Photography Features
Warning: Do NOT Build This (Not Responsible For Death or Injury)
Glacial Wanderer demonstrates how to build a high-speed air gap flash fast enough to capture a speeding bullet without it getting blurred. These types of flash units usually run around $8K+, but for a few hundred dollars you can build you own and capture sick stuff like...
How To: Make a Super Cheap Soft Box for Pro-Looking 'Soft' Light in Your Photos
Remember the young Parker who taught us how to make fun things like the ghost trap from Ghostbusters and the cheap severed leg effect? Well, he's definitely grown since then, and in his latest video he takes a more practical approach to DIY with a cheap and easy soft box for you home photography studio.
How To: Photograph shiny metal and reflections
Watch this instructional photography video that introduces a very important principle (the law of reflection) when applied to photographing shiny objects in the studio.
How To: Learn extreme macro photography tricks
Watch this quick instructional photography video and discover how to do extreme macro photography without having any real specialized macro photo equipment. Use a couple of your existing lenses to create a super macro lens. Practice these tips and improve your photography skills.
How To: Clean fungus off of your camera lens
Have you ever found a camera lens that you forgot you left in the basement or garage? Have you ever been shooting out in the rain and lost track of time? If any of these things have happened to your camera, you may have developed a fungus. Not to worry! It is much easier than you would think to clean a fungus off your camera. This tutorial will walk you through the process, step by step so that you clean your lens safely and perfectly every time.
How To: Take beautiful photo studio portraits with one light
Learn three different studio portrait lighting techniques using just one light.
How To: Make a backdrop for photo shoots
This is a great video on how to make your own backdrop for photography shoots.
Do-It-Yourself: High Speed Photography Tips & Tricks
High speed photography is awesome. Who doesn't love looking at bullets smash through glass or annihilate a tomato? Or see a babe in a swimsuit do a strikingly slo-mo wet hair flip?
How To: Develop film with coffee and washing soda
Give a new look to your photographs! Use coffee! This video tutorial will show you how to develop film with coffee and washing soda, along with a little vitamin C.
News: Conjuring the Apocalypse on Tabletop: Lori Nix Talks Dioramas
Lori Nix is a photographer whose stunning work depicts curious scenes of danger and disaster: abandoned spaces, architecture in a state of extreme deterioration, natural calamities, and more. But the mysterious places she captures with her 8x10 large format camera aren't actual found locations—they're meticulously fabricated miniature dioramas.
How To: Use gobos in photography
Here is a Harper Point Photography video on gobos for fashion photography. Nathan gives a simple but effective photo tip for creating dynamic light with a cardboard 'go-bo.' The gobo is a lighting element that texturizes lighting by blocking in strategically. Apply these directly to a light to shine texture or to light with words as a projector would.
How To: Photograph a white product with a white background
Need to shoot a product with a white background? Well, taking photos with a white backdrop can be tricky if your subject is white also. Watch this behind the scenes photography video to see how to photograph a white product with a white background. This style of shoot is quite standard for eshops which need product photos with a white background. It takes a couple flashes and a goo camera to get it down, just watch and see for yourself.
How To: Use a Holga camera
Here are some tips about the Holga camera. The Holga is a plastic camera that takes unique, distorted pictures. This instructional photography video is good for people who just got their Holga camera and want to learn some photographer's tricks.
News: Spy With Google Street View
Need to find some directions? No problem, use Google Maps. Want to find some spy photos of yourself? No problem, use Google Street View.
How To: Take a Crazy Self-Portrait of You Holding Yourself
David Talley, a 19-year-old fine art photographer, has been widely praised for his surreal self-portraits. Many of them take hours to set up and shoot, and even more time to post-process through Photoshop or any other photo editing program.
HowTo: Make Magical Bokeh Photographs
Hongkiat has compiled a collection of beautiful examples of "Bokeh" photography (1, 2):
How To: Build a PVC Shoulder Rig Stabilizer for Your DSLR Camera for Under $25
When you're capturing video with a DSLR, not having some type of stabilization system can lead to some pretty awful and shaky scenes. Camera instability is not only painful to watch, but breaks the fourth wall. Once that the invisible barrier between filmmaker and audience is apparent, it may break down that magical relationship between the two.
How To: Set up butterfly lighting for photography
Mark Wallace explains how to set up butterfly lighting (AKA Glamour Lighting; AKA Paramount Lighting)with three light sources. This video shows a nice soft lighting underneath the nose. Used if you want to create a strong powerful look, or if your subject has strong cheekbones or jawline. This type of lighting was used in the filming of "Sin City".
How To: Take UV Pictures
This video will show you how you can take UV (ultraviolet) pictures with any basic camera. In a few easy steps, you too can be seeing the world in a whole new way.
How To: Master the classic three light studio portrait
Watch this instructional photography video with Jim Talkington and learn how to light a studio portrait using three lights. This is the classic three light portrait technique using a main light, fill card, hair light and background light in the photo studio. Adding additional lights should bring out texture, extra detail, and three dimensionality. Practice these tips and improve your photography skills.
How To: Set up a photo studio for product lighting
Use inexpensive materials to create your own photographic studio equipment for product photography. The DIY set up is simple and useful.
UPDATE: Wafaa Bilal’s Head Rejects Camera Implant
If you missed our previous posts on Iraqi artist Wafaa Bilal's attempt to go cyborg, here's the short and skinny: First, Bilal announced a plan to implant a camera in his head, a project entitled 3rdi, which would record his daily life while simultaneously feeding the images to monitors at the Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Qatar. Then, he actually did it (and, yes, it was gnarly).
