How-To

Vincent soyez, a commercial portrait photographer based in Brooklyn, NY, is always shooting.“I constantly keep my eyes open for interesting visuals. In fact, if I don’t shoot regularly, I start to feel that something is missing almost on a physical level,” he says. “The photo shown here is a view from one of my windows. I felt seduced by the calm of the moment, and had to grab my Leica X1.”

Maybe you just pulled the wrapping paper from a shiny new DSLR. Or perhaps you used that holiday bonus money to get an interchangeable-lens compact. Or hey, maybe it's summer and you just found this article through Google. Regardless, you just upped your camera gear game and for that, we'd like to congratulate you. But, before you can make the most of your new set-up, there are a few steps you'll want to follow. Go out and shoot a little bit

Candy Glass Productions have put together a very cool video about the laborious process they undertook to spin a camera around the CN tower. In order to get the tower perfectly framed in every shot, they had to map out around 36 locations in a perfect circle around the tower. Then, there was photography, editing the photos so the tower was perfectly centered and aligned, some motion blur, and stitching the whole shebang into a video.

Diffuse natural light brings out the best in food. If you’re picnicking on a cloudy day, you’ve got  it made in the shade―literally. If you’re indoors, set up near a window or switch on some lights. Use sidelighting when you want to shoot from above and emphasize texture. If you want to make the overall effect more even, try using a reflector on the opposite side to fill in some of the shadows. And when you’re aiming for all-out foodie drama, go for backlighting.