Living Landscapes: A Guide to Stunning Landscape Photography

Today I'm very excited to announce the launch of an eBook that we've been working on all year at dPS HQ. It is called Living Landscapes: A Guide to Stunning Landscape Photography - an eBook authored by New Zealand Landscape Photographers Todd and Sarah Sisson.

The eBook We Just Had to Release

Before this release we've built up a library of 12 dPS eBooks but the one request we keep getting from readers has been for a Landscape Photography guide.

I've long wanted to publish one as Landscape Photography was my own first love but have been waiting for just the right photographer to author the eBook.

I'm glad I waited because at the beginning of last year I stumbled on a Google Hangout with Trey Ratcliff which Todd Sisson. I was impressed with Todd for a couple of reasons.

Firstly his photos were gorgeous - I got lost for a good hour or so looking through his portfolio.

Secondly Todd was a great communicator. He was funny, personal and even on that short Google Hangout I learned a thing or two about shooting landscapes.

Todd and I began to talk about a potential collaboration on this eBook last year and as a result of that initial conversation he guest posted here on dPS with a post called Composing Dynamic Landscape Images. That post was our 3rd most popular post on the site in 2012 and helped hundreds of thousands of people improve their Landscape photography.

This showed us the need for a more comprehensive guide to shooting landscapes and so Todd - and his wife Sarah who is also an accomplished landscape photographer - began to work on creating this guide.

Informative and Inspiring - You'll Love It!

The result is a gorgeous eBook filled with some amazing photography - it is going to inspire you - but also some really practical tips from Todd and Sarah.

They write this guide in a very down to earth and personal way which will be accessible to those just starting out but also helpful to those who've been shooting landscapes for years.

What You'll Discover in this 130+ page eBook

Here's some of what you'll find in Living Landscapes:

• How to simplify the process of making engaging and technically proficient landscape images.
• How to overcome the unique challenges that landscape photography presents.
• The 4 landscape fundamentals that turn bland into beautiful.
• Workshops and guided tours of some amazing landscape images.
• A straight forward explanation of the gear you need.
• Landscape specific post-processing techniques.
• Advanced tips and techniques specific to the following landscape photography topics: mountains, water, bush and forest, black and white and panoramic stitching.

Grab Your Copy Today and Save 33%

I LOVE this eBook and am so excited to practice what I picked up in it in an upcoming family trip. I'm also looking forward to seeing the images that our readers take as a result of reading this eBook.

Living Landscapes is available for you to purchase and download right now at the special Early Bird Price of $19.99 - a 33% discount on it's regular price.

Want more information about this eBook? Get the Full Lowdown Here. Or grab your copy by hitting the 'download it now' button below.

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

Living Landscapes: A Guide to Stunning Landscape Photography

March Fashion Photography Workshop in LA

There’s one thing that I have noticed from doing my workshops that is quite endearing: I watch the workshop students forge friendships from the weekend long seminar that carry on for months afterwards. I see them add each other on Facebook and continue to encourage each other along their individual paths towards becoming fashion photographers. It’s been really sweet for me to watch this! I see them commenting on each other’s pictures and keeping in touch with one another through skype and email, because they comment about it! Very cool! We all need to have people on our team when we’re starting out. People who we trust to critique our work as we develop as photographers and people who root us on and tell us to keep going, even when we feel like sacking it in and giving up! It’s been a wonderful PLUS to see this happening in my workshops.

Photo by: Jerome Lim – Workshop Student 2012

This March, in Los Angeles, I will hold another Fashion Photography Workshop. Held at BoxEight Studios in (the now very hip) downtown LA, BoxEight becomes our home for two days of intensive learning. Saturday we’re going to cover how to light beauty using different modifiers strictly for lighting the face and we’ll learn how to position the light for optimum benefits. After lunch on Saturday we learn lighting for fashion. We try 4 or 5 different lighting set ups, going from basic catalog or look book lighting, to showing you some much edgier, editorial lighting. The great thing about Los Angeles in March is that the weather is fantastic! The great thing about BoxEight is there is an outdoor studio which makes it perfect to take the shoot outdoors at the end of Saturday and conquer some outdoor lighting set ups!

