I don’t remember that last time I did some self portraits. It’s the old photographer’s dilemma… always behind the lens and never in front of it! Since I live about a block away from my good buddy and fellow pro photographer Martin Perreault, he usually takes my photo.  But this time around, he was away on a 3 week trip to Australia and I really wanted to update my blog photo on the ABOUT YPS page.

I decided to make this a fun time and turn this into a mini fashion shoot with some of my recently acquired threads. So I cranked up the tunes, set my D300s on a tripod with a 10 second timer and shot away! It took about 2 hours in total with 163 shots taken. Out of those shots I liked 22. Not bad.  Here’s how I Continue Reading »

I truly hope that all of you are enjoying this festive season and that you’re taking lots and lots of pictures!

Before sharing with you the top 5 most popular  tutorials on YPS,  I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support. 2009 was YPS’s first full year live on the Web. It’s still a baby at only 21 months. I’m filled with gratitude knowing that my posts are helping many passionate photographers from around the world.  Your comments and support keep giving me the motivation to keep sharing my knowledge and photography Continue Reading »

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you know that I recently did a big 12 day shoot for one of my favorite clients. My main mandate was to shoot well composed,  evenly lit photos to be used in a new edition of their best selling didactic cosmetology book. As a second mandate, I had to produce “artistic” shots to be used as chapter openers and page fillers.

So the first thing I asked them was what they meant by “artistic”. You know Yanik, dramatic stuff with cool shadows and Continue Reading »

Here’s a DIY option to use your speed light with your studio softboxes.

I was looking at various ways to hook up my SB-800 to my softboxes and found a few options like the Westcott Slipper but found it overpriced considering you could get an Ezybox for less. Being determined to find a way, I continued my hunt. And last week I got lucky and found this Youtube video by Stephen Poff from someone on Twitter who RT it. In his video, he shows how he used a Justin clamp with his speed light and studio softbox. My jaw dropped to the floor! It’s so simple!

Being a big Strobist fan myself, I find myself Continue Reading »

As most of you know, my friend Martin and I went to visit our good buddy and fellow pro photographer Joey Lawrence in New York city not long ago. He needed our help choosing rooftop furniture for his new pad so we were happy to fly down and give him a hand. Hehehehe. Ok, maybe not, even though we did go to Ikea and helped out. It also goes without saying that we took out our cameras a few times in NYC.

But the most fun I had was doing this improvised shoot on the Brooklyn Bridge. We basically took turns shooting each other once everything was set up. Before I get into the lighting details, here’s a list of the equipment we used: Continue Reading »

I’ve done quite a few lighting tutorials here on Yanik’s Photo School, especially using off camera small flashes like the SB-900 or the 580EX II. I love these little buggers and the more I use them, the more dust accumulates on my big studio strobes. And today’s lesson will be about an in-camera feature that most DSLRs have called Rear Curtain Flash.

I discovered this camera feature a long time ago with my Nikon D70 when I wanted  to shoot a long exposure of a moving Continue Reading »

After Cancun, I made my way up to Miami to finish the shots for the Spa book but mostly for some R&R before heading back to sub zero temperatures. Brrrrrrr…. Another great thing about staying at my friend’s place is that they own 2 Thai restaurants! And after spending 7 months in South East Asia a while back (wayyyyyyyyy back) I developed a soft spot for Thai food. Since their 2nd restaurant had just opened a few weeks before, they asked me if I could shoot a couple of food shots Continue Reading »

After shooting in Cancun, I went back to the author’s home in Miami to finish off a few shots and also to take advantage of the Florida sun. The longer I can stay warm the better!

All my studio gear was shipped directly from Cancun to Montreal so I used my trusty SB-800s to light the final images. I figured with 4 of them plus my built-in flash, plus natural light, I could Continue Reading »

Welcome to Part 2 of this Introduction to Macro Photography. In Part 1, we looked at what is macro photography as well as the basic lenses and extension tubes available for macro shooting. We also went through various options for keeping your camera steady while shooting macro photos. If you missed part 1, I encourage you to check it out before you continue reading.

In Part 2, I’ll be going through: Continue Reading »

Welcome to my latest guest post on DIYPhotography.net!

This is the last in this DIYP series…. for now. 2009 is starting with a bang with 2 back to back book shoots what will keep me out of trouble until the end of March. So just maintaining YPS will be a challenge in itself.

If you missed the first 3 parts of my “Exploring Small Strobes” series, you can check them out:

Exploring Smal Strobes – Why Should I Use a Speedlight?
Exploring Small Strobes: Why Use Speedlights Off Camera
Exploring Small Strobes – Wireless Triggers

In part 4, I look at some of Continue Reading »