When it comes to wedding photography, time is almost never a luxury, and as such, the photographer generally has to keep the lighting setups relatively simple to keep things moving. Nonetheless, if you are feeling confident in your abilities and ready to step it up to the next level, a two-light off-camera setup can give you a lot more creative flexibility. This awesome video tutorial features an experienced wedding photographer sharing her two-light setup for photographing receptions.

Coming to you from Katelyn James, this excellent video tutorial will show you an effective two-light setup for shooting wedding receptions. The challenge and downside of working with more flashes are that more things can go wrong, and it is more to keep track of. Nonetheless, as you will see, one of the best things this setup can do is add a lot more depth to the image and take your lighting from functional to artistic, making for more compelling final results. Check out the video above for the full rundown from James.

If you would like to continue to learn about wedding photography, be sure to check out “How To Become A Professional Commercial Wedding Photographer With Lee Morris and Patrick Hall!”

• Erin Ranney is a 32-year-old cinematographer who spends months at a time recording wildlife.
• Over the past decade, she has made an essential period pack to bring along when doing fieldwork.
• Discussions about managing periods while working are vital in an industry dominated by men.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Erin Ranney. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I never thought I would become a wildlife cinematographer. Growing up, I loved animals and decided to become a veterinarian. Halfway through college, I realized I didn’t enjoy it and switched to wildlife ecology and natural resources.

When my mom saw the wildlife photos I took in Madagascar, she invited me to share them with the children at the school she worked at. After my talk, all the books on Madagascar were immediately checked out of the library. I had an aha moment, realizing how enjoyable it was to educate people about science. It led me to my master’s degree in wildlife-documentary production.

During fieldwork, every shoot is different. I could be staying on a sailboat, in a tent, or in a lodge for months at a time, working 12-plus hours a day.

Managing my menstrual cycle as a cinematographer was a nightmare

For my first fieldwork experience 10 years ago, I was camping in Madagascar for four months. Before I left, I asked my doctor how to manage my periods while I was away. At the time, I was on birth control, so one option was to skip my cycle by not taking the placebo pill. It seemed like a great plan, but I packed plenty of tampons just in case.

The plan worked and my period skipped the first month. Unfortunately, I then had a period for an entire month and ran out of tampons. I improvised by using a new pair of hiking socks for two weeks. Each day I would take the used one out, wash it in the river, and let it dry.

While it did the job, it was really uncomfortable. I was hiking up to eight hours each day. Even though I look back and laugh now, it wasn’t fun at the time.

After that experience, I decided to be better prepared.

Items such as menstrual cups and medication for UTIs have saved me on shoots countless times

For my next trip, I packed menstrual cups, menstrual-cup wash, tampons, and ibuprofen. The menstrual cup is ideal because it means less garbage and is easier than tampons when working long days. I also don’t need to worry about toxic-shock syndrome, as long as my hands are clean when changing it.

For each subsequent trip, I’ve continued to add to my period pack.

One of my next additions was period underwear. On my heaviest days, when working long hours, period underwear provides the perfect protection if my cup leaks.

Over the years, I have had urinary-tract infections during shoots. UTIs are not only painful but also can also be dangerous if the bacterial infection gets to your kidneys or bloodstream. I used to tolerate the pain until I returned home for antibiotics. Now I carry antibiotics with me. Even when I practice the best hygiene I can, there’s still a chance I could get one. Carrying medication has been a good way to ensure I’m not enduring pain and a more-serious infection.

Additionally, I drink a lot more water during my menstrual cycle, since this helps prevent UTIs.

Soap, wet wipes, and a field bidet help with hygiene

I’ve also upped my hygiene game and now carry soap to wash my hands, sensitive wet wipes, a travel bottle of clean water, and a field bidet to clean the menstrual cup. Just like with tampons, when you’re cleaning a cup out in the field, you want your hands to be clean because any type of bacteria that gets near your urethra can cause a UTI.

If I’m in a “leave no trace” location, I pour my menstrual blood into a water bottle fully taped with red tape so I know not to drink from it. In these areas, regulations require you to pack everything and bring it out with you. This is especially important for areas where you cannot dig a hole or bury items within at least 200 feet of a water source — such as glacial environments.

I carry ibuprofen for times when my back aches, which occurs often when I’m on my period. It’s extra painful when carrying a heavy bag for hours. I also bring a hot water bottle that I use in the evenings.

