Challenge 6: One Color
Welcome to week 6 of the 2024 SlickPic 52-week Photo Challenge! By now, we’re sure that your skills and creativity are improving by leaps and bounds! This week’s Challenge is: One Color The "one color" theme in photography involves using a dominant hue to create a visually cohesive and impactful composition. This approach can include complementary colors for dynamic contrast, analogous colors for a serene feel, or a monochromatic scheme for unity. Understanding color theory and its psychological effects is key to crafting evocative and harmonious images. Photographer Gurpreet Singh does a good job of explaining monochromatic colors on [...]
Macro Mode: Getting Close with the iPhone 15 Pro Max
Apple introduced Macro Mode with the iPhone 13 and it’s improved each year since. It's convenient to be able to go from photographing landscapes or portraits to making macros with the touch of a button. No changing lenses like we do with a big camera and no need for an accessory lens (although you can get even closer with a good macro lens attached). Here are few steps for creating macro photos with macro mode on the iPhone 13, 14, and 15. You first need to turn on macro mode in the phone’s camera settings. (Settings>Camera>Macro Control>ON) [...]
Photography News January 29, 2024
Photography News January 29, 2024 Quote: "Photography is a universal language that transcends the barriers of culture and time.” – Fan Ho Techniques and Tutorials: Elevate Your Night Street Photography https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59PQT0rLtSc How to do Fine Art Photography | Techniques and Tips https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJHWomuiCfw My Secret Landscape Photography Glow Method https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3UCxOG7xw0 How to Develop Concepts in Photography https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oF1-OJqa0o Quick and Easy Color Grading in Photoshop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YShpJOmU1zY How to get the fine art black and white look https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu0o6FZBnLk Thought for the day: If you become very sick or die, can your friends and families find their favorited photos you made? Or [...]
Challenge 5: Still Life
Welcome to week 5 of the 2024 SlickPic 52-week Photo Challenge! We’re glad you’re here and committed to improving your skills. This week’s Challenge is: Still Life Still-life photography is all about creating compositions with inanimate objects. You’re in control of lighting, composition, and the subject matter. Try playing with the arrangement of objects, the play between light and shadow, and the overall aesthetic and mood of the scene. This genre of photography can transform mundane objects into a piece of art through careful staging and attention to detail. And don’t forget to use tools like Radiant Photo, Luminar Neo, [...]
Photography News January 24, 2024
Photography News January 24, 2024 Quote: "The mission of photography is to explain man to man and each to himself. And that is the most complicated thing on earth" – Edward Steichen Techniques and Tutorials: The Big Secret to Photographing People https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC9EwUgoHoA&t=1s Shooting a Fashion Editorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGUEprWE9Us 3 Simple Lighting Setups for Editorial Photography https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTUV1LIUrLc Quick and Easy Skin Retouch with Dodge and Burn in Photoshop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKX004k2OCw How to smooth skin using frequency separation in Photoshop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAijWkUomak Color Grading in Fashion Photography https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv1di5U6XVQ How to Color Grade with Julieanne Kost https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBu92r3ezTA Thought for the day – Backups, again Another friend of [...]
Challenge 4: Leading Lines
Can you believe it’s already the 4th week of our 52-week photo challenge? Congratulations on making a commitment to improve your skills and inspire others with your photos! This week we’ll be diving into the genre of Leading Lines, which hopefully will broaden your awareness of the world around you. Leading Lines are lines that have been intentionally framed or positioned by photographers to draw a viewer’s eye towards something in the photo. It’s often used to get people to look at a specific part of an image. Here is a primer on leading lines from Photofocus to give you [...]
Challenge 3: Silhouettes
Welcome to week 3 of our 52-week photo challenge, this week about the fascinating genre of Silhouettes. Fun to capture, and sometimes haunting, silhouettes are typically a dark shape and outline of a person or object against a lighter background. Here’s a nice article from Digital Photography School on How to Photograph Silhouettes to give you some tips and inspiration. The Scoop: Submissions will be accepted until the end of the day, Jan 21, 2024 Submit 3 images by clicking the following link Please submit images in the JPEG format and uploading photos that are at least 2500 on the [...]
