To Become a successful fashion photographer you must love clothes and to know how to work with a model. Of all the qualities, imagination heads the list. In spite of the comparative simplicity that marks many fashion photographs today every picture is the product of some photographers imagination. You will need to approach each photo with a fresh slant. The background must be harmonious with the merchandise. It must accent it without distracting the eye from the outfit that is featured in the photograph. The basic rule in fashion photography is concentrate on the merchandise. The merchandise is all important. Your image needs to sell the product and you need to develop a "feeling" for the garment. This feeling involves many things. Firstly, it guides the photographer in the selection of an appropriate background; casual, beach, glamour or street depending on the type of the garment. Second, it "keys" the photographers lighting. If the texture of the gown is important, the photographer will light it one way or another. The clothing feeling is instinctive with some photographers and comes only with experience with others. Study From the Masters You should build up a library of a file of fashion magazines as many as you can find! Some old fashion magazines can be found valuable as the fashion changes and you can be inspired by some old approach and find out when the "old" is due to become "the latest" again. Your file heading should read "backgrounds" "Poses" "Lighting" "Single Figure" "Two Figure" "Groups" etc. These files will help you to study the fashion photographs of the masters and to find yourself that some pictures will appeal to you move than others. Try to study how they did it and what kind of the tricks they use to achieve effects. It will also give you a better idea of what you will actually need in the way of a studio and equipment. Minimum Studio Equipment Two large format digital cameras (20 million MP) and One DSLR (11 million MP) for location and studio One tripod Additional lenses filters One good and reliable exposure meter Lighting units Studio screens, preferable large and white Background reflectors Posing stands Small dressing room Bright lighted mirror and shelf for cosmetics. Nine feet is the minimum height for a studio as some time you will need to shoot from above and 15 feet on each side. Handling the Model As your dealing with human beings, the first basic rule is don't yell! Keep your voice low and your temper and try to pose her calmly to achieve your goal. Without a friendly feeling between you and your model you will not achieve a successful fashion shoot it is exactly like in every relationship between two people. Be patient and choose a model not just for her looks but also for her personality. Constantly talk to her, encourage her and compliment her and if you can even joke with her it will make the atmosphere more fun and the model will get relaxed and she will begin to pose with more freedom and east. With more smiles and more flirtatiousness. With luck, you will get the shots you want in one session. Do not forget to give her time off for a break and for yourself. In choosing a model look for long, thin legs, a small waistline, slender hips and disproportionately broad shoulders. This is the look that most woman in the western world admire. She believes that she can look like the girl in the photograph if only she buys that outfit. It's your job to make her want to buy it! When shooting, don't forget to analyze the lighting on the way it falls on the garment. Study it and learn what is the best way to emphasize the light over the piece of cloth to make it look desired. Try to improvise in cases that the clothes do not suit your model size such as using clips on the back of the clothes to tuck them in. Manufacturers expect you to return their merchandise in good condition. Make sure that model dresses carefully. BE PROFESSIONAL! Location Shooting On location use DSLR and before you go look and your file for inspiration. Try to fit the look to the location mood. Models for action, outdoor fashion pictures need different qualifications from models for high fashion. If you are looking for such a model when there is no agency close by, try to look at your nearest dancing school. Trained dancers are usually attractive, healthy girls that can learn modeling easily and become because they are performing in public they will be far less self conscious than the average non-professional girl. To get good clothing for the beginner fashion photographer, contact clothing stores in your town and ask if you can rent them for 10-20% of their value. Also look in any market or second hand shops/flea markets for interesting props. Choose props carefully for your photographs. You can also develop a connection with a shop for renting pros from them like an interesting radio, tv screen etc. it also applies to animal use and cars. On Location Recommended Points * The simpler the background the better! * Blue sky is preferred by many photographers. * Look for correct color balance for the outfit and the background including the relationship between the two. * Public buildings are usually architecturally interesting. * Make a list of places that you visit and like and create a location list for future work. * Shooting outdoor is a challenge as you are out of your studio where you control the light and effect and on location you have to consider the weather that is constantly changing. * So these are necessary for working in the field. * A good fill flash and reflectors do not work between 11am-2pm. * An overhead sun causes heavily shadowed eye sockets and white bleached nose. * The long shadows of early morning or evening are soft and decorative. Remember as one master photographer summed up "anyone can become a great fashion photographer. All you have to do is make a $3 dress look like $300!"

