If you’ve been long waiting for the chance to shoot Ultra Large Format (ULF), it’s now time to dust off your gorgeous cameras and grab some black and white film from ILFORD. HARMAN Technology Ltd. (ILFORD PHOTO) has just opened their ULF program for this year, allowing practitioners of the craft to go big with their black and white snaps without having to worry about most of the restrictions that come with typical minimum order quantity.
If you’ve ever wondered about what happened to Photobucket, they now have the answer for us. The photo storage, hosting and sharing pioneer, now under the helm of a new and experienced leadership team, has just launched its newly enhanced website as part of its efforts to service today’s digital content owners. Other product enhancements and additional feature are also slated for this year, which will also be extended to their mobile app.
Photographers have always drawn ideas from classic paintings and other creative disciplines, especially when it comes to portraits. Sir Patrick Stewart is the subject of one such painting-inspired fine art portrait by British celebrity portrait photographer Rory Lewis. Having started his acting career with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the English actor eventually became best known for his iconic roles as Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Star Trek TV series and films, and Charles Xavier of the X-Men film series. All these make Stewart a fitting sitter for a modern-day rendition of the historic Triple Portrait of Charles I.
When I first used the Profoto B10, I knew fully that this was the perfect light for me for many reasons. It’s the size of a 70-200mm lens, is capable of HSS, has 250 watt seconds of power, offers cross compatibility across many different types of TTL systems, can function as both a stills and cinema unit with an LED lamp that changes color, has an app that allows even further tuning and control via Bluetooth on your phone, and is simply reliable. I know that that previous sentence is long winded and offers a ton of features, but for a very long time I was searching for a more or less self-contained lighting option that does all this. An all in one light such as the Profoto B10 is perfect for a journalist.
If you still think that landscape photography and black and white aesthetic don’t mix, you probably haven’t seen enough stunning examples. You can always acquaint yourself first with the timeless masterpieces of iconic landscape photographer Ansel Adams. But if you’re looking for something more contemporary, you might want to check out this Norway mountain series by Damien Guiot.
Do you have an old camera bag laying around that needs a makeover, or perhaps any old large backpack that you would like to start using as a camera bag? If so the this product might just be for you. The Think Tank Stash Master 13L Travel Cube which can easily fit inside many existing bags, and their own Mind Shift Backlight Elite 45L bag has been designed to allow you to expand gear capacity easily in any large backpack. Join us after the break for more details.
There are some truly great lenses available for many different genres on the Micro Four Thirds platform, and the lenses that have been designed specifically for portrait photographers are some of the best. If you shoot with a Micro Four Thirds camera and you have been wondering what lenses you should consider for portrait photography, you’ll enjoy this round up. Here we will take a look at six of the best portrait lenses for the Micro Four Thirds system.
Before I go on, I should fully mention to you that this isn’t a sponsored post. So any accusations of that can go out the window with both our 10 year long policy and the fact that we clearly label everything that is sponsored. But instead, this isn’t my rubbing “I told you so” into your face. Rather, this is my call to remind everyone that there is another option that is arguably better in every single way. The way that I like to describe an Adobe relationship is to make it synonymous to an abusive relationship or a drug. You keep coming back more and more. You know it’s bad. You know that you can do better. But yet for some odd reason you decide that you’re happier with being comfortable. Comfortable means that sometimes you sustain but more of the time you just don’t grow.
We’re sure a lot of photographers have something planned for the coming Star Wars Day, whether it’s documenting fan events and celebrations or shooting their own themed projects. If it’s the latter for you, we have a bunch of cool projects that should get you inspired and filled with ideas! Over the years, Star Wars-themed photography projects have been among our favorites, so there’s a lot of cool stuff for us to give a second look. Not only are they perfect for the occasion, they’re also great examples of inspiring work and impressive creativity!
“…earlier in my career turned down the original Star Wars’ movie…” explains Motion Picture Stills Photographer David James. “George Lucas and I talked about that many years later, he actually admired me for making that decision.” David James–who was tasked to capture the behind the scenes happenings on both Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens and Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi. While being a movie stills photographer is a pretty difficult job, it becomes even more of a challenge when it happens to be on the sets of space operas that take place “in a galaxy far, far away,” where every minute detail is shrouded in secrecy until all is revealed on premiere day. Aside from over a half a century in the industry, David helped found the Society of Motion Picture Stills Photographers (SMPSP), serving as one of the organization’s past presidents, and was bestowed the Still Photographer Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Camera Operators in 2011. In time for Star Wars Day, we talked to David about his experiences working on the sets of both Star Wars sequels, how he entered the world of still photography, his experiences working on some of the most prominent Hollywood blockbusters, and what fuels his creative impulse.