Mobile Photography

Halloween is the perfect time of year for experimenting with your photography. With all of spookiness, jack-o-lanterns, decorations, and our subject for this tutorial – ghosts! Of course we’re not chasing down real ghosts to photograph (that’s another topic all together), rather, we’ll show you how you can take a ghostly photo of your little ones, and it will all be done in-camera!

This is one of those techniques that is highly effective and actually quite simple to achieve. The important point to remember is that you will want to shoot this type of shot in either a dark environment or nighttime (even dusk) if shooting outside. We’re going to be using long shutter speeds, so a bright day isn’t the idea situation for this particular effect. Since we are going to be using long shutter speeds, you’ll also want to have your tripod handy, and if you have a shutter release cable, then that would be great too (but not necessary). If you haven’t guessed by now, this is actually going to be a double-exposure effect using just a single, long exposure.

Once you’ve chosen your location and have your subject who’s willing to be photographed and turned into a spooky apparition, you’re ready to begin. Set up camera on the tripod, and position your subject in the frame. We’re going to use one of the camera modes which (from our Twitter survey) turns out to be everyone’s least used mode – Shutter Priority. Set the shutter speed to anywhere between 6 to 10 seconds (now you see why we need that tripod!). You’ll also want to use either your camera’s pop-up flash, or flash unit if you have one available. We’re ready to shoot!

Instruct your subject that once you shoot the photo, the flash will fire. Immediately after the flash fires, have your subject exit the scene as quickly (and safely) as possible while the shutter remains open). The flash will actually “freeze” them in sharp focus in the frame, and the motion of them leaving the frame will not be captured significantly.

3RD ANNUAL MOBILE PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS Open for Entries Now! October 4-December 3, 2013 The Mobile Photography Awards were founded in 2011 to recognize and celebrate the genre’s leading mobile photo & art talent. 

It is with great anticipation and excitement that we announce the opening of the submission period for the 3rd annual Mobile Photography Awards. The MPA is an international open call for photographs and images created on mobile devices (phone and tablet).  The Mobile Photography Awards are open for entry to photographers and artists worldwide.

Over the course of three years, the Mobile Photography Awards has become the world’s largest annual event & competition of it’s kind. The MPA offers artists opportunities for exhibits, open gallery calls, fine art sales, and annual cash and prizes of more than $15,000. Entry fees remain the same as last year: $20 for 3 images, $30 for 5 images, $50 for 9 images and $100 for 20 images. The MPA/DIPTIC Photo Essay is a separate $25 entry with its own $500 prize and gallery exhibit.

The Mobile Photography Awards has 20 photo categories. Every image entered may be placed in up to three (3) categories. All 20 category winners receive MPA prize packs and are included on the exclusive MPA Exhibit Tour, with further opportunities for fine art sales. Grand Prize winners receive $3000, 2nd Place is awarded $500 and the MPA/DIPTIC Photo Essay is also awarded $500. More exciting prizes to be announced shortly!

In this tutorial, we'll take that lens off the camera and do some freelensing, also known as lens whacking. By unmounting the lens, you can create tilt-shift effects and introduce great light leaks. With this guide and a little practice, you'll be creating deamy images in no time.

Late in 2012, photojournalist Daniella Zalcman moved from New York City to her new home in London. Zalcman adores both cities for, among other things, their photogenic nature. And so she decided to mix the two together into a creative series of double exposures dubbed New York + London, using her smartphone.

And so all of the photos you see here and in the full series on her website are created using her iPhone, not just to take the initial snaps, but to edit them together into the final composites as well.

Each photo is the result of hours spent using the negative space, color and contrast of the photos to select the best pairs and painstakingly put them together, rejecting many versions in the process, until she has the exact shot.

The world of camera lenses can be a bit daunting when you first start out, and so a videographer and photographer have joined forces to put together a fun (and funny) intorduction to all the basic lens options, what they do, and what situtations you might use them in.

Obviously a four-minute video isn’t enough to get comprehensive about all of the myriad lens options within each of these categories, but for someone just starting out, it’ll help them navigate the world of glass and decide, if not which, then at least what type of lenses to buy.

Admittedly, all of the lenses they cover in the video are pretty expensive — not many beginners can afford to pony up for a 50mm f/1.2 if they need a fast lens. But the lesson is about the types of shots you can get with specific types of lenses, not about the lens within that category you need to buy. If you’re a beginner, just get a nifty fifty (50mm f/1.8) if you want a fast lens.

Check out the video at the top to get a bit more detail, and you experienced folk feel free to drop further explanations or more tips in the comments for our beginner readers.

Photographing Seaside Landscapes poses a number of problems. There's wind, sand, and water to contend with. Here are some tips on tackling these challenges.

Photography is largely about capturing the moment. Not just any moment, though. We're talking that singular instant when light, expression, movement and environment all converge in one significant fraction of a second. That's when the dirt's flying, the action's peaking and that ray of golden sunlight is turning your subject into a hero. If you knew exactly when that moment of truth was going to happen, you'd be a true camera master. 

Or course, most of us don't have psychic abilities, but we do possess a minor form of clairvoyance that allows us to see into the future. It's called anticipation.

In photography, looking into the future involves imagining with high probability how the scene will play out in a time that's later than "right now." It's seeing a convergence of light, moment and subject in your mind that might happen, and then working backwards to make it happen.

Most great images form some anticipation, whether it's noticing how the light will hit your sbuject in a few minutes, paying attention to how your subject and bakground will look when lined up as two-dimensional images, or recognizing when and where the height of action of expression might occur.

