Lighting How To

Boudoir photography is an increasingly popular genre of portraiture, particularly among those who shoot people pictures with available light outdoors, or others with a home “studio” that doesn’t rely upon complicated artificial illumination—like when using light streaming through a widow to brighten the scene.

We thought we’d start the day with a fun short-and-sweet” technique for embellishing photos with sunstars captured in the camera. So pull up a chair, watch the two-minute video below, and see how it’s done.

Winter is officially over and spring has finally sprung, and that means it’s time to pull out a macro lens and bone up on your skills. The quick video below provides five very helpful tips that are different from those we’ve discussed in the past.

There was a time when lens flare was considered a negative attribute of photos shot outdoors. Often caused by using a lens with inferior coatings (or no coatings at all), flare can also result from failing to use a lens hood when shooting on sunny days (depending on your position relative to the sun).

Camera technology these days is amazing; it’s practically magic. The problem, though, to my way of thinking and photographing, is that the magic offers a very wide and deep comfort zone—you might call it a zone of automatic decisions, and it’s probably best not to spend a lot of time there, certainly not if you want to create individualistic images.

Photographing birds is a great way to try your hand at shooting wildlife because traveling to exotic locations isn’t required. All you need is a nearby park or nature reserve, and you can even get started in your own backyard.

What if we told you there’s an easy-to-used tool that helps nail exposure with every image you shoot? There is, and it’s called the histogram. Unfortunately it’s often overlooked.