Behind the Glowing Screen - DIYPhotography.net

Udi Tirosh, founder of DIYPhotography.net is a professional photographer based in Israel. His photography was featured in news outlets, but but his passion lies with portraiture work and photographing families. A father of three, and a relentless entrepreneur, he invented the Bokeh Masters Kit and The Light Blaster.

Tell us a bit about how DIYPhotography.net (DIYP) came to be?

DIYP began about 7 years ago when I started taking pictures. I quickly realized that to fulfill my passion, I would have to buy a lot of gear. Not being afraid of labor I started building my own lighting rigs and shared those with other photographers On DIYP.
Quickly, the blog and my photography "hobby" became bigger then expected and started taking up more of my time and more of my attention. Up to that point that both the income coming from and time invested in photography and blogging was significantly bigger then the time invested in my "real job". At that point, I made the move and followed my passion with photography and blogging.

What kind of educational and inspirational content can photographers find on DIYP? Exactly how DIY is DIYphotography.net?

When DIYP started out it was mostly about the building gear. We had a build for just about any photography piece of gear you could imagine: Cameras, lenses, time-lapse dollies, jibs and more. As the blog evolved we started featuring inspirational stories and photographers as well. While we feature a lot of lighting, gear and build articles we are now also focusing on the why in addition to the how. On an average week, we'll share amazing time lapses, inspiring photography projects, lighting tutorials, a possible rant and a few tips and tricks.

What's the most important thing you hope readers get out of DIYP?

For me, I hope that DIYP helps photographers be better and follow their vision. It could be enabling them to shoot something that they thought was out of reach for budget or complexity reasons, or it may be getting them inspired and enthusiastic to go and shoot, or it could be learning a new thing that they would like to try.

You recently launched a product of your own called the Light Blaster. Can you tell us a bit about what it does (and how it may be of interest to Lensbaby shooters in particular)?

The Light Blaster is a strobe based image projector. It lets you project an image onto a scene that blends in with the photograph. Imagine a slide projector, only instead of a "regular bulb" it uses a strobe. The uniqueness of this device is that it only projects an image only while the camera shutter is open. Seemingly white walls become landscapes/worlds/graffiti for just long enough to be captured by a camera and unnoticed by anyone else. You can look at the photos below to get an idea of what it is doing. Since the image is projected using a standard SLR lens, projecting an image through a Lensbaby should provide some interesting results. Instead of selective focus photograph, you would get a selective focus projection with a sweet spot.

On a side note I'll say that Lensbaby was a huge inspiration in this endeavor. I think that the motivation between the Light Blaster and the Lensbaby lens family is similar in that they are tools that are allow stronger story telling by mechanical/optical means.

photo by udi tirosh taken using the light blaster

photo by udi tirosh taken using the Light Blaster

What's one of your most favorite inspirational articles you've covered on DIYP?

I think that Magic Lantern made a huge change in the HD-SLR industry, delivering affordable high quality video on a somewhat budget camera (starting with Canon's 50D). I love the hacking, underground story that goes with Magic Lantern, and I love how they are enabling creatives to get better results. DIYP have been closely following their story and releases, and frankly, I think that Magic Lantern is the best thing that ever happenned to Canon.

What kind of photography do you like to shoot? And what's your favorite gear set up currently?

I mainly love to shoot people, specifically on location. I shoot mostly with a Nikon D7000 and a Nikon D300. My favorite light modifier (aside from the Light Blaster) is the Photek Softlighter II, 46 inch Umbrella.

photo by udi tirosh taken with double glass optic