Hey everyone! We love partnerships, they are a great way of collaborating with other companies to bring you best offers and deals. Today we are excited to announce our partnership with Topaz Labs. Topaz Labs is a photo imaging software company, that has lots of great photo plugins available for your favourite photo editing programs. Continue reading to find out more about Topaz Labs and our partnership. Would you like to partner with us? Get in touch.

Photo by Pedro Salaverria

About Topaz Labs

Topaz Labs is a software plugin company that gives you the tools to elevate your photos (be it DSLR shots, pocket camera snaps or phone photos) to a professional level. Topaz Labs offers a variety of plugins that work cross platform for PC and MAC, and are seamlessly compatible with Photoshop, Aperture, Lightroom and even iPhoto.

Plugin sets start at affordable rate of $29.99 per bundle, much like actions and presets these plugins will instantly change your photos. To familiarize yourself with Topaz Labs check out their handy YouTube webinars and step-by-step tutorials. We love their YouTube webinars, they are a great resource to build your post-processing skills and get a deeper understanding of photographic techniques.

Our Partnership

We have collaborated with Topaz Labs to bring you great promos, which will run from today and until the end of March only, so hurry up!

• Grab a 25% off coupon code, applicable to any Topaz software. Code is “500px”.
• Get a 3-month complimentary 500px Awesome subscription as a gift when you purchase any Topaz software.
• Join Topaz Mailing List to get 10% off coupon code redeemable towards 500px Awesome membership.

To try before you buy and to check out all bundles & deals that Topaz Labs offers visit their Store page. Please remember that promos mentioned above end March 31st.

Happy photo editing!

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There are so many great contests happening right now, don’t miss out! All contests are open internationally. Just follow entry rules and deadlines.

• $500 Photo Gear with Wave ending this Sunday.
• Swiss Camera Club giveaway on Facebook.
• Our 300K Facebook celebration. We're almost at 300,000 likes on Facebook and to celebrate we are giving away 3 Awesome accounts. To enter upload your photo to 500px.com with tag “300k”.
• 500px 70k on Twitter party: 1 Awesome account, to enter follow us on twitter @500px.

Good luck :)

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We love guest blog posts! Today’s awesome article on how to overcome photographer's block is by Nick Sparks. Nick is a brilliant portrait photographer from Denver, USA and we are huge fans of his work. Do you want to write a guest post for our blog? Get in touch!

Self portrait by Nick Sparks

Intro

We all have dreaded picking up the camera and walking out the door at some point. For me, the reason I have feared that simple task has been due to lack of inspiration. There is nothing more exciting than taking that step out of the door when I am feeling inspired, but not so much when I'm not “feeling it.” However, I had to come face to face with feeling uninspired and force myself to find inspiration in unlikely ways when I did a 365 project. I found many ways of dealing with photographer’s block during that tenure.

1. Go Out & Start Shooting

The human brain wants you to find the perfect idea before you go out and accomplish the task of pressing that shutter button. I think many art forms are similar. I have spent many days not shooting, because I couldn’t think of anything to shoot. I find that going out and shooting whatever random subject matter is there (no matter how dull) can create inspiration within itself. Go out and shoot that fire hydrant and whatever other random, dull objects you may find in your line of vision! It may lead you somewhere unexpected.


Photo by Ryan Pendleton

2. Find A Color

Go out and shoot one color. Narrowing your subject matter down to one color will make you see photographs you never would have otherwise. Different colors have different moods too. If you are feeling calm and cool, go shoot blue. Do you feel happy? Shoot yellow or orange. There are many internet resources that you can look into to explore the color wheel and emotional interpretation of color, I suggest starting with Google.


Photo by L. Walthery

3. Shoot Feelings

Basing your photography on a certain feeling can trigger tons of inspiration. Let’s say that I wanted to shoot "happy". Maybe that would lead me to an area that is connected in my mind with a happy time. Maybe, trying to capture a happy feeling leads me to a photo of that place with the perfect sunset and I could capture my favorite photo ever. Isn’t that inspiring? Also, you could try making a mood board and capture the vibe that you come up with. I have never been a fan of mood boards, but maybe those could work for you. I hear Pinterest is a great place to put one together.

Photo by Maximilian Rivera

4. Shoot Street Photography

Go out to the downtown area of your closest metropolitan area. Thousands of people pass through that area every day. They all have different stories and are living different days. Surely, you can find some inspiration in that. Put yourself in their shoes and capture something that is meaningful to you.


