protips

What Will It Be Like to be a Wedding Photographer in the Future?

It’s fascinating to look back over my 10+ years as a wedding photographer and see the evolution the industry has gone through. That’s not to mention all the drastic changes that happened before my time. It makes one wonder what it will be like to be a wedding photographer in the future.

How to Deal with Family and Bridal Party Pictures at a Wedding

Family and bridal party pictures at a wedding are important, every couple wants them but none of their families want to be patient and present to take them. Meanwhile, there’s a lot of pressure from mothers and grandmothers to get all the important combinations while at the same time, there’s always a cousin that disappeared to the bar.

How to Cull and Edit Wedding Photos Quickly

Time is money. That’s nothing we don’t already know but it’s probably the reason you’re interested and wondering how to cull and edit a wedding quickly. Maybe you’re overwhelmed with work during the wedding season or your clients are bugging you for a faster turnaround.

40 Tips to Take Better Photos in 2024

Many years ago when I was a starry-eyed undergrad I would ask every photographer I came across the same question: "How do I take better photos?" I was extremely lucky to have many talented and generous photographers take me under their wing to show me the ropes. Without their valuable advice, there is no way I would have become the photographer I am today.

Five Tips for Capturing Stunning Portraits on vivo X70 Pro+

Portraits are more than just capturing faces or expressions, they are moments in time that can evoke feelings and anchor lasting memories. Smartphones have made it easier to capture portraits with pleasing bokeh for dramatic effect, but there’s so much more to it than that.

10 Common Photography Website Mistakes (And How to Fix Them)

When we think about websites, search engine optimization (SEO) is often top of mind. How is Google ranking you against other similar photographers? Are you showing up on the first page of search results? There’s no doubt SEO is important for every photographer to consider. However, there are some big misconceptions when it comes to SEO.

How to Do Email Marketing as a Photographer: Here is Expert Advice

There’s a reason that 64% of small businesses use email marketing to reach customers. Email marketing is a valuable tool for photographers to promote their work to potential and existing clients. Virtually every person on the internet has an email address, and email marketing is an effective way to send messages directly to customers and gain prospective clients by reaching an already engaged audience.

How to Do Street Photography with a Smartphone

Street photography might be one of the easiest genres of photography to slide into — it’s just you, a camera, and more or less walking around documenting humankind with an artistic flare — yet it can be quite difficult to progress beyond snapshot-looking images. This article will explore tips for improving your street photography using nothing more than a smartphone.

Instagram for Photographers: Expert Advice on Best Practices

Instagram has nearly 500 million active users per day and pulls in engagement rates 23% higher than Facebook and 84 times higher than Twitter. With statistics like these, it’s the ultimate social media tool for photographers to share their work with clients worldwide.

Tips for Photographing a Vacation with Your Smartphone

Photos are a time machine to the past. Nothing better represents this than vacation pictures. We aren’t taking these photos for us now, we’re taking them for us a year or more down the line to look back on. This article shares ways to think about vacation photography and how all it takes is a smartphone to create lasting memories.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Photographers

Be it for the best chili recipes or the best photographers, people frequently start their web browsing journey with a Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo search. So, if you’re a photographer and you want those search engines to find your website, you need to optimize it for those search engines.

Concise Photography Advice for Friends and Family

"Do you have any advice on how to take good photos?" Because I don't make a secret of my interest in photography, it's not uncommon for people around me to assume that I'm the right person to answer this seemingly innocuous question.

10 Life Hacks for Your Photo Studio

Having a photography studio is fun, but it is even more fun when you start applying simple and cheap solutions plus common sense to make your shooting experience (and your clients’ experience) smoother.

6 Headshot Tips: Advice to Give Your Clients for a Portrait Shoot

I am an experienced corporate/commercial photographer, and I've written this article to help guide my clients into how to prepare for a headshot or portrait session. Most people don't like having their photograph taken, they find it awkward or can't stop thinking about one of their perceived weaknesses.

