Who says you need a big camera to create art? With the quality of cell phones today coupled with some amazing apps to edit you can really create some amazing stuff with a smart phone. To give everyone a little inspiration to grab that phone and start shooting I wanted to share some great examples of Instagram photos from around the web. Sit back and take a minute to check out these cool images.

If you have some great Instagram photos please share a link in the comments below and i’ll add some of the best reader images to this post later. Also we are going to have a Instagram inspired photography contest soon so check back later.

Also be sure to check back later for a fun Instagram inspired photography contest. Get those Instagram images ready and lets have some fun.

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I have always been amazed by the northern lights. It has been on my list of places that I would love to photograph and know that one day I will have to make a trek up north to view this amazing light show of nature in person. I posted some Amazing photos of the northern lights awhile back and today wanted to share a really cool video of the northern lights.

If you are like me and have always wanted to see these in person but haven’t been able to yet, take a quick break and get some great inspiration from this video by Christian Mülhauser.

Aurora 2012 from Christian Mülhauser on Vimeo.

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As I was flipping through all of the Oscar contending movies the other day I kept looking at the movie poster for the Artist. It’s a striking black and white image that really captures the feel of lighting that Hollywood become known for during a certain period of time. I have always loved the look of these images, they have such great contrast and with the deep dark shadows

If you want to learn more about what Hollywood lighting is check out an intro here: Hollywood Lighting .

Photo Credit: BartNJ

Photo Credit: DraperStudios

Photo Credit: Alex Strand

Photo Credit: TJ Scott

image18 by ShutterCraze

Also here are some classics from the master of hollywood lighting, George Hurrell. He was the head of the MGM portrait gallery in the 30′s and photographed all stars including Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo and Marie Dressler. See more of his work and prints for sale here: http://www.hurrellphotography.com/

If you are interested in learning more about this style of lighting and how to set it up just let me know in the comments below and I can create some articles.

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Posing is one of those words that I really never liked. It always reminds me of some uncomfortable pretzel style positioning where every finger, hand, toe is placed just right and really so much just right that the person being photographed looks as uncomfortable as they can be. When I pose my bride and grooms for their images together they are always done in a very natural and really organic way. I observe how they interact together, what hot buttons really make each other smile and then direct them so that even though the images are posed they look natural and have emotion and feeling along with being in good light from a flattering angle. I am working on some in-depth reviews of what I do for couples and bride & groom posing so stay tuned for some real examples.

Today though I wanted to chat a little bit about posing the bridal party and point out a few examples. First of all I have never been a fan of lining people up in a straight row. There is nothing more boring in my mind that people standing straight in a line. But many times you are working on a very tight schedule and don’t have a lot to work with at the location. So how can you position people in a more creative way? Here are a few tips that I hope will help you out.

First I always look for props or someplace that I can sit people down or use to create some different levels to the scene. Maybe it’s just a chair or two to sit people on, or a bench anything that I can use to create a little bit of depth i’ll look out for first. In the shot below there was a small corner area with a sectional couch, the part I really liked about the scene was the form in the background. It had a interesting design and was very strong feeling, so perfect for this set of guys. I want the groom to be the very center of attention and focus so have him sitting right on the edge of the coffee table and the spread out the rest of the guys so that they have some space in between them. I always want people to look as comfortable as possible and natural as possible so will tell them to sit in a way that they normally would, and if that looks awkward then i’ll give them a few tips on how to “sit and look cool” (while keeping the mood light and not making them uncomfortable by posing every inch of their body.

Next I like to let people interact with each other to break up where they are looking at. With everyone focused straight on the camera the image can have a very dry feel to them. You always have to have a few with everyone looking at the camera but after I get those shots done it’s time to have fun and create some more information images that really show the personality of the bridal party. This is also a great way to create triangles in the image which really help with having a composition pleasing to the eye. I’ll cover some composition tips from classical painting and triangles very soon so stay tuned.

Also remember to turn peoples bodies, especially the girls to be angled slightly instead of fully parallel to the camera. This will always slim down their looks and give their body a better shape.

I always want to photograph people different compared to anyone else, we all have a unique personality and style and I want that to come through in the images. Some groups of guys are more soft than other and some or more tough so I keep that in mind while setting up shots. Here I wanted a much more tough guy look to the image and lined them up in 2 simple rows using the chairs. Shooting them at a really low angle and having them be ultra relaxed gives me the look that I was going for. Also by turning the chairs at slightly different angles it helps to make the image a little more dynamic. Even though the image is just 2 rows with the slight tilt to the shot and the chairs angled different there is a dynamic feel to the photo.

