Patrick Hall
fstoppers.com
Charleston, SC, United States
Contact Patrick
Discover and connect with journalists and influencers around the world, save time on email research, monitor the news, and more.
| Recent: |
|
| Past: |
|
Past articles by Patrick:
We Critique Photos We Took Before Starting Fstoppers
One of the hardest, cringiest things any photographer can do is go back and look at the images they created early in their career. In this video, Lee Morris and I revisit some of our best and worst images taken prior to launching Fstoppers.com. How bad are these photos? Let's find out! A few years ago, Lee Morris pulled a clever prank on Mike Kelley and me when he had us → Read More
Your Clients Might Not Like Your Print Options
Photographers have preferences on everything ranging from their favorite camera to their best lens, how they edit their photos, and what photo paper they use to make prints. What if your own preferences aren't aligned with what your potential clients enjoy? We asked dozens of normal people which photo papers and print products they prefer, and the results were not exactly what → Read More
Five Different Light Modifiers Compared With Natural Light
Controlling light is one of the most difficult challenges a photographer must master. Even if you have years of experience under your belt, it can still be difficult to decide which light modifier to use with your strobes or if you should even be using strobes at all. In this video and article, I'm going to share with you five of my favorite light modifiers and how they can → Read More
Why I Used to Hate Making Wedding Albums
Before I created Fstoppers, I was a full-time wedding photographer. Over that time, I designed a handful of wedding albums as both show albums and as client albums. To be honest, I never really enjoyed the album-making process. Now, the tables have turned, and for my wife's first year anniversary gift, I decided to make an album with images from my own wedding. How will my → Read More
Will Art Created By Artificial Intelligence Kill The Artist?
Most of my photography friends have been playing around with some form of AI Art, and the results are pretty remarkable. However, as amazing as this technology is, I'm sure I am not the only one wondering if Artificial Intelligence will leave us all looking for new careers. What exactly is artificial intelligent art? AI art is a brand new form of expression that allows users → Read More
Duo Boards Might Be the Perfect Photography Surface for Food and Product Shoots
If you are like me, you probably have a closet full of random tiles, boards, and construction scraps just in the event you need an interesting surface to shoot on. These new photography surfaces by Duo Boards set out to change my messy studio, and this photography tutorial shows you how useful these backdrops can be! As I just mentioned, one of the most embarrassing areas of → Read More
Our Hands-On Preview of Profoto's Connect Pro Flash Trigger
If you are a Profoto user who has always dreamed of the day you could see the actual power settings of your strobes directly on the remote, today, your dream has come true. I was one of the first photographers to test the new Connect Pro in my own studio, and I have to say, this is a very welcome upgrade for any Profoto user. I've always been a big fan of Profoto and their → Read More
Using Gels, Strobes, Constant Lights, and ACDSee's Gemstone on One Photograph
In this behind the scenes video, I'm going to walk you through a pretty complex photograph I shot in our garage studio. Using strobes, LED lights, a crazy light modifier, and ACDSee's new photo editing software, Gemstone, this final image turned out much more interesting than I originally thought. First off, one of my favorite genres of photography to work in is definitely sports portraiture. → Read More
Pro Light Mods Are the Coolest Light Modifiers of the Year
What did you do during the pandemic? With most of the industry at a standstill, sports photographer James Quantz started a new company, Pro Light Mods, and designed a prototype of his "Maxi Brute softbox". Not only are they super awesome, but any photographer can pick one up now! Having once created my own light modifier, I understand the frustrations, headaches, and overall → Read More
Completing The 'Up-Lit Photo Challenge' Is Extremely Difficult
Being a well-rounded photographer who can succeed in any situation is the ultimate goal for most photographers. However, what happens when you are forced to take a portrait by lighting from below? Today, I take the challenge. Most photographers enjoy the comfort of using their most tried-and-true lighting techniques. → Read More
This Could Be My Favorite DIY Photo Background System Yet
Over the last three years, I have built out four new photography studios, and each time, I find better and better ways to streamline my spaces. In this video, I want to share with you one of the coolest ways to mount your seamless paper or Gravity backdrops. One of the best decisions I've ever made in designing the last few studio spaces is hanging my backdrops from the → Read More
Free Live Demo Today: How To Light For Catalog and E-Commerce Photography
Chris Fain of Profoto's Geared Up has asked yours truly to share a few lighting setups I use often in the studio. Today, May 3rd at 11am EST, you can log into the live show and ask me all your favorite lighting questions! Many of you have probably been wondering what's happened with Lee and I over the last few months. Back in 2021 we were kicked out of our amazing rental home → Read More
Optics Allows Photographers to Add Particle-Based Effects to Their Photography
As the artificial intelligence race intensifies among photography software companies, Boris FX is filling a completely different niche with their editing software Optics. With their latest release, Optics users now have access to their powerful Particle Illusion generator, which can create thousands of explosions, smoke, fire, and other particle effects. Today, we take a look → Read More
Three Photographer Challenge: Sony vs Fujifilm vs iPhone
Recently, two photography friends visited the Fstoppers studio on the same day. Of course, this meant I needed to plan a friendly photography competition to see once and for all who is the best photographer in the land! This challenge video comes with lots of twists and turns, but at the core, we ask the question: "can an iPhone beat an expensive $12,000 medium format → Read More
AI Skin Retouch Is Here and It's Pretty Impressive
Innovators and philosophers like Elon Musk and Sam Harris have been theorizing what our world will look like once artificial intelligence completely takes over our everyday lives. We aren't quite there, but if you've ever dreamed of a day when all your skin retouching might be completed using AI and neural networks, well, the future is a lot closer than you might think. It → Read More
Our Hands-On Test of Lindsay Adler's Optical Spot by Westcott
A few weeks ago, I got my hands on a light modifier I've always wanted to have in our studio. Westcott's brand new Optical Spot is one of the coolest and most useful light modifiers I've ever seen, and in today's video, I'm going to show you why you might want one or two for your photography! Over the years, I've accumulated a ton of photography gear. Most of it is essentials → Read More
How a Black Mist Filter Can Make Your Videos More Cinematic
Well, we've made it to the final video in Elia Locardi's eight-part video series on using filters for landscape photography. In this final episode, we will take a look at the new Nisi Black Mist filter set and how it can be used to improve your landscape photos and videos. Make sure you enter the final contest to win a set of your own. If you've been following along in this → Read More
How We Filmed Elia Locardi's Landscape Mini Series
Over the last few months, we have teamed up with landscape photographer Elia Locardi for a free 8 part video tutorial series on how to improve your landscape photographs using a variety of different NiSi filters. Today we take you behind the scenes on the making of this landscape series and show you some of our favorite gear used in the production. NiSi is also giving away a → Read More
How I Created the Ultimate Photobooth for My Wedding
A wedding photo booth can be one of the most entertaining and memorable activities at your wedding. They can also be a total dud and waste of money. In this video, I share my top tips for building a successful photo booth for my wedding! When I first started shooting weddings, photobooths weren't even a thing. → Read More
These Filters Make Long Exposures Even Easier
One of the most rewarding yet mysterious elements of landscape photography is seeing the results of a long exposure. A few weeks ago, I had the chance to check out a new set of filters that mount using magnets, and the resulting photo is pretty interesting. There are a ton of interesting and new products that pass through the offices at Fstoppers. Some of them are super → Read More