Now I’m ready for any scenario

Here is my entire menstrual cycle kit, which I keep in a waterproof bag:

• Two or three menstrual cups.

• Menstrual-cup wash.

• Sensitive wet wipes.

• Tampons and pads as backups — and to help other women on the trip.

• Three pairs of period underwear.

• Yeast-infection medication.

• UTI medication.

• Ural sachets, which provide relief from UTI symptoms.

• Cranberry tablets.

• A field bidet.

• Soap for washing hands.

• Spare sandwich bags.

• A Kula Cloth: an antimicrobial pee cloth.

• A field trowel (to dig a hole for all bathroom needs).

• A field medical book.

It may seem like a lot, but I’ve found all the items indispensable.

While I’ve had my period pack for nine years, it’s only in the past few years that I have talked about having a period while working. So many other women have found that opening up the conversation is helpful because of the lack of information on the topic.

I don’t want others making the same mistakes I did because it creates added stress in an already stressful work environment. When you’re in the field, you don’t want to be worrying about blood leaking, toxic shock, infections, and pain. It puts you at a disadvantage because in wildlife filming, less than 5% of camerapeople are women.

We want to do our best work and be comfortable while doing it. My period bag has been my solution.

Above: watch our video guide

You can shoot anything in black and white, but the skill lies in ‘seeing’ your subjects in shades of grey rather than being distracted by colour, and it’s much harder than it seems.

Colours are, of course, converted into shades of grey, which means that you don’t see the contrasts in black and white that colours provide. Instead, black-and-white photography is much more dependent on lighting, contrast, shapes and textures. This also makes it easier to produce powerful, graphic compositions.

But while it’s perfectly possible to just go out and start shooting black and white photography, you can learn and understand this medium a lot quicker in a controlled situation with a simple still life setup, where you can arrange your subject, the lighting and the composition bit by bit.

Read more: The best camera for black and white photography

Our setup was created on a kitchen island, with a large sheet of material taped to a wall cabinet and draped over the island. Our subject is a little vase of narcissi and the lighting is provided by natural window light to the right and a Rotolight Neo LED panel to the left, though you could also use a reflector instead. This little setup took no more than half an hour to fix up, followed by about an hour of shooting and half an hour of editing in Lightroom to achieve the finished image.

The great thing about a still life setup like this is that you can get everything just how you want it while being able to see the effect live. Just moving the light a couple of inches or a few degrees can make a huge difference. If you use loosely hung material like we did, you can also spend time adjusting the creases and the folds to pick up the light and help create textures and contrast.

The real secret, though, is to use your Canon’s Monochrome Picture Style to see your subject in black and white on screen as you shoot. Even if you edit a Raw version later, this black-and-white preview is invaluable in helping you see the effect of the lighting and the composition. You will see exactly what works and what doesn’t work when shooting in monochrome. 

1. Mono picture style

Visualizing a full-color world in black and white is not easy, even for experienced photographers. This is where your Picture Styles come in. With the Monochrome Picture Style, you can see your scene in B&W using the Live View display or EVF.

2. Shoot RAW and JPEG

Canon’s Picture Styles are applied to in-camera JPEG images. Sometimes these will be good enough quality on their own, but it’s often best to have the Raw image for more advanced editing – so set your camera to capture both Raw+JPEG files.

3. Use Live View to compose

You can use your Canon camera’s Info button to cycle through various display modes, and the histogram display, for example. Cycle through these modes until they’re all switched off so they don’t distract you when you’re composing on screen.

4. Choose a preset or profile

Capturing the image is only half the job – now you need your digital darkroom! This is Lightroom Classic, but the same tools are available in other photo editors. As a starting point, try out the different black and white presets or profiles on offer, as they can get you closer to the right ‘look’.

5. Boost the contrast

Almost all classic black and white imagery was enhanced with ‘dodging and burning’ in the darkroom, making different areas of the picture lighter or darker to improve the contrast and composition. In Lightroom you can use the Adjustment Brush to ‘burn in’ areas that are too light, for example.

6. Tone your mono photos

A straight black-and-white shot can look amazing, but it can look even better with a subtle toning effect. Forget about sepia toning because it’s been done to death; instead, try split toning (this is Lightroom’s Colour Grading panel) to give shadows a blue tinge and highlights a warmer tone.

These are the best cameras for portraits and the best portrait photography tips. You might also like the best photo editing software and the best photo-editing laptops.

An annual nature photography competition that seeks to showcase the beauty of Malta and Gozo has whittled entries down to the top 15 photos.