Photo by: Jerome Lim- Workshop Student 2012

Sunday is all about honing your retouching skills. We teach you about dodging and burning instead of using filters and plug ins. We take your work to a whole other level! A much more professional one! In the afternoon, I teach about the business of fashion photography and what it takes to get your foot in the door. It’s a whole afternoon of lecture and Q & A. This is the time when you can ask me anything you have ever wanted to know about fashion photography but were afraid to ask!

Photo by: Mario Gandia – Workshop Student 2012

You can read about the entire workshop by clicking on the link here. Tickets are selling fast as we posted loosely about it on our launch post. So don’t delay! Come join us in one of the most exciting cities in the world, Los Angeles! And let’s take your work to The Next Level!

See you there!

Ben Trovato The Falling + BTS Video

[slideshow album='2_BT_The_Falling']

The Video

2012 started with an upheaval of change. Painful, gut-wrenching, seismic change. From January 1^st, my life began a new journey. Part of that new journey was my reconciliation with the way I see. The thing is, I've always been a little weird. I've been told my work is "edgy" since my college days. "Dark, mysterious, seductive, depressing, edgy, suicidal, achingly beautiful, tortured, cathartic".....these are all words I've heard over the years describing my work. So I tried to conform, to shoot in a style that wasn't mine but would appease the masses. I shot freckled girls in denim jeans on white backgrounds holding puppies and smiling toothy grins of teenaged innocence. I’ve shot long legged girls in itsy-bitsy bikinis on pearl sanded beaches with come hither eyes. I've shot commercially acceptable, masses approachable, clean, honest and totally sans "edge" fashion photographs.

“All you can do is be confusing. Don’t ever empty the bucket of mystery. Never let people define what you do. It’s not about zigging when you should zag. It’s not about doing something unprecedented and unpredictable. It’s just about never being a word, or something that is not in the process of transformation.”
Marilyn Manson

But it hasn't been my vision. This work was not mine! So with the upheaval of change that this year forced upon me came the renewed sense of my own Self, facing me again, asking myself, what's it all about. I came up with this: if I can't shoot what I love and how I see, what's the point.

I flew to my hometown, Los Angeles, on January 9^th and I threw myself into work. I know, ironic right? I leave NYC land of fashion uberness to go to tacky LA to throw myself into work. I find it very odd that NY’ers hate LA people but LA people LOVE NY’ers. I think when you’re laying in the sun on January 15th in the backyard sipping on a mojito planning the menu for your outdoor barbeque that evening, there’s really nothing for an LA person to hate on a NY’er. But that’s just one theory. Any way, back to me going home: I shot 4 editorials and 2 video commercials in 6 weeks. I collaborated with my dear friend Rodney Burns who styled all the shoots. Ben Trovato being one of them.

The technical specs on this shoot can't be any simpler. I shot with no artificial light. I used a large window to the right of the set as my key. That's it. I shot with the

KBI4486BI4095" target="_blank">Nikon D3 with my 85mm at 1/160^th of a sec at about F4. I shot anywhere from 400 to 1000 ISO. I was inspired by a picture I found of Keith Richards. One picture. That's all it took. What really tied the shoot together for me was shooting the story on a Fashion Back Drop. I have mentioned my friend, Sedi Pak, in previous posts. Her back drops are amazing and really embellish my shoots! You can view the full editorial on Ben Trovato here.

I look at the results, the final pictures, and I'm pleased. But the feeling goes beyond being "satisfied". I'm home. If that makes any sense. Shooting what I love and how I see fashion. My greatest wish for myself is that I can stick to this and not listen to people anymore telling me I must conform and change to shoot in a style that isn't mine. I guess we're all going to find out together if I can stick to my guns and stay true to my vision now. I’ve shed a lot of baggage so far this year. A lot of negative, heavy, cumbersome baggage. And I’m continuing to shed more. The excuses to NOT stick to my guns are getting fewer and fewer. Since my blog is very public (haha…. understatement of the century) you're all along on this journey WITH me…….so as I like to say.....stay tuned.