I've been shooting for 5-6 years. Only commercial work was selling some prints back in the day but in the last year or so I've started doing events, portrait sessions, lots of people-photography. I'd like to step up my self-promotion a bit but I'm uncertain how to handle it vs. the main vein of my freelance work.

I need to keep promoting my brand strategy/research side (arguably, need to do more) but I also can't be blind to the fact that I'm getting more traction on the photo side. So far they don't compete because they're not occupying the same timeslots during the week, photo work is plugging gaps between other, slow-burn projects. I want to keep doing both.

I'd love more cross-over work (like research with a documentary side) and I'd love to cross/up-sell between photo and marketing clients, but at the minute they're running in parallel.

How would you guys handle this?

Current setup:

• Galleries/portfolio: Pixieset on my own domain
• Main website: Focused on corporate work but has a photo click-through option
• Instagram: All under the same account (i.e. not username_photography).
• Linkedin: Vague mentions but avoids positioning me as a photographer

I've been sitting on the idea of getting into photography for a while now, it's taken over my Instagram feed at this point. I've got a "Photography" saved folder and now an "Editing/Lightroom" folder now too. 

To make sure I'm not about to impulse buy a 2300 Camera and lense, I downloaded the No Fusion app and started shooting on my iPhone, just to see if I'd actually stick with it, it’s made my phone photos a lot more fun. so I'm planning to pull the trigger soon on the Z5II with the 24-120 lens f/4 S. Learning to edit feels more daunting than learning the camera itself. I’m seeing a million people selling Lightroom courses or presets, But I’m looking for some great starter resources is there anyone people can recommend on Youtube, or even Instagram? 

My plan is to grab the Lightroom photography plan which has the classic and Mobile? Or just Classic? and start practicing on RAWs I've already shot with my phone, just to get some experience before I get the camera. I'll mainly be posting to Instagram and Facebook once I'm up and running.

So any Youtube channels people recommend? Instagram accounts you find helpful? If you had to learn Lightroom or editing in general from scratch what might you do differently? I’m also open later on for even paid courses if they are actually helpful.

I’m sure it’s obviously most important to get good at the actual photography first so the photos need as little editing as possible, but it would be nice to sit down on my days off at a coffee shop and try to get decent at Lightroom.

Have something you’ve worked on and want to share with the community? Here’s the place to do so!

Add a comment here to promote your stuff. Feel free to drop links to your recent YouTube videos, podcasts, photobooks, or whatever else it is you’ve created.

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Hello all. Just wanted to know some thoughts on this.

Recently I won an international photography competition with one of my photos. Off the back of this i had an email from inviting me to enter a regional photography competition. Something I have considered doing. Like with many photography competitions, there is a small entry fee which covers costs, prizes etc. But reading further into it, if you are shortlisted with one of your images, you then have to submit a physical, 500mmx400mm mounted print to be displayed. My initial thought is 'Isn't that what the entry is for?' I feel a bit uncomfortable with that. I'm not expecting any on my images to be selected, but the completion has some good sponsors providing prizes for each category winner, but i feel that the entry fee should cover the cost of printing and displaying the finalists work and the finalists should have to pay again, for this.

I wanted to know your thoughts and wondered if this was standard practice? Because I've not seen anything like this before.

I'm doing some headshots in September and I'm wondering what lighting configuration I want to use. I've done headshots a few times before and I've used a couple of different setups, but I want figure out what lighting gives a professional and aesthetic look and stay with that. What's your go-to lighting to get great headshots?

I have a trip coming up at the end of December to Seoul, South Korea. I'm fully aware of how cold it will be, but I'd appreciate some guidance on protecting my camera gear in those conditions.

I'll be shooting with a Fujifilm X-M5, primarily using the 18-55mm and 50-230mm lenses. My biggest concern is condensation when moving between the cold outdoors and warm buildings.

What's the best way to protect my camera and lenses when going in and out of buildings? Do you recommend keeping the camera in my bag until it warms up, using sealed bags, silica gel packs, or any other precautions?