One of the joys of photography is the interesting cast of characters you meet along the way. I’m not talking about the subject’s you’re shooting here, I’m talking about the other photographers you’ll run in to.

No matter how many different personalities you come across though, you’ll eventually start to notice recurring themes. A cast of familiar characters if you will. Today, in order to lighten things up a little, we’ll explore a few of those different characters. Here are 8 different types of photographers you’ll run into in your life:

In an attempt to show off just how powerful its Snapdragon 600 processors are, Qualcomm decided to go all Matrix on the people of Venice, CA and New York City. They did this by putting together an impressive 130-smartphone 540° bullet time photo booth using only HTC One smartphones.

They call it the Snapdragon Booth, and like any photo booth, after it was set up it was just a matter of time before volunteers started using it. Of course, that’s where the similarities end, because the photo booth at your local theatre has nothing on Qualcomm’s creation.

And much of what didn’t make the video did make it onto the Snapdragon Booth website where the 540-degree bullet-time footage was turned into GIFs for your viewing pleasure.

Admittedly, the results are a tiny bit shakier than what we’re used to seeing from, say, a GoPro or DSLR rig. But considering the fact that these are smartphones and not dedicated cameras, Snapdragon managed to put something pretty cool together here.

We're losing count of all the new gear announced in October so far, but one thing's for sure: if you have G.A.S. you're in serious trouble. Now joining Nikon's D5300, Sony's a7 and a7R, Panasonic's GM1 and more are two fresh cameras from the Fujifilm camp: the X-E2 and XQ1.

Both cameras borrow improved technology found in the likes of the X100S in order to boast significantly improved power and speed specs over their predecessors.

Fujifilm X-E2

Most of the hardware in the X-E2 has been updated, leaving the X-E1 in the metaphorical dust. Inside you’ll find the newest 16.3-megapixel APS-C X-Trans CMOS II sensor, an EXR Processor II that Fuji claims is now twice as fast, a higher-resolution 920K-dot 3-inch LCD, and a hybrid AF system that gives the X-E2 “the world’s fastest AF speed of 0.08 seconds” (for a camera with an APS-C sensor or larger).

The new camera also boasts the ability to shoot 1080/60p Full HD video, 7fps continuous, Fuji’s digital split image manual focus technology, improved EV compensation of +/-3EV, a 2.36M-dot OLED EVF and built-in WiFi to boot.

Fujifilm XQ1

While the XQ1 won’t turn as many heads as its interchangeable lens brethren, the new fixed-lens followup to the XF1 still packs some serious specs. Hardware wise, the shooter boasts a 12-megapixel 2/3-inch X-Trans CMOS II sensor that sees the world through a 25-100mm f/1.8-4.9 lens.

But upgrades don’t stop there. The XQ1 also got the same high-res 3-inch LCD and speedy EXR Processor II upgrade that the X-E2 boasts, clocking in another world’s fastest AF speed (for a camera with its sensor size or larger) of 0.06 seconds, start-up time of 0.5 seconds, shooting interval of 0.3 seconds and a shutter lag of just 0.015 seconds. Oh, and this one has built-in WiFi too.

Recently, The Creators Project got a chance to interview Cass and watch him behind the scenes as he creates these fascinating compositions. From selecting a location, to shooting it to post-processing, they followed Cass around and got some great insights from him in the process.

In addition to the video, Cass also provided eight “commandments of photography” he follows to make sure his work doesn’t digress into a gimmick. Those are:

1. I don’t change a thing and I never move a figure or doctor a single pixel. I simply decide what’s stays in and what’s left out.
2. My work looks real because it is real, even though it’s based on a trick.
3. I use Photoshop to increase imperfection, not remove it.
4. When I go out to photograph I like to have a plan because I can always bag it when I get back to the studio and do something completely different.
5. I try to have some context so I’m not just taking pictures in the dark, as it were. So I try to read a million books, see a ton of movies, listen to all kinds of music, and go to every gallery and museum I can find.
6. I never pass up the chance to make a joke, visual or otherwise.
7. People tend to clump, so I look for birds and kids to fill the high and low spots.
8. Rule: If twins happen to wander into the frame, I always leave them in so people think it’s a Photoshop trick.

If you're looking for a country to take some beautiful images and enjoy some wonderful beer, go to the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic is steeped in history, and, as well as being at the center of several different European cultures, it enjoys both a bustling and popular capital city, and many nore beautiful spots that are off the beaten path. 

Prague, among the places of interest in Prague are the Franz Kafka Cafe, the Prague Astronomical Clock which draws a huge crowd every time it begins to move, and the ST. Vitus Cathedral inside the Prague Castle grounds, a gorgeous example of gothic architecture that's perfect for inventive travel photos.

Before going in to the details, I want emphasize how important research and planning is. It should be a given, but maybe you're like me and sometimes enjoy just winging a shoot, but in this case, keep in mind that when the environment is completely different, it's not quite like simply testing a new light setup.

There will be discomforts, logistics complications, and unexpected difficulties just because it's not everyday that most of us spend a few hours underwater. So make sure to read up as much as you can. It will help you prepare both mentally and logistically, and make your underwater shooting experience a smooth-sailing and fun one.

This is similar to when I do movement shots -- take a few tests and rehearse the movements with the model in the beginning. This will save time and energy as you're looking at the general picture and feel of the pose and framing. The model won't have to school her expressions or make sure her hair and clothes are perfectly in place, those things take 10 times longer to adjust in water than on land, and it gets cold and uncomfortable in water very quickly. You want to conserve her energy as much as possible.

Most of the time you'll want to sink for flexibility in angles, but it's difficult and often you'll end up floating more.