Sometimes you have to line them up, but when you do it doesn’t always have to be in a formal and dry way with everyone standing with perfect posture and turned just the right way towards the camera. Here I wanted to photograph the girls against this great wall of color and had nothing to sit anyone on. So I had them group together really close and do a nice big group hug. Encouraging them to get closer while laughing and joking with them let this great moment happen. Some people might have this as a b-roll image or maybe even delete it since hardly anyone is looking at the camera but for me and my style this is perfect, it has emotion, depth and lots of feeling to it.

And last remember to let them have fun. The composition isn’t great in this image at all, the bride wanted to jump into the tub so we let her jump on in and grouped the girls around her real quick. Sometimes you might not be able to create the best composition in the world but if you let the group have fun and do a few things they want to do you will create memories for them that are real and bring them so much more joy years down the road than a perfect staged group shot will.

I am going to be writing a bunch of more articles on posing and composition tips for portraits coming soon. If you don’t subscribe to our email newsletter to be notified of future posts just enter your email at the top right. I’ll never spam you and you won’t miss a article!

Remember you can always start a conversation below by commenting with our Facebook module or leaving a normal comment at the very bottom. Or head on over to our Facebook wall and ask a question, I love to hear from everyone!

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One thing I have consistently learned after years of photographing weddings and running a business is that your work must stand out and be different. It has to be good for sure but also different. Most of how your work will stand out is your creative vision, we all have a different vision and take on a wedding day and being true to yourself and your passion will allow for your vision to shine through in your work. Although creative vision does not come from tools or equipment at all it can be helpful sometimes to use unique lenses that will help bring your vision to life.

At wedding I will sometimes use a few unique lenses like the Canon TS E 24mm Tilt Shift or a 15mm fisheye lens to capture something different. In today’s digital age everyone is used to looking at lots of photos, many people have DSLR’s or great point and shoot cameras now but don’t have access to a unique lens like a tilt shift. Using something that is unique can give a fresh perspective to some images and make them really stand out to your clients. The one thing to always watch with this though is not to overdo it. I have seen too many people that get a brand new fisheye lens and the next shoot is 50% fisheye. For me I will use a few of these lenses very sparingly, sometimes not even at all for a wedding. It really depends again on my vision for that shoot and if that vision matches using a different type of lens.

One of my favorites though for weddings is the Canon TS E 24mm Tilt Shift. A tilt shift lens gives you the ability to tilt the lens axis (and shift the lens also, thats why it has that creative name). When tilting the lens axis you will have a plane that is not parallel to your sensor giving you a skewed focus. This way you can fine tune the focus to have a very small strip of the image be in focus and the rest beautifully blurred. It adds a different visual depth to the image due to the narrow focus point and is a very fun lens to work with. It’s something that you can use for a few key portfolio pieces during the day and will really make the image stand out to your clients. If you have never used a tilt shift lens before I suggest renting one and checking it out for a few days, it will get your creative mind really thinking and is the most fun lens to shoot with.

You can check out my full review of the Canon TS E 24mm Tilt Shift Lens for more information on this awesome lens. It’s not a cheap lens at all but really can produce some amazing stuff, you can get it through Amazon for a little under $2,000: Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II Ultra Wide Tilt-Shift Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras

Here are some images from a wedding this year that show how cool this lens can be:

Also if you like the tilt shift look and want to try it out on your current photos check out these tutorials:

Another great way to separate yourself from the crowd is through amazing lighting and i’ll be covering lots of tips on lighting coming up soon!

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Recording Audio with 7d built in microphone vs a shotgun mic and lavaliere microphone.

I have been very excited about using Fusion video to create amazing multimedia pieces ever since HD video came on to the scene for DSLR’s a few years ago. While many of our normal DSLR cameras shoot video now there are many other things other than turning your camera on to video mode in order to create some great multi media creations for our clients.

I first got excited about shooting DSLR video snippets and incorporating these into multi media creations for my clients right when the 5d markII came out. I was amazed by some of the demo movies I saw and thought it would be amazing to capture for weddings. It took me a few years to finally incorporate this into what my studio offered and this was the first year we started to shoot weddings with an extra cameraperson to create fusion movies. One thing that I never thought of when I first started shooting video with a SLR is the audio portion. I was more focused on the visuals but in some of the first engagement sessions that I did realized the built in mic’s that these SLR cameras have are really not cut out for on location shooting. There was way too much ambient noise that interfered with the audio and was very distracting in the final movie.

