot the old dodge truck that resides on the property. She informed us that we could take pictures, but we had to stay on the outside of the fence, and also to let her know if we felt we got anything worthwhile. To me this meant shooting what has been shot thousands of times before me. … Continue Reading

Great eBook: Fine Art of Light Painting by Ben Willmore

Light painting has been around a long time and has been used in various ways since the early days of photography. Today, the technique enjoys continued popularity among photographers applying it to a diverse range of subjects.

With technology bringing us LED flashlights as one example, both cheap and expensive versions are widely available as one of many tools for photographers to not only paint their subjects but create other effects as well.

This brings me to a great eBook from photographer and Photoshop Hall of Famer; Ben Willmore. Titled The Fine Art of Light Painting, Ben has explored a variety of locations and subjects to create a pretty impressive collection of images utilizing various techniques. From old cars stuck in the ground to people, ghost towns, natural arches, and light streaks in air, this book is loaded with fun and interesting techniques. … Continue Reading

How to Photograph a Mountain Man Rendezvous

You can get Topaz Adjust here. … Continue Reading

Jacob Lucas’s Awesome Night Shot of Palouse Falls

Recently I saw this cool shot online and contacted the photographer; Jacob Lucas and asked him where the falls were and how he created a uniquely different approach to photographing a waterfall at night.  Here he describes how he did it:

“This waterfall is located in the Eastern part of Washington state in the USA. The region of the state is called Palouse, which is a large area of rural and agricultural land, but also home to Palouse Falls State Park, where this exists.

I knew that I wanted to photograph the falls at dusk and if the clouds cooperated (i.e. decided to take leave for the weekend) try to photograph the stars and the night sky, too. I left Seattle around 5pm which was a little too late for sunset by the time I got there, so I made do with the clear night sky knowing I could return the following night for sunset. I’m glad a did, because the night sky was covered by cloud on the next day. Regarding specifically how I would photograph the falls, I didn’t exactly know how before I got there. … Continue Reading

The Journey Back to Creativity by Cheyenne Rouse

by Cheyenne L Rouse

If you would have told me 4 years ago when I was living in Park City, Utah, that I’d be creating HDR images, living in Scottsdale, Arizona, and loving my DSLR, I would have told you that you were crazy. For over 15 years, I was a bona fide film junkie of the Fuji kind and, when the world started going digital, I dug my heels in and fought it to the point where I eventually hung up my camera for good—or so I thought.

It all started with a beautiful old red truck that I photographed 4 years ago on a road trip to S. Utah. Although I had all but given up photography as things went digital, I was out getting to know my new DSLR, that I reluctantly purchased,  when I saw this beauty on the side of the road. I actually passed it by on my way to shoot something else, but the truck stuck in my … Continue Reading

Mike Tittel Describes How He Photographed a Subaru-Trek Campaign

Q: So, you have been marketing to this client for some time and it finally paid off with this nice project. How much time did you have to plan and what pre-production requirements were there?

This assignment came about rather quickly so we had very little time for planning and pre-production. Luckily for us, Trek had a very clear vision of what they were after and where they wanted to shoot. Really it was a simple as pulling my crew together (more on that later) and pulling permits for the desired locations. Thankfully the permitting office in Boulder was extremely efficient and made that process fairly painless. Since this was a team shoot pretty much all of the logistics relating to riders and bikes were handled by the team manager and mechanic. Without their help it would have been extremely difficult to pull everything together in the amount of time we had.

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How To Use Flash Fill Outdoors

Flash fill is a very useful tool for photographers. In contrasty lighting situations our camera sometimes cannot record the range of contrast in a photo scene like our eyes can. In very bright situations, the perfect exposure will favor the highlights in the scene and often to the detriment of the shadows.

Flash fill can add light to the shadow areas reducing the harsh contrast created by bright sun or ambient light. It can also brighten up dull images that are taken in flat light. In fact I always recommend the use of a flash whenever shooting people and most subjects in full sun and in flat light.

Subjects outside when the sun is high overhead can suffer what is called ‘raccoon eyes’, dark eye sockets on a brightly lit face. Back-lit subjects can also benefit from flash fill by outputting flash into the front shadow side reducing the lighting contrast. Wildlife photographers are known to use flash simply to add a ‘catchlight’ to an animals’ eyes. … Continue Reading

5 Techniques for Gritty Grungy Outdoor Portraits Pt. 4

In this series of gritty grungy techniques I have shared several that I though created a good gritty look. All have been different approaches and provided different results from HDR to just doing it in Camera RAW.

This technique is the first that uses a software plug-in and I think I like it the best as far as the gritty grungy result. The plugin I used was Topaz Adjust and here are how I set the sliders.

First, here is the original RAW file and you can see the the face is dark under the hat brim.

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Ben Clewis Shows How He Photographs Hummingbirds

This is great to see how he sets everything up.

Related Posts: Photographing Butterflies by Connie Toops, Photographing Hummingbirds With Multiple Flashes

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