The 15 winning entries to the 2023 edition of Wiki Loves Earth in Malta feature a variety of landscape, flora and fauna shots, all taken in Malta or Gozo in the past year.

Top picks were selected by Wikimedia Community Malta in collaboration with Friends of the Earth (Malta) from 463 entries submitted to the competition by 43 contestants.

They range from a stunning vista of clay slopes to an aerial shot of Comino, a macros shot of a tiny spider and an underwater photo of a Flying Gurnard.

Unlike in previous years, photos have been divided into two categories: one focused on landscapes and the other on details of local flora and fauna.

The top five landscape shots and top 10 flora/fauna shots will now be submitted to the global Wiki Loves Earth photo contest, where they will compete with similar images shortlisted across 50 countries from a total of 60,647 entries.

Aside from the image of clay slopes featuring at the top of this article, these are the other 14 Malta winners:

Landscape winners: 

Ġebla tal-Ġeneral – Fungus Rock, Gozo. Photo: Terry Caselli Photography

Bird’s Eye View of Comino. Photo: Martin Galea De Giovanni

St. Paul’s Island. Photo: Christian Formosa

Wied il-Għasri, Gozo. Photo: Marika Caruana

Flora/fauna winners:

A Maltese wall lizard, Podarcis filfolensis Photo: Christian Formosa

Flying Gurnard – Rundunell (Dactylopterus volitans). Photo: Saviour Bonnici

Flower Beetle (Labidostomis taxicornis). Photo: Terry Caselli Photography

Maltese Freshwater Crab (Potamon fluviatile). Photo: YungLito

Felimara Picta Nudibranch. Photo: Victor Micallef

Tiny spider on moss spore pod. Photo: Mario J Cachia

Grey Birdsfoot Trefoil (Għantux tal-blat). Photo: Mario J Cachia

Greater Flamingo. Photo: Aron Tanti

Swallowtail butterfly (Farfett tal-Fejgel) on Tassell Grape Hyacinth. Photo: MarionSP

Flabellina. Photo: Alessio Marrone

Photography can be an unforgiving thing. When you are dependent on the light, the time of day, the weather, and more, life getting in the way even in the slightest can derail your plans. What do you do? This great video follows a photographer as he heads out to shoot with his young son in tow and discusses that tricky balance. 

Coming to you from James Popsys, this fantastic video follows him as he takes his young son out on a photo hike and discusses the challenge of pursuing images while juggling a busy life. It can absolutely be difficult to get out at the right times when you have a family or a busy professional life elsewhere. A lot of the time, this means redefining your relationship to the hobby. Like Popsys, maybe you bring your child along, or perhaps you set aside specific times when you can get out and do more preplanning to ensure you can be as efficient as possible when you do have the time to shoot. Or, maybe you simply carry your camera with you more often so you can be ready whenever an opportunity comes up. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Popsys. 

When he was just eight years old, Roberto Rodriguez remembers his aunt taking him out of the park where he often played with friends to audition for the ballet school in Havana, Cuba’s capital. He didn’t want to go. Ballet was for girls, not boys. It’s a cliche that has persisted for decades – an enforced idea of what it means to be one thing or another, what choices should be made based on societal concepts of gender.

But his aunt insisted. “At first, I didn’t want to be a ballet dancer, but then it became what I wanted in my life,” he says. Now in his mid-30s, Rodriguez is a soloist at the National Dance Company of Mexico. “When I was a kid I was always sporty, doing gymnastics, taekwondo – sports that were ‘for men’. When I started ballet, in my neighbourhood, there was this idea that I would be a ‘ballerina’, that I would be gay. But that didn’t bother me, I always defended who I was.” After years, these damaging and homophobic attitudes started to change, even for his father, he says. “At first, he didn’t want me to be a ballet dancer; I had to tell him that’s what I wanted for my life. And now he respects that.”

Rodriguez says ballet has given him everything. It’s how he met his partner, another dancer, with whom he now has a son. But through dance he’s also learned about his own identity and place in this world. “I’ve learned how to be a man and how to be an artist,” he says. “Masculinity for me is to know who I am. It is to have the right ideals, to know what I want, and, overall, to respect any sexuality that exists. It’s simply this: to respect others and to be myself.”

The complexities around masculinity and art have always fascinated cinematographer and photographer Santiago Barreiro. Barreiro, who is from Uruguay, grew up in a region where perceptions of male identity have historically been suffocated by machismo. He explores these concepts in his series La Forma Masculina, which Barreiro translates as Men’s Way.

