Category: Photography Tips

The Best Stock Photography Sites

This is just a quick post with a few links that I will keep updating in the future.

Here are a ways to find stock photography:

Stock photos that don’t suck - A list of places to find the best free stock photos:
https://medium.com/design-ux/62ae4bcbe01b

How to Find Stock Photos That Don’t Suck:
http://designrope.com/design/find-stock-photos-dont-suck/

Compilation of stock photo sites:
http://www.crazyleafdesign.com/blog/cloud-stock-photos-resources/

The Basics of Light and Flash Photography

Professional photographer and Nikon shooter Joe McNally takes you through some fundamental basics in recognizing light scenarios and how to use flash photography.

Nikon is just starting to release new videos like this on a biweekly basis on their YouTube channel.

See also Taking Advantage Of Magic Hour

Access more videos like this in the the huge Icon Photography School Photography Video library. IPS students can access it via the student workspace. (Icon Photography School students only) If you're not a student you can signup here.

Henri Cartier-Bresson Documentary: The Impassioned Eye

Someone has posted this lovely documentary about Henri Cartier Bresson. Bresson is undoubtedly one of the masters of photography and this revealing documentary is absolutely fascinating. He was a master of the decisive moment.

Also speaking of the decisive moment, this actually might just be an artifact of the past. Consider the notion that in the future your video camera will shoot such high resolution imagery that you could just record a long scene and then scroll back frame by frame to pick out the decisive moment! Kevin Kelly posted about this idea recently. He calls it the decisive hour. The main idea is that the distinction between cinema and stills is already gone.

Learn more and Henri Cartier Bresson

Learn more about the masters of photography.

Fastest Way To Learn a Camera’s Manual


photo by mustafasayed

I'll just put this here:

You could try learn your camera's manual by reading it, just be aware that you may actually die of boredom. So what is the fast way to learn a camera manual? Put it near your toilet! That's right leave it near your toilet and you will pick up a thing or two every time you take care of business. When there is nothing to read your camera's manual will save you. You'll learn all about the DSLR you own and don't know how to use.

So um yeah that's that.

What Is The Best Way To Learn Photography?

Let's set the record straight.
There is no best way to learn photography. There are plenty of ways to learn photography and there really is no perfect answer this question. Everyone has their own learning style, as such there is no 'one size fits all' solution.

Some people teach themselves, others benefit greatly from a formal education. Others choose to get best of both worlds by learning photography online and teaching themselves.

A Few Ways To Learn Photography:

The list could go on and on. The main thing is that nobody can tell you what is best for you!

What you should really be asking:
If you want to learn photography, ask yourself what is the most fun you've had learning something? And then try to replicate that. When something is fun people tend to learn quickly. Also as yourself what format do you prefer when learning? Some people prefer the written word and others are more visual. Then choose your method(s) accordingly. A hybrid approach is really great. Just combine a few theoretical and practical approaches and you'll be all set.

Essential To Learning Photography:
This really applies to anything you want to get good at but it really works with photography.

  • Have fun
  • Practice hard

Without the hard work of practice and the fun of learning you won't get anywhere.

Photography is a Life-long Journey:
One of the most fascinating aspects of photography is that you really never stop learning. Not only does the art form evolve over time but you get older and you attain a different perspective. Your early photos will be embarrassingly bad but they may be more interesting in a different context. What's more, the technology of photography changes regularly as well. There is always something new to learn! How great is that?!

Your first 10 000 photographs are your worst.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson

What are you waiting for? Get started learning photography now. The sooner you start the better! When you enroll in this course you can start learning right. There is no waiting!

Getting Close Is Critical For Stunning Photographs

"If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough."
- Robert Capa

That one line photography quote by the great Robert Capa is so so true!

If there is anything you can do to dramatically improve your photography immediately, it's get close, and then get even closer.

Here is a example of something I witnessed at the top of Uluru in Australia. The man below thinks he is going to shoot a good photo and he is trying his best. In fact this is how close the average person gets when taking a photograph like this.

This is how close I get when taking a photograph:

It's so easy to get close and it results in vastly superior photographs almost every single time. Also take special note here that the best way to get close is by moving your feet. If that doesn't work only then do you use your telephoto lens. Got it?! Good!

Just look at the photos below and you'll see how different the same subject can be.

Too far:

photo by rankingfuuta

Just right:

photo by mjmerry

Here is a video from Vsauce about this subject:

Here is a video from Mike Browne on this subject:

Here is a different opinion on the subject from Matt Granger:

So get out there and get close!

Want to learn more simple ways to improve your images? We have all kinds of tips and tricks like this in our photography course.

Learn The Importance of Scale In Photography


(Photographer unknown. If you know who took this get in touch so we can give credit where it's due!)

This photograph of two men standing at the bottom of a very large ship in a dry dock is a really stunning example of scale in photography. Using scale in photography is very important because as humans our minds figure out the size of our surrounding world in various ways. Of course your brain knows the size of a human and in this case that means that is one HUGE ship!

Scale gives the person looking at your photograph a frame of reference. Scale is often an under-utilized technique in photography. In fact many beginners in photography will even go so far as to remove people from a landscape photo thinking people in the image detract from the view. When in fact having people in your landscape photos can often be great! For example look at how much better this image is because there is a person in the foreground:


photo by steved

Be aware your brain can and will play tricks on you:

In fact this caused problems for astronauts on the moon! Here on Earth, distant objects are obscured by the atmosphere, and we use that to mentally estimate distances. That makes things a little tricky on the moon because there is no air! An object can be very far away on the Moon and still razor sharp to the eye. You can't tell if a boulder is a meter across and 50 meters away, or 10 meters across and 10 miles away!

To give you an example this watch the rock the start of this video. Try to guess the size of the rock at the start of the video. Then watch until the end and see if your original guess was indeed correct.

Here is another fantastic example of scale in photography:

example of scale in photography

(Photographer unknown. If you know who took this get in touch so we can give credit where it's due! Image via Imgur)

Scale is a great technique to improve your images and shouldn't be overlooked. You can even have fun with it like this. As humans we need scaled to know how large and small the surround world is. In photography it helps us to enjoy the image instead of adding mental work to figure out the size of various elements.

Here is another video about scale (and polarizing filters)

Now go forth and take some great photographs with scale!

Update here is another great ship photo.

Finally, check out these great examples of scale in landscape photography in Iceland.

Here is a video that uses scale nicely: