JT Blenker
fstoppers.com
Dallas, TX, United States
Contact JT
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Past articles by JT:
Fstoppers Reviews the PGYTECH OneMo Camera Bag: One Bag to Rule Them All?
What do you get when you cross a solo event photographer’s working bag with your favorite business travel backpack that you can also take on a day hike through the Adirondacks to photograph your favorite waterfall? How close are we to having the perfect photographer’s camera bag that ticks each and every box? Photographers and camera bags; after several years building our kits → Read More
Underpromise and Overdeliver: The Best Way to Grow Your Photography Business
Creating imagery that’s “brandable” is part of many working photographer's bag of skills but still takes some know how with lighting, posing, and while creating a human connection to excel at a high level with consistent results. Let’s dive into how we can make our commercial and branding imagery simply while also growing our network and earning new clients in the process. → Read More
How to Make Your Puppy Portraits Pop
Making great portraits isn't only for people, and with our pets being live-in models, we can get a little more practice perfecting our lighting and post-processing even at home. Taking a portrait doesn't stop with people, and many of us view our pets as integral to our families as any son or daughter might be. Let's chat about how we can create a fantastic portrait of our → Read More
If the Olympics Are Rescheduled, How Will the Photographic Industry Respond?
It looks like the worldwide pandemic has finally hit the biggest sports and photography event of the year, as the international Olympic Committee is looking at rescheduling the 2020 Summer Olympics. With this news, the big camera and lens companies may be looking at their newly announced, but as yet unreleased models, and could be wondering if waiting out the economic → Read More
Product Photography: Using Household Lamps to Profoto Strobes
Product photography doesn’t have to take a lot of equipment nor the most expensive lighting or camera gear to create highly polished images. Take a look at this breakdown showing how product photography taken with high, mid, and almost no equipment still delivers highly valuable results. From our friends at B&H Photo comes a new video with a great explanation and simple → Read More
Destination Wedding Photographers: Are You Breaking the Law?
How many photographers do you know who travel to different countries and photograph weddings in beautiful and exotic locations? The question is: are those wedding photographers legally allowed to work outside of their home country, or are they rolling the dice on having their equipment confiscated and them being blacklisted from entering that country again? Taylor Jackson is a → Read More
Canon EOS C500 Mark II Versus Canon EOS R: Can the Mirrorless Camera Keep Up?
At $16,000 for the camera body only, the Canon C500 Mark II is an impressive 6K camera that meets the needs of independent filmmakers and videographers alike. What happens if you can't afford a B camera at the same level as the C500 Mark II? Can the Canon EOS R keep up and deliver with its 4K footage? Coming to you from Gene Nagata of Second Light Creative and Potato Jet is a → Read More
How to Create Neon Background Effects in Your Studio Portraits
It’s always interesting to see how gelled lighting can shape the aesthetic of a portrait, especially when we can match that colored gel with a small amount of post production to create an interesting background to a scene. Here’s a quick photography breakdown and post processing tutorial that will help you create a neon sign inspired portrait with just a few complementary → Read More
How the Epic Race Scenes in 'Ford v Ferrari' Were Made
Cinematographers help to bring the vision of the directors they work with to life through their use of practical and off screen lighting, motion capture techniques, and composition. Let’s go behind the scenes with Phedon Papamichael, ASC, the cinematographer from Ford v Ferrari, and see how he helped formulate the lighting and capture of some of the most epic racing scenes in years. → Read More
5 Steps for Success in eCommerce Photography
Product photographers are some of the highest earning professionals in the photography field, and they command their prices with the value they bring to other businesses while creating imagery that engages consumers to purchase those business’ products. If you want a piece of that e-commerce photography pie but are still sweating on where to start, then it’s time to get a → Read More
5 Techniques in Adobe Lightroom Raw Processing You Might Not Know
Lightroom has become even better and more powerful the past few years and knowing all the little tips and tricks in the software with each new update can be a class in itself. Here’s five techniques you may not know that the Adobe raw processor can do to help you make better images faster and easier. This new video from Adorama and Pye Jirsa of SLR Lounge is a very quick → Read More
If You Want to Make Money in Photography, Stop Taking Pictures of People
Are you a photographer that owns a business or are you a business owner who offers photography? That realization can sometimes mean the difference between having a successful business or not. Here’s why you should stop photographing people as the sole subject of your imagery. This video from FlashFilm Academy gives an interesting take on the business side of photography and → Read More
4 Questions to Ask Yourself When Wondering if You Should Shoot JPEG or Raw
Is there ever a reason to shoot JPEG over raw when photographing people and clients? Let’s have a quick discussion about when it may be beneficial to photograph in JPEG or raw and why you might choose a lower quality file at capture versus the full digital negative. Adorama’s new series "Mastering Your Craft" has been a deluge of information over the past few weeks, and Pye → Read More
Better Environmental Portraits with Luminar 4
Creating dynamic and interesting images in a time crunch situation sometimes means you’ll have to finish your images in post to develop the most iconic and exciting imagery for yourself or a client. This has usually meant a good amount of time spent in Photoshop to extract and then blend your foreground and subject with your sky. In this video you will get to see how Luminar 4 → Read More
6 Easy Tricks to Create Great Portraits Anywhere
Being a master of your craft sometimes means taking exciting and memorable portraits in not-so-interesting locations and circumstances. Here are six simple tricks to help make your portraits more creative while removing distracting elements and creating more engagement. Coming to you from Pye Jirsa of SLR Lounge and Adorama is a brand new video breaking down a series of → Read More
How to Edit Faster With the 'Dark Mode' Technique
Is there a faster and easier way to create dramatic images in Lightroom that still sticks with your style? Here’s a quick tutorial and a different way of taking one of your images and using the power of Adobe’s software to create a stunning portrait. Coming to you from Pye Jirsa of SLR Lounge is this very concise and easy to follow video on post-processing a dramatic image in → Read More
The Reality of Photographing the Himalayas: Acute Mountain Sickness During a Photography Workshop
One of the bucket list places to photograph for many photographers is among the giants of the world's 8,000-meter mountain peaks in Nepal. One of the things you can’t plan for is how your body will respond to those heights. What happens when you’re leading a photography workshop and your body won’t adjust to the altitude? When you’re a photography instructor teaching students → Read More
Paul C. Buff Announces LINK: An 800WS Portable Strobe
The past several years we’ve seen an amazing amount of new and portable lighting options in the photographic industry with breakout performers like Godox taking on the giants of the lighting world like Broncolor and Profoto. One of the biggest names in North America for lighting has been ominously silent but Paul C. Buff has finally responded and just released a new mid-tier → Read More
3 Things Photographers Get Wrong About Flash
If you’re diving into using strobes for the first time or if you are still learning how to use additive lighting in your photography, then definitely check out these three misconceptions that many photographers have about shooting with flash. Coming to you from Pye Jirsa of SLR Lounge and Adorama TV is a quick educational video on some of the biggest obstacles when tackling → Read More
Adorama Unearthed: A Photography Series that Captures the American Rockies
The best parts of landscape photography is a mix of the planning and adventure to travel to and explore a new destination all while photographing the beauty of the area that you’re in. In this new series from Adorama, you have the opportunity to take a trip through the American Rockies with three photographers as they traverse some of the most beautiful and least seen lakes → Read More