10 Pro Tips for Taking Your Drone Photography to New Heights

Ever since I began traveling for work, I’ve looked for ways to capture the beauty of planet Earth from above. As early as the 1990s, I began experimenting with every alternative imaginable: ultralights, helicopters, seaplanes, hot air balloons and hang gliders. For me, the drone was simply a dream that materialized in front of me – the beginning of a new era that opened all the doors I desired and freeing me in my search for new photographic elements, perspectives, and composition.

6 Simple Tips for Getting Started in Sports Photography

Sports photography is both challenging and rewarding. It requires practice, the right equipment, and a dash of luck. There wasn’t a lot of literature available on the discipline when I was starting out, so I resorted to learning from the professionals at work around me (I was an athlete), adopted techniques from other photography disciplines such as bird photography, and improvised on them as I went along.

10 Tips for Getting Kids to Smile Naturally in Photos: Secrets From a Pro

Everyone has been taught from birth how to get a kid to smile. You just tell them to say "cheese" and they respond with a nice big natural smile, right? Well, anyone that's actually tried this can testify to how well it works (if you didn't catch my sarcasm... it doesn't). You end up with a photo of a kid with clenched teeth, a scrunched nose, and raised eyebrows.

7 Pro Tips for Crushing Your Night Photography

People ask me all the time how I get my night shots with the stars, so I made a video on the subject. Here are my 7 tips for crushing night photography.

10 Tips for Taking Your Vlogging to the Next Level

In our recent ​Creative Hustle video series, ​PetaPixel​ challenged two photographers, ​Steven John Irby​ and ​Nate Luebbe​, to vlog their way through 24-hour photo challenges. This meant the photographers needed to not only be the star of the show, but also the directors and producers too. For photographers interested in giving vlogging a whirl and becoming the next Peter McKinnon, here are 10 things we learned from the Creative Hustle vlogging experience...

5 Tips for Pro Bottle Photos in Just 5 Minutes

If you ever need to shoot a product photo of a beverage bottle, the concept might not seem too complicated, but seasoned product photographers actually have a number of tricks they use to take their images to the next level. Here's a helpful video in which photographer Max Bridge of Square Mountain shares 5 pro tips in 5 minutes.

How to Pose Your Friends Like Models

If you've ever asked your friends to pose for a photo shoot before, you may have found that it can be difficult achieving high-quality poses when your subject doesn't have modeling experience. In this 5-minute video, photographer Sheldon Evans shares solid tips for how to overcome this hurdle.

11 Tips for Photographing Your Dog or Cat Like a Pro

In order to make your snapshots stand out above the rest by making them look professional, incorporating several creative elements can do just that. I am often asked by pet owners how to get the best shots of their furry companions with a basic camera.

5 Professional Product Photography Tips

As the digital marketplace grows, the demand for good content and eye catching media increases with it. More and more brands and entrepreneurs are taking the photography in-house to keep up with demand, while keeping production costs down.

As a product photographer recognizing the need for assistance, I wanted take the time to share 5 key thoughts and tips that could be useful.

Tip: Before You Rush from Crop to Full Frame, Look at Lenses First

When learning about photography and gear, we all come across these incredible images that have been taken on a wide variety of cameras... but usually with full frame cameras and quality glass. So people often think, "Oh. I need full frame to take these images!"

7 Photo Tips for Capturing Epic Lava Shots 100% In-Camera

CJ Kale and Nick Selway long ago fell in love with Hawaii and founded Lava Light, a photography gallery focused on capturing the ever-changing landscape created by an active volcano and crashing waves -- and sometimes both together when the conditions are just right. And if swimming with fire and dodging lava bombs weren’t challenging enough, these photographers believe in creating their images completely in-camera.

Balancing exposures between sky, water and lava can be incredibly tricky. Luckily, Lava Light has shared some tips to help you get the shot without combining exposures or using HDR.