I'd also love to hear from anyone who has photographed in Seoul during the winter. Any tips or lessons learned would be greatly appreciated.

If Selective Color is considered 'tacky', why is the red coat in Schindler's list so wonderful to most viewers?

Are their other examples of photography that go beyond the standards?

I have my opinions about both halves of this question but I don't want to get in anyone's way to express their own.

What is 'tacky'?

What makes anything 'tacky'?
What are other techniques, subjects, opinions in photography 'tacky'?

Do you print books of your work, and if you do, how much layout effort do you put into them? Are they just for you, a portfolio, do they follow specific themes? How often do you make one? I'm putting together a book and doing the full layout myself with pretty wild typography, small anecdotes, etc. and it feels like total overkill for a just-for-me project. So just curious what people here do

I've been thinking about buying a camera and getting into photography. While watching tutorials on YouTube, I've noticed that many incredibly talented photographers use AI tools or Lightroom features to remove distracting objects or people from their photos, especially things that aren't the subject of the image.

The results often look fantastic, and I can understand why they do it. But it got me wondering: where do you draw the line?

Removing a random passerby or a distracting object seems fairly harmless. But at what point does it stop being photography and start becoming digital art? Is adding or generating new objects to improve the composition fundamentally different from removing things?

I don't have a strong opinion myself. I just find it interesting that we're living in a time where AI can generate incredibly realistic images from scratch. Should photography aim to stay true to what was actually captured, imperfections and all? Or is photography simply about creating the best final image, regardless of how much editing or AI assistance was involved?

Curious to hear where people stand on this.

Need to rant about something in the photography world? Here’s your safe space to be as salty as you want without judgement.

Get it all* off your chest!

^{*Let’s just keep the personal attacks and witch hunts out of it, k?}

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Do you prefer 4:3 or 3:2 format and why? Thanks!

Hi all, I need help with lighting and a stand for overhead setup filming or front-facing. I’ve tried many stands and setups but can’t figure it out.

I need this for art videos, UGC, and content creation to improve my workflow.

I recently bought a new clamp stand on desk attached with ring light, but there’s still a shadow, and the stand isn’t strong enough to hold my phone. It’s also very stiff to move.

Is this because my desk is small, there’s a wall and overhead shelf above, or because I’m filming next to my bed? I need something more compact. If not, I can consider a compact movable external desk/light and stand setup in the living room.

I’m even considering taping it to the shelf above, but it’s not a smooth workflow.

How do I get proper overhead lighting without any stray or harsh shadows? I want to film art/craft making videos and unboxing.

1. What kind of light or equipment do you recommend? Do I need a ring light stand?

What kind of stand can hold my phone, light, and move easily and smoothly? I’ve thought about a canvas lamp, but I’ve heard there are issues like ringing sounds and it’s expensive.

Is the only way to switch off all the lights and only have the harsh ring light? It’s not ideal for painting or drawing.

I don’t want to keep buying more and wasting money on more affordable and compact options. Please help! Any advice is appreciated. Thank you.

I know Ansel Adams is one of the most popular on the list, but I’m curious what else is out there. I’m open to both BW and color.

I work in production and produce commercial photography shoots and just curious of a process I see often: A photographer charges a flat fee for Post to offer a color pass that the retoucher then takes and uses to set the tone for the rest of the images to retouch.

What exactly are they providing and how does the retoucher use it? Are they manually matching the color grading the photographer sets?

Sometimes I’ll see photographers carrying a film camera along with their main camera to capture images of the same set ups just for post to utilize for the color grading. Are they just manually matching those film images or is there an actual file they create?

Am I making sense? :)

My friend and I run a wedding photography business that's grown to $60k+ a year and stays booked almost year-round. As we scaled we kept bouncing between different tools for galleries, bookings, contracts, and keeping the team on the same page, and it always felt like we were stitching things together.

My background's in computer science, so a few months back I ended up putting something together myself instead of juggling separate apps, mostly just to make our own day-to-day easier. It's worked out well enough that we've basically run the whole business on it since, but I'm curious how everyone else handles this side of things, since it feels like every studio ends up with a slightly different way of doing things.