Photo by Gregor Albrecht

5. Shoot Technical Photography That You Haven’t Tried Before

Not only is technical photography interesting, shooting technically complex photos will help your skill set. You will be able to use those skills in the future by going out and expanding your skill set now. Typically, when I shoot in a new way for the first time, it will be frustrating and not turn out, but having those frustrating experiences has helped me down the road. A few skill sets you can learn are light painting, extended exposure, cloning, conceptual manipulations, and star trail exposures. Keeping busy and expanding your skill set can help you incorporate those ideas into your future pictures, therefore give you more ways to capture your inspiration.


Photo by Igor Alekseev

6. Go Somewhere New

Pack up your photo bag and take a big step out that door. Give yourself a general direction and see where it leads you. I have done this a few times and I have never been upset with the results. Granted, I have not used much of it in my portfolio, because for the last year or so I have been strictly known as a portrait photographer. The last trip I took led me to an abandoned mining town. Let’s just say I was feeling pretty inspired when I got there.


Photo by Bram Paulussen

7. Collaborate

Collaborating is always fun, this way you can tap into the creativity of someone else or get inspired by them. You could collaborate with another photographer, model, makeup artist, group of friends, neighbours, etc. The pictures below are a collaboration between me and Joshua Marable. We came up with the idea of a character feeling lost or depressed — “A Sinking Feeling.” Joshua went to Goodwill and picked up an outfit he thought worked well with capturing the feeling. I came up with the location and thought out different ways to shoot there in order to capture the feeling of this fictional character.


Photo by Nick Sparks

  Thanks for reading!

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When we saw this photo for the first time on 500px we knew it was our favorite and added it to Editors’ Choice. Since then the photographer Luca Gerda László has been getting many requests to share the secret behind her glow in the dark mason jars. The big secret is about to unravel...

The image above is one of my “most famous” photos and I got lots of requests on how I made these glowing jars. I decided to do a step-by-step tutorial for you and I hope that it will help you to achieve a similar result.

I have a lot of mason jars. Small ones and bigger ones, but I think big jars look more cute and magical. Big jars also take a lot of time to paint, it took me about 5-6 hours to paint the jar in the middle of the photo. Be careful with the paint, it is waterproof, so after it dries you may not be able to remove it from your clothes and furniture. Also, be sure to wash your brush right away after using this paint.

You’ll need:

• Mason jars
• Glow in the dark paint (get it online or at local craft store)
• Paintbrush
• Tap water

Tips

Glow sticks. Instead of glow in the dark paint try using glow sticks. Buy glow sticks online or in your local dollar store, cut into the sticks and splash the fluid all over the jars. Be careful not to stain yourself or the surrounding area. The glow in the dark effect will last only for a few hours.

Mason jar alternatives. If you don’t have mason jars available use clear glass or see through plastic cups.

Step-by-step

1. Wash your jars. Then mix the paint with your brush to have the glowing particles evenly dissolved.
2. Make tiny dots in the inside of the jar. The more dots you make, the prettier the jar will look. Dot on one colour first, then the next, etc.
3. Leave to dry. You're done. It is this easy. In daylight your jar won't look that fancy, but at night it will make your room beautiful and cozy. Charge it with a lamp or with daylight and take it to a dark place to photograph!

Thanks to Lucy (Luca Gerda László) for sharing this tutorial and thank you for reading! Looking for more tutorials? Check out previously featured "Coffee With Milk" article, revealing tips & tricks behind splash photography.

Let’s share your skills and educate those new to photography. If you have a tutorial you’d like to share, be it in shooting, post production or top tips for getting your work out there please get in touch, email blog@500px.com.

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Follow Sam Cornwell on a journey, as he takes a traveling wet-plate collodion darkroom and walks in the footsteps of Fox-Talbot. The collodion process was invented in 1850s and almost immediately replaced daguerrotypes, which were all the rage back then. Collodion photography is a time sensitive affair, you have only 15 minutes to coat, shoot and develop a plate. Hence, you need a darkroom available at all time. Sam solved this issue by converting a 1970s caravan into a darkroom on wheels.

Sam Cornwell is a UK-based fine art urban photographer, documenting the beauty of the cities and urban life. For Sam, the most important part of being a photographer is not the equipment you own, or the process, it’s about being in the right place at the right time and having the patience to capture it. In recent years Sam has been working on many creative independent projects, such as photographing graffiti walls, beggars and experimenting with collodion process. Visit Sam’s 500px page to add him to friends and explore his work.

Last time we featured “Faith. Hope. Love.” — a moving tale of acquaintance that inspires and humbles. For more videos browse the blog and let us know if you’d like to be featured. Send in links to your videos to blog@500px.com. We’re always open to fresh and exiting content!

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