Professional Photographer, Rafael Ben-Ari offers private 'one-on-one' private photography tutorials for the amateur to advanced photographer and group lecturing. In addition, Rafael offers custom tutorials for small groups and is available by appointment. Private Tutorials - Theory and Practice Spend a half-day learning "how-to" and on location travel photography with exclusive and customized instructions. Private lessons and instruction sessions are exclusively for the photographer serious about their craft and improving their skills set. Each individual session is intense on the necessary technical information that is the foundation for creative photography. Private photography classes are available for individuals as well as business groups, corporate outings. Contact Rafael Ben-Ari below for more information regarding topics, fees and scheduling Group Lecturing Rafael Ben-Ari is available as a speaker or lecturer at on a variety of technical photography and photojournalism topics in Israel. Contact Rafael Ben-Ari for more information or email: assignment@chameleonseye.com

On the morning of July 12, 2006, eight Israeli soldiers were killed and two more were kidnapped at the Israeli-Lebanon border by the terrorist group named Hezbollah. A few hours later the second Israeli war in Lebanon began. Children play cards and try to pass the time in a security room in Nahariya, Israel, on Fri., July 21, 2006. Children and citizens of Nahariya were forced to stay in their security rooms for a second week after Hezbollah's Katyusha rocket barrage struck their town. Many private entertainment companies volunteered their time to entertain children who were forced to spend their days in the safety rooms. (Rafael Ben Ari/Chameleons Eye) The events that came after the incident on the border caused the Israeli government to react fast and harshly in an attempt to try to get back the kidnapped soldiers as quickly as possible. The Israeli Air Force and the Israeli Defense Force artillery fired and targeted Hezbollah bases in south Lebanon. Hezbollah, a militant group, has declared many times that it will destroy Israel in the name of Allah as part of their world Jihad Islamic war against all the non-Islamic religions such as Judaism and Christianity. Hezbollah has been supported by Syria and Iran since it was created in the 1980s. One morning I found myself driving from south Israel to north Israel to cover the war for Xinhua, a Chinese news agency. I was supplied with a war kit (a helmet and a bulletproof vest with a press sign over it) along with my usual photography gear. A crowd looks at the second Kassam rocket fired from Gaza that landed in Ashkelon, Israel, on Wed., July 5, 2006. Magen David Adom paramedics treated eight people suffering from shock, including two children, and evacuated them to local Barzilai Hospital. (Rafael Ben Ari/Chameleons Eye) It was the first days of the war and the Israeli Air Force was attacking, trying to find and destroy Katyusha rocket launch pads in an effort to prevent Hezbollah from firing missiles towards northern Israel. Around two million children, men and women in Israel are affected by the bombing. As I got closer to Haifa, the third biggest city in Israel after Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv, with a seaport and many chemical factories, I felt stressed by the situation. Many army and security vehicles were driving next to me and helicopters were flying around. Haifa was a ghost town--everyone was in underground shelters. I felt very uncomfortable as I drove through the city because it was so strange to drive through a beautiful and empty place that on a normal day is full of life. All the shops were closed and no cars were driving by. Suddenly, a siren went off and I knew that I had around 20 seconds to find a safe place before the missiles would start falling from the sky. Israeli mobile canon unit soldiers reload the cannon for the next round to be fired towards Northern Gaza Strip in retaliation against two Kassam strikes over Sderot in Nachal Oz, Israel, on Tues., June 6, 2006. One of the rockets landed inside a home, striking the bed of a 17-year-old boy who had left for school a few minutes earlier. The building sustained extensive damage. Three other rockets were fired at Sderot from Gaza and landed in open territory. (Rafael Ben-Ari/Chameleons Eye) I stopped my car immediately and, wearing my vest, grabbed my camera and helmet and ran into a ditch on the side of the road. A moment later I heard a few thudding sounds around me. I decided to go and see the landing site. As I got closer, I found that a building was completely destroyed but fortunately no one was injured because everyone had taken shelter. As of today, two million Israeli civilians are still under the threat of the Hezbollah terror attacks and the war in Lebanon is still going on. Massive damage has been inflicted on both sides and many lives have been taken. I hope this crisis will end very soon. copyright Rafael Ben-Ari Photographer Rafael Ben-Ari is from Israel and became an on-location photographer in 1994 after gaining a Professional Photography Diploma from NYI and studying at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem. He then traveled the world to immerse himself in many manners of work and cultures. Being able to speak fluent English, Hebrew and basic Arabic, Rafael has enabled himself to work in most parts of the world, living in countries such as England, Australia, New Zealand. He is now based in Israel. Rafael has covered events such as the America's Cup, the Salvador Carnival and the Israeli Disengagement. He is a staff photographer of Scoop magazine and Walla News in Israel and recently working as a stringer for Xinhua photowire news agency from China. copyright Rafael Ben-Ari Visit Rafael Ben-Ari's web site http://www.chameleonseye.com .