News: The Secret Life of a Love Doll
Famed artist and photographer Laurie Simmons boasts an impressive career spanning over three decades. She's shown at some of the world's top art institutions and galleries, and appeared on art world popular PBS television series Art 21. She also happens to be the the proud mother of promising young filmmaker Lena Dunham, the 24-year-old director of last year's indie hit Tiny Furniture.
How To: Make a mini tripod for your camera with a tennis ball
Turn an old tennis ball into a nifty camera tripod in just minutes. Inspired by an Instructables.com project: http://www.instructables.com/id/SDMK5MWFDO29GEZ/
How To: Take a surreal photo of yourself for your profile pic
Take awesome myspace/facebook profile pics, follow this short guide to taking photos that look like they've been photoshopped without even touching the photo itself.
How To: Use a light meter
Mark Wallace explains how to use a light meter, how it works (incident and reflective meters), and what type to purchase. Use this for still or motion cameras.
How To: Add Rainbow Effects to Your Photos Using a Cheap Prism
Want to add cool, colorful effects to your photos without paying for filters or using Photoshop? A cheap glass prism (and some practice) is all you need to bend the light to capture images like the ones below taken by wedding photographer Sam Hurd. Sam uses a six inch triangular prism to catch the light and reflect images in front of his lens. The shape allows you to "twist the prism into creating a curve and bend-like distortion of your surroundings," which can create rainbow effects and mir...
News: Meticulous Recreations of Old Family Photographs
It's axiomatic: if you want to know what's different, look to what's the same. And, if you want to know what's the same, look to what's different. What makes Irina Werning's Back to the Future project so amazing then is that, in matching everything that can be matched, she helps us instantly hone in on what can't. In most cases, viewers notice just one thing—the effects of the passage of time on the subjects of the photographs. It's very strange and sometimes even unsettling. But also really,...
How To: Learn studio product photography tricks
This instructional photography video with Jim Talkington explores various studio photography tricks. Whether shooting products or people, the whole reason for studio lighting is to be able to define the things you want to define and to minimize the things you don't want to see in the photograph. Practice these tips and improve your photography skills.
How To: Take a picture of an exploding water balloon
Fine tune your photography skills with this video lesson on how to take a picture of an exploding water balloon. You'll see what equipment you'll need, like cameras, lights, flashes, etc. Pixel Catcher shows you how. It's a matter of perfection, so check out this video to see how to take that photo of exploding water balloons. You could apply this principal to any photograph!
How To: Use long exposure photography to paint with sparklers
Long exposure photography has long allowed photographers to do amazing things with light. Now you can do that! This video will show you how to use a long exposure, sparklers, and Photoshop to create amazing psychedelic art on your photographs. This new art form is called light painting or light writing, looks amazing, and is pretty easy to get started doing. Do it!
How To: Set up a big white infinity sweep for photo studio
This instructional photography video shows how to setup large white infinity backgrounds in the photo studio. The key components to this setup is include this six foot octobox softbox light, which requires quite a bit of power; a framed aluminum reflector; the background itself is vinyl floor painted white; and a black baffle to shield the camera from lens flare. Set up professional looking shoots and take great portraits with this tutorial.
How To: Understand the basics of a Nikon SB-600 photo camera
This instructional photography video teaches the basics of the Nikon photo camera in this hands-on demonstration of Nikon's amateur-grade SB-600 speedlight. Watch this video and start taking more professional looking photos. This tutorial is great for photography enthusiasts.
How To: Make a DIY photography bokeh for a camera
How to make that cardboard hood to assist you in making your own custom bokeh when shooting images.
How To: Turn Time-Lapsed Clouds into a Brushstroke Painting with This Photo Stacking Technique
You can create a lot of impressive effects by stacking or layering photos, whether you do it in a darkroom or with Photoshop. The Harris shutter effect makes your photos super colorful, and double exposing or stacking negatives makes for some crazy looking portraits.
How To: Take pictures of lightning with a Nikon DSLR
Here is a detailed video that explains techniques and equipment you can use to take pictures of a lightning storm. Yes, take photographs in an actual lightning storm. You will definitely need a tripod to take a photograph with a long exposure and a plastic bag to protect your camera from the rain. Telephoto lenses allow you to keep a safe distance and avoid switching lenses during a lightning storm. Equipment used in this video: Nikon d300, Nikon 18-200mm vr and Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 vr lenses.
How To: Master single light studio portraits in photography
Studio portrait photography using a single light can be tricky to master. Learn how to achieve beautiful portraits with expertise from a professional photographer in this free instructional video series.
How To: Use flash photography
Mark Wallace explains shutter speed, sync speed, and key shifting by explaining basic flash photography.
How To: Build a DIY digital SLR (DSLR) camera cage for smooth and steady video
A DSLR cage from a professional photographer supply store will cost at least a few hundred dollars, but you can build one yourself for around 50 bucks. This tutorial shows you how to use a few pipes, metal struts and a few pieces of hardware and tools to make your own digital SLR cage for shooting steady videos on your digital camera.
HowTo: Build Your Own Camera Lenses
The prerogative of most fancy, pricey lenses nowadays is ultimate sharpness. However, if you're partial to that soft, out of focus look, you can make your own lenses to achieve this type of effect.