Camera Stupid

Making Photography Simple

Outsource Tedious Cutouts with Cutoutimage.com

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If you’ve ever needed to remove the background from an image you know how difficult, time consuming, and tedious it can be. Photoshop has improved it’s toolset over the years but it can still be tricky to make an effective clipping mask, especially with subjects that have hair or fur.

There are plenty of tutorials on youtube if you’d like to learn how to perform complex masking yourself, but today I’d like to share an incredible service that you can use to outsource this type of work. [Read more…]

Peak Design Launches 5-­Day Greatest Hits Kickstarter Campaign

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Since 2011, Peak Design has launched nine products over six Kickstarter campaigns and has raised an unprecedented $14.8M dollars –currently the most of any active crowdfunded company. Over the past year Peak Design began revamping classic product lines to bring them up to the company’s new level of functionality and aesthetics. The company will conclude its overhaul with updated versions of the flagship Capture camera clip, Peak Design’s first product to launch on Kickstarter, as well as its popular Slide and Slide Lite camera straps. Click here to go to the Kickstarter Campaign.

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Prints Matter: 5 Reasons You Should Be Printing Your Photos

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In this era, everything is becoming digital, which might be a great thing. The reason is that you can now achieve things faster with technological opportunities. Unlike in the past when photos had to be washed from the film, you can simply take out your phone and get an instant selfie or group photo today. You can also easily send it to your friends at the click of a button.

 

All this seems great and desirable but the truth is that you should not ditch the photography physical print just yet. This might sound prehistoric but here is why you should actually consider doing it. [Read more…]

How to Charge What You’re Worth

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For me it seems, the years come with themes. 2017 has been a year of change. It’s been a year of learning my value as a creator. It has been a year for making big decisions.

This year I was recruited away from my full time job and will be doing similar work (photography and video production) for a new agency.

As part of this change, I terminated a partnership with a business partner who didn’t really understand our worth, or how to best do business in the market.

I’ve started a new high end portrait studio and I’m finally creating portraits that I’m proud of and charging premium rates.

It’s been a busy, difficult year, with many lessons learned. I hope to share some of those lessons here. [Read more…]

It’s Okay to Copy – The Four Steps of the Creative Process

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I often have the occasion to work with people who don’t necessarily work in what society considers a creative field. For example, a sales person will request a piece of content from the marketing team. They often have some vague direction like “I want it to be sexy.” or “Jazz it up a little.” I have to laugh because in addition to giving completely unhelpful direction, it’s clear that they don’t understand the creative process. They don’t even understand that creativity is a process. I’d love it if I could just crank out creativity on request, but it doesn’t work like that. [Read more…]

7 Days in Haiti

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I recently returned from a trip to Haiti. I was traveling with representatives from Kyäni, an Idaho Falls company that sells nutrition and food supplements.

Kyäni’s nonprofit foundation, Kyäni Caring Hands, manufactures a nutrient-fortified instant potato product.

We spent a week distributing the product at Haitian orphanages and churches in an effort to alleviate hunger and scout potential humanitarian distribution lines. [Read more…]

Building a Photo & Video Editing Workstation with AMD Ryzen

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I grew up in a in a house where the personal computer was a permanent appliance. My father worked as a programmer and we updated our home computer regularly as the technology developed. I remember booting DOS games from floppy drives, our first Amiga with a color graphical interface, and eventually getting internet at home through a dial-up modem. As the technology developed, so did my knowledge and interest in the hardware itself. [Read more…]

Sharpen your Studio Skills – Photographing Knives

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And old friend of mine and Camera Stupid community member Jonathan Samson hit me up the other day asking for some tips for photographing knives. His cousin owns Scar Blades and creates these beautifully finished, hand-made masterpieces.

We spent a morning experimenting with different shots and setups using props we were able to pull together the night before. Take a look behind the scenes in this video: [Read more…]