Today I want to do a quick post covering the different ways you can capture audio with a DSLR. There are 3 different ways I will cover in this sample clip below. These all are recorded directly into the camera but in a future post i’ll cover how to record audio into a digital recorded for even better audio. Also at the bottom of the post i’ll include the specific audio devices I used in the video. One little oops in the recording of the video, you will notice the volume on the spot with the lav mic is lower than the other 2. Mainly due to the way I clipped the mic on, I didn’t notice it was clipped sideways instead of pointing up towards my mouth. But you can easily see how the lav mic removes all of the background noise and focuses just on me.

Here is what was used during the recording.

- All recorded on a Canon 7d.
- The first section was recorded using audio straight from the camera.
- Second part was recorded using a Rode VideoMic Directional Video Condenser Microphone. This was mounted on the hotshoe of the camera and plugged right into the camera.
- The lav mic at the end was a Audio-Technica ATR-3350 Lavalier Omnidirectional Condenser Microphone, its a really inexpensive mic under $30 and does great for recording interviews.

Stay tuned for some more audio posts and more DSLR video information coming soon. If you are interested and don’t want to miss an article make sure to sign up for our email newsletter list at the top right of the page.

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If you haven’t heard of 500px.com yet, you might have been under a rock for the last few years. They were actually started way before many would think, back in the same year Flickr went live in 2004. It has never had close to the number of users that Flickr had but has always focused on one thing, quality. With Flickr it can be a mixed bag there are some good photographers on there and some very bad photographers, its for people with all experience level. I am getting a review ready of what the site offers and will post that shortly. In the meantime though I wanted to share some of the amazing work that can be found on 500px.com. Also for everyone that has a portfolio on there I would love to check out your work, leave a comment with your Url below.

Just like a lot of site there are a mix of different types of photographers but here are some pretty amazing landscapes and portraits that caught my eye on the site:

Magic light by Jorge Maia

Krka by Daniel Řeřicha

San Francisco by Lukas Wenger

Marina Bay @ Dawn by Edward Tian

//////// by Svetlana Melik-Nubarova

Infinite by Phil Morgan

Vacant by Phil Morgan

cry by Dmitry Laudin

Alice by Dmitry Laudin

grow by Kirill Vorontsov

The Victorian Printer by Phil Morgan

The Parting ii by Luke Sharratt

Who is on 500px and what do you think about it? Leave a comment below and lets chat.

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With Christmas coming up just around the corner it’s time to grab the tripod and start shooting photos of all the wonderful lights and trees. There is always so much amazing visuals around this time it can be fun for us to be creative and capture some cool stuff. I’ll be posting pretty soon some tips and tricks on how to photography lights but in the meantime wanted to share some cool photos of Christmas to start getting us all thinking and for a little inspiration. Take a few minute break today, check out these images and then let your mind start to think about what you want to create this year.

If you have some great images of Christmas lights and trees let me know, would love to add some reader photos to this page. Just comment below with a link.

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Weddings are emotional days and there never is a shortage of emotions to capture at a wedding. From the wedding vows to the emotional dance with the father of the bride there are emotions happening all day long that give us plenty of moments to capture. One of my favorite parts of the day to capture emotions is the getting ready time. When the bride is getting ready there are so many emotions that fill the room, excitement, nervousness and joy just to name a few.

When I am photographing a wedding I always act as a visual storyteller and really try to capture the mood and essence of the day. With the getting ready part of the day I tend to shoot with a 50mm 1.4 lens or a 100mm 2.8 macro. I really like to get in very close but don’t reach for my trusty 200mm for a few reasons. The first is usually I am shooting in a pretty tight space and the 200mm might be a little too close. The second reason is even though I want to get in really close to the bride and capture those great tears of joy or other emotions I also want to gain her trust for the rest of the day. I really prefer the working distance that a 50mm lens gives me. I am fairly close to my subjects so get to interact with them a lot. When you are across the room trying to snap away the bride still knows you are in the room any may tense up a bit, she might even withhold some tears depending on the relationship you have already setup with her from past meetings. I want to be like a long lost friend at the wedding, I am in the room hugging everyone, laughing, telling jokes because I want real emotions and real images of everyone with their guards down. That’s my style and what the end goal is. Your style might be different so you should approach this part of the day a little different.