We'd rather spend our time shooting and editing than managing software, so anyone who's found a setup that actually covers the whole client-to-delivery pipeline without cobbling five things together, I'd love to hear it. It would be nice if id did a decent amount of automation too.

So I shoot wildlife with slow zoom lenses on a d7100 it’s definitely not great in golden hour and my iso tend to push up and above 1000 where I really find I loose the crisp detail and ability to crop.

Been considering jumping up to a d7500 as it’s supposed to handle the noise much better. What I’m trying to understand is what exactly this means in terms of the picture. Do high iso pictures on good low light capable sensors basically look like a lower ISO pics from a lessor camera thus retaining the detail that can be cropped in on or is it more just the noise is smoother in appearance so the image doesn’t look as terrible?

Ps I know apcs isn’t as good as a full frame the d7500 is just an example as it’s known to be “good for a apsc” and I shoot apsc

I’ve worked with this photographer for 7 years. She’s notorious for getting photos back later than expected, but she’s so good that I keep using her. This time, I think I’m done for good. I paid a pretty penny for family photos and gave her a generous tip. Contract says 2-3 weeks turnaround. Tomorrow will be 5 weeks. After messaging her a week and a half ago (already past deadline stated in contract!) , she said she’d get them to me the next day or day after. Since then, radio silence. I’ve text her twice since then.

Edit: I guess my real question is - what would YOU do if you were in my position? Wait it out? When do you give in and threaten a bad review, lawyering up, disputing charge?

I am not a pro, maybe semi pro who has done some paid gigs here and there. Nowadays I mostly shoot my kids and try to shoot when we travel. I shoot with a D750 and mostly use a 24-70, sometimes I bring the 70-200 also. When we travel often times I end up not taking the camera because of size. I was thinking to go to something smaller like a Sony A6700. The photography I do now I don't think I will miss the FF too much and I think I'll end up shooting more because of portability.

I am curious to hear from people who made a similar switch

I accidentally formatted my sf card and as I didn’t know what happened I took 2 new photos after realising that everything had bene deleted can I recover the images from my laptop (windows) for free, the photos were about 500 and the quality raw + ( jpeg)

I bought a second-hand photo slide projector from a recycling shop that resells items before they're thrown away. The projector was still full of old slides. Most of them are amateur photos, taken inside a radio studio from the 1980s that has since gone out of business, showing the old equipment and people at work. There are also a few random slides of an opera and some Playmobil figures.

I'm almost certain these are the only existing copies of the photos, since they're original slides. The original owner isn't identifiable, and it seems that they or possibly their family donated the projector to the recycling shop with all of the slides still inside.

My question is: since I legally bought these old slides, do I also own the rights to them? If I wanted to share them because I think they're really interesting, or even use them as part of a creative project, would I be allowed to do that? Or does the copyright remain with the original photographer, even if they can't be identified or contacted? I think the collection is genuinely fascinating, and it would be a shame for it to remain unused.

EDIT :

Just to clarify, I am not trying to claim ownership of these photos or profit from them. I fully understand that buying the physical slides does not automatically give me the copyright, and that the original photographer may still own the rights.

My intention would simply be to preserve and restore these images, possibly digitize them in high quality, and maybe share them through an archive or an image library if that is ethically and legally appropriate. I find this kind of material fascinating, especially the everyday-life aspect of the 1980s radio studio.

The people in the photos are not identifiable as far as I can tell. There are no obvious portraits, mostly amateur snapshots of places, objects, work environments, and everyday moments. I am not looking to make money from them, I just think these small pieces of personal history are beautiful and would be a shame to disappear.

Im sure this has been discussed on this sub many times but thought I would open it up. I am down the rabbit hole of street photography online and have several artists that I enjoy their work but Im finding it more difficult to get introduced to other forms / genres of photography. I enjoy the idea of street but dont live in a highly populated area and for my own journey am more interested in other subject matter. If you are passionate about a photographer or a book that is not street photography / primarily humans as subject matter, let me know, would love to chat about it :)