We hope you're having a great summer. We wanted to share some tutorials and resources with you to help you out with your photography. We hope you find

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We hope you're having a great summer. We wanted to share some tutorials and resources with you to help you out with your photography. We hope you find these tips helpful.

Note: Photofocus is a education and news site for photographers. You previously joined our list through either our website, buying an ebook, or entering one of our camera contests. Our goal is to educate and inspire.

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How to Use a Flash for Events

Using a flash at an indoor event is a probably the simplest way to make pictures of small groups look their best. At weddings, parties, and fundraisers, friends and families are together for a short time and they are surprisingly willing to be in a photograph. It’s best to use a speedlight, not your camera’s pop-up flash, but the speedlight alone will probably give you faces that are too bright, backgrounds that are too dark, and light that is too harsh. There are lots of camera settings listed below, but if you’ll do the following it’ll make your event pictures more natural and flattering. Just follow the directions one at a time.

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Get a Free eBook (Just Click Below)

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While Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is a great tool to develop your photos, it also serves another important purpose… keeping your images organized. But how you go about this process is pretty complex. Join five photographers as they share their ideas on how to keep an organized photo library.

Thanks to our friends at Drobo, this book is absolutely free.

GET THE BOOK

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5 Ways to Challenge Yourself as a Photographer

As a photographer, do you ever start feeling like you’re in a bit of a rut? Or perhaps you feel the need to challenge yourself to improve your skills. Maybe you’re just looking for some ideas on stretching your creativity. Here are five simple ideas to challenge yourself as a photographer, both to improve your skills and also challenge yourself creatively.

1. Turn off the display
Go into your camera settings and turn off the LCD display on the back of your camera. If you can’t figure out where that setting is, tape a piece of cardboard over the LCD. The idea is to remove the temptation to look at your display after every shot to see how if looks. This will “force” you to think more carefully about camera settings and composition because you can’t just take a quick look at the LCD and make adjustments according to what you see.

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Which Camera Style Is Your Next Purchase?

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It’s that time of the week. We’d like to understand our reader’s a little better. Please let us know which style of camera you plan to buy next.

Be sure to vote and check out the results so far!

VOTE HERE

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Sale Ends July 15

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More to a Silhouette than Exposure

There are a few key elements that create a successful silhouette. I’ll say it loud and proud.

It is MORE than exposure. Yes, you meter for the sky, yes, that brings the blacks black, but there is so much more to it than that. I used to say, angle, separation, and exposure.

But it is even more than that. You can nail the angle, shooting from down low, you can nail the exposure, and you can even get the separation, but if you aren’t telling a story, or conveying an emotion, you’re not getting it.

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Catch Up On Our Podcasts

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Catch all of our new shows

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Using Shadows As Creative Tools In Your Photography

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Shadows define an image. They are transformative, a paintbrush in a photographer’s hand, giving us the ability to use light to sculpt a three dimensional image from a two dimensional reality.

I traveled to the Palouse agricultural region, primarily in Washington and Oregon, to photograph shadows. Shadows on undulating fields of crops, buildings, farm equipment, train cars and tracks, and on old cars. The funny thing is — I didn’t realize I was visiting the Palouse to shoot shadows until after I arrived and started to photograph.

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The Big Deal Ends July 12

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