Julie Powell is a photographer, writer and educator, offers unique photographic opportunities and inspirational ideas to help YOU become the photographer you wish to be.
I was recently asked to review Plotagraph Pro, and I was super excited to play with this one. I have seen it before and thought it would be great fun to play with. In a word, it animates your photos. Think Harry Potter-style magic photos, although the people don’t get up and leave! Plotaverse calls it “motion art, a photo animation revolution.”
Well, there are some buzz words for you — focus stacking, macro rail … but what does it all mean?
I recently wrote a post on using extension tubes and mentioned how macro ring lights can be very helpful. So in this follow-up, I take a closer look at macro ring lights and the benefits of them.
I recently took it upon myself to not only use only my Samsung S9 mobile phone, but to also shoot and edit in Adobe Lightroom for mobile.
The exciting BRAND NEW self-paced online class completely dedicated to editing portraits in Photoshop
What are extension tubes you ask? They sit between your lens and your camera body, reducing the minimum focus distance of your lens and magnify your images. Long story short, they help create macro images without a macro lens.
I recently wrote a post about how I felt people were getting to hung up on noise (or grain) in their images.
Did you know you can create your own gradients and color swatches with Adobe Color?
I love to document some of these, as well as behind-the-scenes setup and of course, behind-the-scenes for the actual shoot. It has become an expected thing now with my creative sessions and even my workshops to capture and share these videos.
Does noise really matter all that much in portraits? I think people are too hung up on having their images 100% noiseless, whereas the crisper and sharper, the better. And that’s just the point isn’t it?
There are times when the available light does NOT work in your favor. Perhaps you want a longer exposure of a waterfall to obtain that soft silky water effect, but there is too much light. Even when your exposures are set to their limits, that is when filters can come to the rescue.
Once you get over the first hurdle in actually calibrating your monitor for the first time (like me when I was a complete newbie), you have to remember how often you need to re-calibrate.
What you see is what you get, and it begins with a calibrated monitor. I recently found out just that when I was given a SpyderX Pro to try out.
Are you one of those portrait photographers who want to get in and get out real quick when it comes to editing? Not everyone wants to spend hours cleaning up blemishes in an image.
OK, I will admit it, I am a complete newbie when it comes to calibrating a monitor. I know I SHOULD be doing it, but I am sometimes a bit tech shy. I sometimes get a little frustrated that my printed images don’t always look exactly like my screen images.
While it is important, it is also something that frequently gets overlooked. So let’s take a look at metering modes for photography.
Going a bit stir crazy in self-isolation? Looking for some fun activities to burn through the hours? How about trying your hand at some of these, especially if they are out of your comfort zone.
Have you suddenly found yourself with some spare time on your hands? Looking for the silver lining, perhaps think of this as enforced creative project time.
As with food photography, I love hunting for props and backgrounds to put in my images for still life photography and I really like a variety of items. I still adore using colour, but I tend to tone down my colour palette for still life, using more soft muted colours.