These attitudes form the basis of damaging stereotypes affecting all lives and identities, creating a culture of sexism, and at its worst, violence against women. Latin America is a region with some of the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world.

Barreiro had been working with ballet dancers for years through his commercial photography work. It was during this time that he found ballet dancers were challenging traditions and questioning patriarchal structures, and saw how this was reflected through the human form. He felt it was important to look more closely at machismo’s impact on men and boys. “We arrive at the limits of society. Look at the figures to do with mental health – that men die because masculinity doesn’t allow them to be sensitive, to look after ourselves,” Barreiro says. “There has been a preconception about masculinity across all of Latin America. I started to investigate why societies believe that dance is an art for women, or is feminised, and why there is such a misconception that ballet changes your sexual orientation, for example.”

It’s something he’s experienced himself as an artist. “There is an attitude that people who work in art are very sensitive. And society has made something negative about this kind of masculinity – because our obligation, according to society, according to the hegemony, is to provide, to procreate and protect,” he says. “But in art, men have the freedom to exhibit their feelings, to be more sensitive, to reveal their problems.”

Barreiro adds: “I think we need more storytellers and investigators who work on these ‘smaller’ issues, because these smaller things always say something important about real life.”

Though Cuba seems to be an exception, as ballet and the arts were directly supported and funded by governments after the revolution, across the rest of the region ballet remains a profession and art form that still has far fewer men than women. “This has directly to do with society’s conception of masculinity, gender and dance,” Barreiro says.

He was moved by the stories of dancers who had gone against familial and societal expectations in order to pursue ballet. In his photography, he focuses on male ballet dancers from across Latin America who deconstruct a hegemonic idea of masculinity. “Ballet asks the body to break traditions. These dancers had to adapt, explore their bodies in a way that hadn’t been explored before, because society didn’t permit it,” he says.

There is Aaron de Jesus Marquez, from Veracruz, Mexico, who was 15 when Barreiro photographed him just before the pandemic. The portraits present a boy who is overcoming prejudices he has faced in his choice to pursue ballet. “The photography shows he really loves to do this, and it doesn’t matter that society sees he’s in a woman’s environment. He proposes a new form of being a man,” Barreiro says.

Josué Gómez, was 16 when his portrait was taken; he is from a working-class family in Cali, Colombia and first started dancing at the age of five when his mother took him along to the folk classes she attended. Gómez is an example of someone who has had to persevere to get approval from his father. “Josué worked hard so his father could accept and respect what he was doing. Colombia is a country like many in Latin America, very machista, and he had to confront that very early. But his father learned very quickly that his kid was happy doing this, so the portrait here shows very much the family support.”

The portraits of Juan Pablo Rodriguez, aged 29, based in Lima, Peru, present the dancer’s belief in freedom of expression as a form of resistance. As a gay man, this is a vital part of his own masculinity, Barreiro says. While Colombian Santiago Fernandez, who was six when he was photographed, stood up to his father who didn’t want him to dance.

The dancers in the series all have their own stories and expressions of identity. “In the dance world, there isn’t one masculinity,” Barreiro says. “This is a project that talks about dance, but also talks about a society in conflict. Bit by bit we have to change. It is changing, but it needs more.”

Given the unforgiving August heat, most people were keeping to the shade of the trees in a nearby plaza. These boys, however, were playing football with a foam buoy. Juan Carlos Castañeda had sought out shade, too, and a bottle of water, having wrapped filming for the day. He was in Cité Soleil, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to shoot a short film on the community and its leaders.

“The kids in the picture were only 12, and they live in Haiti’s poorest and most dangerous neighbourhood. None of them can afford proper shoes or a ball to play with – they’re not even sure when they’ll get their next meal,” Castañeda says. “However, when they discovered this yellow buoy, they became Messi, scoring a goal in the World Cup and, just for a second, leaving the heaviness of their lives behind.”

Having finished work for the day, Castañeda hadn’t planned this shot. He also didn’t want to interrupt or distract the boys with his big video camera, he says, adding, “They were also on their break.” Instead, he used his iPhone 6 Plus.

“The best camera in the world is the one you have with you at the time,” he says, “and sometimes the phone can make faster decisions than I can when approaching time-sensitive moments such as these. I hope this photograph shows how resilient and untarnished the human spirit is, and that it offers a moment of hope.”