Photography News January 15, 2024
Photography News January 15, 2024 Quote: "A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart, and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it" – Fan Ho Techniques and Tutorials: Remove And Retouch Flyaways Hair in Photoshop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j79JJppNDaI How to create a sharp Orton glow in Photoshop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUWlzw39YAo How to Edit Muted Tones https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kscQr4VoEOU Creating Dramatic Black and White Images https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8YftP1M3n0 Make the model the client and some training https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCeZcS-Zdaw Wabi-Sabi in Photography: The Art of Imperfection https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkkuW1ZPtXw Thought for the day: "Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking" by David Bayles [...]
Challenge 2: Intentional Camera Movement (ICM)
Welcome to week 2 of our 52-week photo challenge! Thanks for being on the journey, and being committed to improving your skills. This week, we’re going to explore the amazing world of Intentional Camera Movement (ICM). It’s a cool and clever technique where - in many cases - you intentionally move your camera during capture so that the end result is a uniquely blurred image. But there’s SO much more to it than that. Check out this blog post for a terrific primer on ICM from our friend (and ICM “guru”) Roxanne Bouché Overton! A simple search on Google will [...]
Photography News January 8, 2024
Photography News January 8, 2024 Quote: "A camera is just a tool; the photographer's mind and heart are what create the image.” – Fan Ho Techniques and Tutorials: Who I Would Learn Black And White Photography From – If I had to Start Over https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJj21MB2lMs The Simplest Way To Better Photos.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PZ02I9p8Sk Make Your Subject Stand Out – Tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Qk2al8SZro How To Get Soft Tones In Portrait Photos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjg1rOF4_Zw How to get an ethereal look for your photos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrSxI3-WJJQ Surviving 96 Hours with Nat Geo Photographers – found by Paul Pokrywka https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_w-g0eyf9c Thought for the day – Backups Boring subject, [...]
Why Should I Commit to a 52-Week Challenge?
Check out this blog post on all the benefits of participating in consistent photo exercises like this challenge. Why should you commit to a 52-week photo challenge? Great question, and we’re glad you asked! Committing to and participating in a weekly challenge of any kind can be a little daunting at first, but soon becomes a beneficial habit - like taking vitamins! To become better at virtually anything, you need to do it consistently. A weekly challenge featuring a wide variety of assignments will literally “force” you to grow as a photographer. That regular practice will bend your brain around [...]
Photography News January 2, 2024
Photography News January 2, 2024 Quote: “Camera lies all the time. It's all it does is lie, because when you choose this moment instead of this moment, when you... the moment you've made a choice, you're lying about something larger. 'Lying' is an ugly word. I don't mean lying. But any artist picks and chooses what they want to paint or write about or say. Photographers are the same.” – Richard Avedon Techniques and Tutorials: Gear Confessions: 7 Photographers Share Their Best and Worst Purchases Best New Video and Photo Products of 2023 – per LensRentals Is Natural Light the 'Best Light'? Learn the Secrets to Professional Color Management [...]
Challenge 1: Best of 2023
Since 2023 has drawn to a close, it’s a great time to look back at the year that was! Welcome to the first Challenge of the year! With this one, we’d like you to search your back catalog of images taken in 2023 and select your favorite/best 3 to share in the Challenge. They can be in any genre and any subject! It’s often helpful to look back at older images. Sometimes you’ll see them in a brand-new light; other times you might think that a little different approach to post-processing might be just the ticket to go from an [...]
SlickPic Academy: A 52-Week Challenge to Uplevel Your Skills
Happy New Year everyone and welcome to 2024! Here at SlickPic, we’ve been thinking a lot about how SlickPic Academy (“SPA”) can be of the most value to photographers around the world. We started the Academy about 4 months ago and have been introducing you to world-class photographers and educators willing to share their hard-won experiences and incredible photos. Hopefully, this has given you more to think about in your own photography. We have an ambitious SPA “roadmap” for 2024, and we’re going to kick things off strong with a cool Photo Challenge campaign. Think of it as a little [...]
