Pro Techniques

The earth rotates tilted on its axis approximately 23Þ. This fact renders most forms of astrophotography maddeningly complex. There is one form of night sky photography that is given to us in relative simplicity by our home planet's relentless spin: star trails. All we need to create gorgeous star trail shots is a camera, a tripod, and a remote or cable release.
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You promote the work that has your heart and soul in it, the work you want to keep doing.

The art director for an ad agency is setting up a storyboard presentation for a client's kick-off campaign for an upscale shopping mall. The plan calls for five evocative photographs to be used in print ads and on billboards. The photographs are key: they will set the look...

In today’s world, stock photos often sell for pennies, yet there are still photographers out there making a good living selling work for a good price. By talking with stock shooter Bill Bachmann, I found out that I, and most of my portrait/wedding brethren, have been missing the boat big time by not using our client images for stock images. According to Bachmann, we’re sitting on a gold mine and...

Posting holiday snaps to your social media page is quick and easy—but it can be hard to control who can view your personal pics. You want to show your family members a great shot of you frolicking in Fiji on December 25, but do you really want to tell the entire world that your home back in Kansas is unoccupied until after New Year's Day? Create a virtual picture-sharing family room online, a secure place viewable only by those to whom you give permission, with Zonerama, a free and easy-to-use platform provided by a folks at Zoner, makers of Zoner Photo Studio X.

The camera Michael carries might be his Leica M6, loaded with either Ilford XP-2 or Kodak BW400CN chromogenic film and fitted with either a 35mm f/2 or 50mm f/2 Summicron lens; or his Fuji X10 point-and-shoot with its zoom lens set for the equivalent of 50mm; or his Nikon D200 or D700 with the manual 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor lens he got with his F3 back when he was in college.

Much of my portrait and fashion photography is done on location, but living in a place like Colorado the models (and the photographer, too) just aren’t always in the mood to stomp around in the cold weather and snow. That’s when a studio comes in handy. Some photographers just prefer having complete control over the lighting. Instead of the hassle and cost of renting a studio, why not...