The processing of these images to fit within my vision is also very important. We should always place a lot of thought into the toning of images and make sure that the final product matches the vision for that shot you have in your mind. Check out this part article “The Importance Of Toning Your Images” for more info on toning. Many times during these emotional images I will prefer a nice black and white image so that the user really focuses on the emotions of the shot and isn’t distracted by the color.

Sometimes though having a very nice warm color can add to the moment though. In this image I just love the warmness of the skin tones balanced with the background wall. The overall warmness of the shot really adds to the warm moment thats going on.

My last little tip is that even though I want to always get in fairly tight to capture the action don’t forget to include other people to help tell the story. When the bride is interacting with her friends make sure to include them in the image as well or even use other people to really frame in the main subject. (see framing the shot – using people to frame in your main subject. for more info on this)

Remember that however you approach each part of the wedding day should fit within your exact vision or style. We are all unique and will approach our art unique. For me the getting ready part of the day is all about having fun with everyone, building up the trust factor for the rest of the day and capturing the real emotions and moments going on.

Happy shooting everyone! Remember if you have any questions about weddings or anything else with photography let me know, lets chat.

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I had a great talk with Jerry from PWD labs a little while back about post production and how much we can really rely on editing to fix our mistakes or lack of knowledge. The question that popped into my mind was “What if we didn’t have Photoshop or Lightroom”? Would we think differently while shooting if we didn’t have these tools to correct things after the image. I think that we definitely would and sometimes can use post production as a crutch. Getting the shot right in camera and having a mental image of your final print in your mind when shooting is still as important as ever in this digital age. Here are a few top tips on things we should all master when shooting that will make the post production much more of a breeze.

1) Exposure – One of the most important parts about photography is exposure but with some of the recent advances in technology is sometimes overlooked. With all professional DSLR’s now having full auto modes that actually can work pretty good many times, photographers have relied on shooting in P mode (program mode which is all auto). I even heard a top speaker at WPPI awhile back say that P is for Professional. Although cameras are smarter today than years past they still will be fooled easily with tricky lighting situations. If you want great images it all starts with exposure and the best way to get a good exposure all of the time is to take your camera off P. The best way to really get your exposure where you want it and also learn a lot about how exposure works is to shoot in manual. It gives you the opportunity to think about your settings and make sure that you have the shutter and aperture set for a specific reason and will allow you to fine tune the exposure so when you are ready to finally click the shutter it’s spot on. You might need a few more minutes to run a test shot or two through but it’s worth it to have that consistent exposure. Since I shoot mainly weddings I do also use Aperture priority from time to time depending on how quick light is changing. But when shooting in Aperture priority remember to use the Exposure compensation and adjust that up or down depending on whats in your frame. If I have a group of guys with black tuxes on i’ll turn down the exposure by at least 1-2 stops depending on how much black is in the frame and vice versa if shooting a white dress. Remember the cleaner your exposure the better the final images will look and less time you will spend in editing.

2) White Balance – Getting a good white balance from the start is another key to capturing great images. I always suggest to people to NEVER have your camera on Auto white balance. The main reason is you can shoot a series of photos all in a similar situation but depending on the exact light and whats being reflected in the frame the camera might slightly change the white balance. So when editing instead of being able to batch correct the color for a hundred images that were all taken during an outdoor ceremony you have to adjust each one separately. I always use the closest setting based on my preference for skin tones, many times which will be using the sun setting. If its a little off its really not a big deal the key is that every image will have the exact same white balance so be quick to correct them all at once with Lightroom. Check out our past article for more info on Creating The Correct White Balance In Camera.

3) Composition – Another key element that should be thought about before clicking the shutter is the composition. Although you can crop later with Lightroom or Photoshop the composition of the shot should be thought about while taking the image. We should all have a vision for each shot and really think hard about what the image should look like and say before clicking on that shutter button. I also think about composition and the final product. Since we do a lot of albums for our wedding clients there are lots of images I need specifically for the album like background images and details that have negative space to include other images over. Before you click the shutter take one quick second to look around the edges of your frame, maybe move a foot to the right or left and make sure you have everything framed just how you want it before clicking on that button.

Just a few quick tips today on how we can all capture better images and continue to improve our art! Remember to always post questions on our Facebook wall or in a comment, I love to hear your questions and will always answer them. Have a great week everyone.

If you like our articles remember to share them on Facebook, Twitter or +1 them on Google. I appreciate you spreading the word to your photo friends! Also remember to always start a conversation by leaving a Facebook comment at the bottom of the page. I love to hear from you.

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