Photography News December 26, 2023
Photography News December 26, 2023 Quote: “If each photograph steals a bit of the soul, isn't it possible that I give up pieces of mine every time I take a picture?” – Richard Avedon Techniques and Tutorials: Things to Consider When Photographing Snow Landscapes How my Midjourney created image got on the main cover along world star photographer Steve McCurry! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GlUKrR9BVI&t=3s Foreshortening in Photography https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRE9_8hG62s Simple Technique to Light Up Street Light in Photoshop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0zpNKNOjOE 3 Techniques To Add Stars In Your Photos With Photoshop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5SkwFVazlc Look At These 7 Excellent Photographs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNJ5LIAkLmA Thought for the day – Improving [...]
Holiday Photo Joy, Part 2: Spread the Love with Group Photo Uploads By Kevin La Rue
In our last article, we talked about how to create albums and upload your images with the ultimate aim of securely sharing them with friends and family. However, with literally everyone having a phone in their pocket, why not harness that? By encouraging everyone to take cool photos (from their point of view) you unlock the ability to truly create a 360° view of a family gathering. This aspect of memory-making makes for… well… lasting memories! You could have people share to social media with a hashtag. Or, create a shared folder on a service like Dropbox or iCloud, but [...]
Photography News December 18, 2023
Photography News December 18, 2023 Quote: "Real people move, they bear with them the element of time. It is this fourth dimension of people that I try to capture in a photograph" – Richard Avedon Techniques and Tutorials: Ideas Made of Light – Daybreak by Maxfield Parrish Photographing the Largest Rocket Ever Flown Moody Long Exposure Photography https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9zMcjBEvR8 Boring Location? Don't make this photography mistake https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=897aFxT0saU Every Pro Photographer uses this Relighting Trick https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3AsldrYaqw Color grading with the Tone Curves https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZhAST1wFrI Thought for the day – Focusing for astrophotography A good astrophoto should have pinpoint stars.The distance gauge on your lens [...]
Photography News December 11, 2023
Photography News December 11, 2023 Quote: "The most important thing in photography is to find your own style and to be true to your own vision.” – Fan Ho Techniques and Tutorials: Edit Or Not To Edit That's The Question Story Behind The "Approaching Shadow" by Fan Ho Pathways to Creativity – Art Wolfe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjtcSo-_XHU Why no one cares about your Photography https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB1g5jv6spU And How Story Will Make Your Photos Memorable https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PshJCXcBsg How to Fix Blurry Photos in Lightroom and Capture One https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMwBI4Wh1LE&t=4s Finding Inspiration and Creating Storytelling Images – Anya Anti https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KsJXYq9sto Thought for the [...]
Joy of Holiday Photos, Part 1: Privacy Matters – Easily & Securely Share Your Family Photos By Kevin La Rue
Once again, it’s that time of year when we come together with family and friends to celebrate the holidays, have delicious food, and catch up on life. And - if you’re like us - it’s a great time to capture memories by taking photos. Lots of them! But what good is a photo unless you share it? Many people just email their images to others which is not great, or reflexively share personal photos on social media - the big social platforms have surely made that easy over the last 20 years. However, that’s not without risks. When you share [...]
Photography News December 5, 2023
Photography News December 5, 2023 Quote: ”Light is the soul of a photograph.” – Fan Ho Techniques and Tutorials: The Importance of Finding Balance in Landscape Photos Creating Powerful Art – Brooke Shaden https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWS-lMnj8B4 9 Priceless Composition Tips For Amazing Photos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMOGSxgY5yc Unlock the World of Fine Art in Photography https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dJvPWTGE5U 10 Brushes All Photographers Should Have https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkI0xMO6jyE Paint Brilliant Color with Linear Light Blend Mode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqHSjwY9uVQ&t=0s Thought for the day: What is Useful Feedback on Your Photos? Likes? Comments? Camera Club wins? All may or may not be useful, but what are your goals? If in your photos you [...]