Pro Techniques

In my last column I talked about fixers—the guide/translators who smooth the way and open the doors so I can get the photographs. They’re important when it comes to photographing people, especially when I don’t speak the language, which is most of the time. But while I don’t always have a fixer, I have my people skills.

The most...

Tony Arrasmith is a master at creating composite images.

His attention to detail is what draws clients to his Cincinnati studio. A long-time ASMP member, he operates Arrasmith & Associates (www.tonyarrasmith.com) in partnership with Sarah O’Dell, who manages the studio and coordinates projects. The studio has...

It sometimes seems that there are two kinds of photographers: those who bang their cameras and lenses around mercilessly, and those who baby them. The former see themselves as rough, tough, and macho; the latter are perpetually worried about the slightest risk of damage to their precious cameras.

Neither attitude makes a lot of sense. Yes, you need to be unlucky to damage a...

It’s pretty easy these days to do what seemed a monumental task in the past—create a website that makes navigation easy, displaying and selling images simple, and that does not require eight-weeks attendance in an HTML class in some bleak basement classroom of an adult ed evening program to get to stage one. True, there are plenty of browser and editing programs that can create a web...

No matter how light you pack, you always feel like you could add just one more item. Knowing photographers, if you can take it, you will. If you plan your trip correctly, you will save weight and not only make your outing a success, but be more mobile and comfortable as well.

With that in mind, let’s look at some “ounce saving” tips. Your...

One moment you can find him photographing people diving off a boat in Bali, the next focusing on a businesswoman returning to a hotel restaurant in Bangkok to savor the haute cuisine, and then back in his studio capturing a telling portrait. That’s the life of an advertising photographer specializing in portraiture, lifestyle, and fashion, as David Allan Brandt knows it.

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I probably take more pictures of people working than any other subject. Since I am a commercial photographer this makes a lot of sense. I love taking shots of people actually working; they provide wonderful opportunities to see people involved in something they take seriously. You can often get shots where people really aren’t paying attention to you, just doing what they do. Work shots...