In Range of the Kassam: A Cycle of Violence by Rafael Ben-Ari For the past six years the town has borne the impact of rocket attacks from the Palestinian Authority-controlled town of Beit Hanoun, across the Gaza border. The residents of the Israeli town of Sderot in the western Negev who settled there over 50 years ago today find themselves as "hostages" of an Israeli government that did not keep the pre-Disengagement promises that it had made. Factory workers, Sderot residents and policemen from a factory in the Negev industrial zone hit by a Kassam rocket run for cover as the "Tzeva Adom" (Color Red) warning siren sounds on Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2006. One man in his 40s was critically wounded, sustaining severe head trauma in the attack. A number of other people suffered from shock. (Photo by: Rafael Ben-Ari/Chameleon's Eye) The rockets have been striking Sderot with various degrees of regularity for six years. Prior to the Disengagement, residents were told they were being fired upon because of the "occupation of Gaza." Since the Disengagement, every time one Gaza terror faction wants to complicate another faction's negotiations with Israel, or every time a senior terrorist is eliminated and most of the time for no reason at all, explosive-laden rockets are fired at Sderot and the agricultural communities surrounding Palestinian Authority-controlled Gaza. When a Kassam is launched from the Gaza area an early-warning system is sounded, which happens most days during the time children are setting off to school and residents are traveling to work. The system announces "Tzeva adom. Tzeva adom. Tzeva adom." "Tzeva adom," means "color red." The system usually provides the men, women and children of the city with 15 seconds to stop what they are doing and scramble for cover. Shopping carts are left in supermarket aisles, phone conversations interrupted, children's baths abruptly stopped and prayers are recited alongside the sudden tears of children and adults like. Unlike the arc trajectory of the Katyusha missiles fired at northern Israel this summer, Kassam rockets fall straight down once their fuel propulsion is used up. Northern residents were able to hide from the missiles, behind walls facing Lebanon. For the residents of Sderot, there is nowhere to hide. The rockets are still termed Kassams by the Israeli and global media, though the range, amount of explosive material and shrapnel in the missiles has increased steadily over the past six years, since the first rocket struck the western Negev town. The explosions keep getting louder and now they put shrapnel and ball bearings into the rockets and can kill, and have killed, people hiding far from the explosive site. A home owner stands where a Kassam missile struck on Nov. 26, 2006. Other rockets caused damage to the southern Israeli city of Sderot. The Palestinian rockets threatened a cease-fire agreement that took effect hours earlier in which militants promised to halt attacks in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. (Photo by: Rafael Ben-Ari/Chameleon's Eye) Living close to Sderot gives me enough time to be there when the action is on. In the last few months, almost every morning, between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m., I would be paged that a Kassam rocket attack had been launched towards Sderot. I got up very early to get myself ready and have my cup of coffee beside my cameras, battery pack, various lenses ready in a waist belt along with the pager, cell phone and laptop with wireless Internet connection. All the equipment was charged and ready to go the night before. When I got the message all I had to do was grab my gear, walk out of my house, start the car and rush to document another terror attack. Arriving at a Kassam site, I always wear my journalist ID to make it easy for the local police forces to identify me as a photojournalist when I cross the police lines. The first people I come across are usually running away from the scene in tears, screaming in panic and confusion. Police investigators stand near the body of a Bedouin shepherd killed by a Kassam rocket near Kibbutz Nahal Oz, Israel, on Tuesday, March 28, 2006. The rocket explosion killed a father and son when it struck among a group of Bedouin shepherds. