The Art of the Black & White Commercial Portrait
Black & White Photography

The Art of the Black & White Commercial Portrait

When you think about creating a black-and-white photo, ask yourself, why black and white? Some clients simply want it for a particular marketing look or just for the love of black and white. Either way, you should know why you’re shooting in this style. In this article, I focus on a recent black-and-white project I did for a commercial client.

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Sal Cincotta on How to Become a Better Photographer
Business

Sal Cincotta on How to Become a Better Photographer

I have been at this for 10 years, and in that time, I have watched my work continue to improve. We never stop growing. But that improvement was not haphazard in its execution. The things I know today as second nature, I vividly remember struggling with eight years ago. So that leads us to the next questions. How do I become better? How do I prevent burnout? How do I chart my career?
Let’s dive into some ideas that will help you no matter where you are in your career.

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Shoot for Success With Self-Promotion
Branding

Shoot for Success with Self-Promotion

Many photographers act as if they’ve got a top-notch publicist on their payroll, and do nothing to promote their business or brand. They act as if self-promotion is a dirty word and not something worthy of their time, when in reality it’s one of the most important aspects of building any business. So, let’s get proactive and put you and your skillset in the spotlight.

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6 Tips for Capturing Authentic Images on a Wedding Day
Black & White Photography

6 Tips for Capturing Authentic Images on a Wedding Day

Authentic images are the ones our clients want to buy. So how do you learn to recognize authenticity in a photograph? Even more challenging, how do you then re-create authenticity in image after image for your many clients? It’s a hugely important question for your business. So let’s talk about six ways Eileen and I capture authentic moments.

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Using Selective Color to Create Black & White Images in Photoshop
Black & White Photography

Using Selective Color to Create Black & White Images in Photoshop

Black-and-white conversion is an art, and the art is in determining how each color is rendered in black and white. Say you have an image of a beautiful landscape with a deep blue sky full of fluffy clouds. When we convert that to black and white, the blue sky loses its color. Now, I have a question for you: How will the blue areas look in black and white? Will they look light gray? Dark gray? White? Or maybe light gray with a slight gradient of dark gray? Making these decisions for how each color will be rendered is what makes black-and-white conversion fun.

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Creating Window Light with Strobes
Black & White Photography

Creating Window Light with Strobes

Nothing beats window light. It’s broad, diffuse, indirect, soft light that’s flattering to anyone in its path. But what do you do when the sun has set, there is no window or Mother Nature isn’t cooperating? With the right tools and techniques, you can re-create it. I’ve seen this sun-drenched looks-like-daylight-but-isn’t look used often in Gap ads. The light created for these images has the open, airy quality you get from daylight streaming in through a large window. It’s perfect for Gap’s brand. I’ve always loved this quality of light and wanted to use it in my own work. How they did it was the big question mark.

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Documentary Photography: The Art of Capturing the World in Black & White
Black & White Photography

Documentary Photography: The Art of Capturing the World in Black & White

Most great documentary photos are the result of preparation, time and relationships. Street photography isn’t about luck; it’s about forcing chance. It’s not enough to have a camera on you. You need to go out of your way, get up early for the sunrise and stay up late for the action. Sometimes you might stand in the rain for hours on some street corner because the reflections are nice and it’s a great backdrop, but you have to wait for the right kind of protagonist to appear and complete the scene.

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Pushing Past the Wall
Business

Pushing Past the Wall

You can read every business book until you’re blue in the face, but what happens when that isn’t enough, when you are stuck in a rut while just starting out, or, worse, stuck at a plateau after establishing your business? Here are five ways you can push past what seem like your limits.

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Glamour Photography in Black-and-White
Black & White Photography

Glamour Photography in Black & White

Photographers often find themselves torn between the color version of their edit and a black-and-white conversion of the same shot (you even see photographers post both versions on social media, asking their followers which one they prefer). This is almost certainly indicative of a photographer making the unfortunate mistake of not having a complete vision for a shot up front. While you can convert an image to black and white arbitrarily and find success with it, I find far more consistent results when you set out to shoot monochrome from the start. But where do you start?

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Using Capture One Pro 10 Presets and Styles for Easy Black & White Images
Post Production

Using Capture One Pro 10 Presets and Styles for Easy Black & White Images

Whether you are shooting for grayscale or converting images due to horrible mixed lighting, you need a good workflow for black-and-white editing. Capture One Pro 10 has made it simple to do a large majority of your black-and-white editing without the need to edit in another software or plugin. This article show you how to use the presets, styles and tools of Capture One to make your black-and-white editing not only easier, but prettier.

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Behind the Shutter

Photography training and education for the modern photographer

In today’s competitive landscape, quality online photography training and education is priceless to your growth. Unfortunately, most publications contain a ton of fluff. No real meat to their content. Not at Behind the Shutter. We are committed to the photography community and improving professional photography by providing current, insightful, and in-depth educational content.

Training topics include photography lighting techniques, photography off-camera flash tips, photography posing guides, photography business concepts and marketing strategies, Facebook for photographers, boudoir and glamour photography training, high-school senior photography concepts, IPS (In-Person Sales) strategies, family photography, Lightroom tutorials, Photoshop how-tos, and much, much more.