Sparwood Secondary student Vova Voronin is using photographs to capture the heart and essence of his community.

Voronin has launched a website called Beautiful Sparwood, where he compiles photographs of landscapes, wildlife, people and places that define the community. Browsing through the images, one can find pictures of majestic elk, brightly-coloured birds, misty mountains, and urban sights.

The grade 12 student moved to Sparwood a few years ago and he said the project has helped him integrate into the community and get to know his home a little better.

“I learned more about the community. It was very nice to work with different people, to know more people around town,” he said.

Voronin sourced the website pictures from a variety of local photographers in order to get diverse community representation. The picture submissions have inspired him to get out and explore Sparwood and discover places that were previously unknown to him.

“I want to extend my vision of the community, go around town and see more places that people are sending me. There’s so many beautiful places I haven’t seen yet,” he said.

Voronin said that when he moved to Sparwood, he searched the community up online and found the pictures didn’t do justice to the municipality, and weren’t as dynamic as they could be. This inspired him to start his project and compile photographs of Sparwood that would change the way it’s perceived in Google searches.

His vision dovetailed nicely with a school assignment that required students to take on a project that would help better the community, so it grew to be more than just a hobby.

Voronin’s teacher Stephen Larsen said his passion for the project is evident.

“He didn’t have any experience with any of the programs he was using. He didn’t have any connections around the community. He started from scratch and pulled off a major project,” Larsen said

Larsen has agreed to take ownership of the project after Voronin graduates, and work with the photography and media design students to continue contributing to the website.

The Chamber of Commerce has been sharing the link to Voronin’s website to help garner interest and source more photographs, and it will provide Sparwood Secondary School with funding to help grow the site.

Voronin and Larsen said they’ve got a lot of submissions, but what they’re currently missing is pictures of people and local sports.

“There’s a lot of happy people doing fun things around the community and it’s not currently represented in photographs online and even in the photographs that we’ve been getting so far,” said Larsen.

To submit a photo, e-mail beautifulsparwood@gmail.com

Follow the project online at www.beautifulsparwood.com or on Instagram @beautiful_sparwood.

Another week, another fun photography challenge! Are you ready to put your photography skills to the test and refill your creative juices? Now on the 17th week of their 52-week Photo Challenge, the folks of SlickPic want us to look up, within and around stunning Architecture.

In this challenge, the task is to capture all the interesting lines, shapes, and details of eye-catching buildings and similar structures. Whether new or old architecture, this is your chance to showcase their exteriors and reveal their stunning interiors. Let your eye for detail and composition skills shine in this challenge! Whether it’s something you’ve already learned or a technique you want to perfect, this is surely a great activity for you!

To help inspire you, why not check out our architectural photography archive for tips, tricks, ideas and inspiration? For starters, we suggest reading Getting creative with rural architecture photography, Revealing colorful geometric details in architecture, and Seven tips to photograph architectural exteriors. In case you’re just joining, we also encourage you to check out the full info on the 52-week Challenge.

Photography challenge details

• Submissions will be accepted until the end of the day on April 28, 2024. So, if you’re in the mood to flex your creative muscles, there’s still plenty of time to make something nice!
• Submit 3 images by clicking this link
• Please submit images in JPEG format and uploading photos that are at least 2500 on the long side is recommended for the highest quality.

Once you submit your photos, you can review them here: https://52weekchallenge.slickpic.com

As always, you can ask your friends to join the challenge as well by clicking on the Share button for the album and inviting them to join in. Of course, you can also encourage them to Like and Comment on your submissions!

Submit your Architecture photos now!

Lead ImageDalen is wearing a top in silk SAINT LAURENT BY ANTHONY VACCARELLO SS24. Stylist’s own thong and hold-upsPhotography by Momo Okabe, Styling by Raphael Hirsch

A look from the Travis County Jail as students and others arrested at the pro-Palestine rally on the UT campus are being released. One of those arrested was a FOX 7 Austin photographer who has been released from jail.

If you’re a photographer who works on locations often, then you know how annoying white balance issues can be. Well, the Lightroom Presets that we’ve made have that in mind. We encourage you to start out at either 3200K or 5600K, apply our presets, and then work from there. We’re pretty sure that they’ll give photographers whatever they need. This article gives you visual examples of all 20 presets in our Photojournalism Presets Pack, as applied to various portraits we’ve taken over the years. And if you want, you can purchase them right here at our store.

The Phoblographer has a large database of portraits that we’ve shot over the years. So we’ve tested these presets on Canon, Nikon, Sony, Leica, Panasonic Lumix, Olympus, OM System, and Fujifilm RAW files. No matter what camera you own, you’re probably going to like these Lightroom presets.

Why Buy These Lightroom Presets

A total of 20 different presets make up our first Presets Pack. Ten of these are color-based and the remaining 10 are focused on black and white results. We developed these to ensure the results don’t overlap between presets, and keeping in mind that they are meant to help you edit with ease. Some of these are Adaptive presets, meaning they scan your photos for faces and skies and skilfully apply edit masks only to those areas. They were developed by us on Adobe Lightroom Classic and you can even adjust the intensity of the presets using the Amount slider in the Develop module

For those of you who’d like to use these presets on the go, we have good news for you. You can even upload these presets to Adobe Lightroom (formerly known as Lightroom Mobile), to be able to use them on your mobile devices.

Color Presets

Use the sliders below to see the effects of each preset on the portrait.

Black And White

These are available for purchase right now. You can buy the color or monochrome sets separately or buy both of them together at a discount. Visit our online store to buy them.

Ah yes, the perpetual ‘get it right in camera or fix it in post‘ debate that drives photographers a bit crazy. These days, there are myriad ways of creating an impactful image, particularly with all the new AI processing tools we have. But which way is correct?

In this video, Scott from Tin House Studio explains his take on the whole argument. Of course, he is approaching it from the lens (pun intended) of a commercial photographer. This of course, will be a different point of view from say a photojournalist or fine art photographer. But none-the-less, his approach is worth listening to.

Scott explains that high-end commercial shoots often have a lot of money riding on them and generally involve big teams of people on set. This can lead to a lot of pressure to get everything right.

Efficiency

Scott says efficiency is key for product shoots. Each hour represents a significant investment on the client’s part.

Sure, getting the perfect shot straight out of the camera is ideal, but what if there’s uncertainty about background colour or minor blemishes on the product? In such cases, it might be more economical to shoot on a neutral background and address any issues during post-production.

Similarly, when shooting moving images at high frame rates, every second of footage counts. While it’s tempting to aim for flawlessness in-camera, some imperfections, like dust particles, are more efficiently dealt with in post-production than during the shoot itself. This, of course, is not the same for a video shoot. You are absolutely going to remove any dust spots in real life first.

Maximising versatility

However, it doesn’t just boil down to what is most cost and time-efficient. It’s also about maximizing creativity and versatility. In today’s commercial landscape, clients often demand flexibility. They may require images to be cropped, composited, or repurposed in ways that weren’t initially anticipated. This is where shooting with high-resolution cameras and keeping post-processing options open becomes invaluable.

It’s the end goal that matters

In the end, what matters most is not how you achieve the final image but the impact it leaves on viewers. Whether it’s a flawless product shot or a breathtaking landscape, the journey to get there is secondary to the emotional response it evokes.

So, the next time you find yourself torn between getting it right in camera and fixing it in post, remember this: there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. Embrace the flexibility that modern photography offers, and let your creativity guide you, whether you’re shooting for profit or pleasure.