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. (Photo by: Rafael Ben-Ari/Chameleon's Eye) As I get closer to the site my senses are assaulted: a strong smell of gunpowder in the air welcomes me along with glass shards from broken windows and plastic shutters. Blaring sirens, screaming and victims' calls for help fill the air. I need to ignore the chaos, focus my eyes and shoot the moment. When a Kassam rocket attack results in a death or a terrible injury as when a man lost his legs, I empathize with the victims, making my work harder. Other attacks cause a lot of property damage or the Kassam is found buried in the garden too close for comfort to a private home. Since no one knows when or where the next rocket will hit, I am often caught day or night scrambling for cover. Hearing the oncoming Kassam alone causes tremendous stress and when it hits the ground the massive blast can be felt all over town. Policemen from the bomb squad collect all the Kassam rocket pieces and take them to the Israeli police lab where specialists determine the rockets shape, manufactory time, explosion materials and quality. Palestinian terror groups such as Hamas, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Palestinian Islamic Jihad always find excuses to fire Kassam rockets that terrorize Israel and prevent any peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority from taking place. They fax various lists of grievances to international news agencies which, in turn, publish them. For instance, one recent terrorist attack was claimed by the group responsible as "revenge" for the IDF's accidental firing of a mortar shell at a home in Beit Hanoun days earlier. However, according to the IDF, the shelling was to prevent the continued Kassam rocket attacks towards Ashkelon, Israel's 13th-largest city, a day earlier. The terrorist groups use civilians and even their own families as human shields and fire Kassam rockets from populated areas with schools, houses, and hospitals, etc., to make it morally and physically harder for the IDF to prevent shelling by Kassam rockets. On Nov. 26, 2006 a cease-fire was announced between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. So far each side has attempted to honor the cease-fire. Let's hope that it's not too late for the people of Sderot to live in peace side-by-side with those in Bait Hanoun without the threat of kassam rocket attacks. Copyright Rafael Ben-Ari Israeli photographer Rafael Ben-Ari became an on-location photographer in 1994 after receiving a Professional Photography Diploma from NYI and studying at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem. He then traveled the world to immerse himself in other cultures and various approaches to photojournalism. Being able to speak fluent English, Hebrew and basic Arabic, Rafael is able to work in most parts of the world and has lived in England, Australia, New Zealand. He is now based in Israel. Rafael has covered events such as the America's Cup, the Salvador Carnival and the Israeli Disengagement. He is a staff photographer of Scoop magazine and Walla News in Israel and recently worked as a stringer for Xinhua photowire news agency from China Visit his Web site www.chameleonseye.com.

Back The Kodak EasyShare P880 is the latest in a long line of digital cameras that has proven popular and very user-friendly throughout its history. Kodak's EasyShare line of digital cameras live up to the "Easy" part of their name, as they're among the simplest and most goof-proof to operate out there. While still retaining good ease of use in full-auto mode, the Kodak P880 steps out into relatively new territory for Kodak, as a credible effort at a true enthusiast camera, offering full exposure control, an excellent lens, and both a hot shoe and threaded PC-sync socket for use with an external flash, increasing rarities these days. are among the easiest and most goof-proof out there, and while the Kodak P880 offers a much wider range of exposure and creative controls than the main EasyShare line, it still maintains relative ease of use. Featuring an eight-megapixel CCD, 5.8x Schneider -Kreuznach zoom lens, and an extensive array of automatic and manual exposure modes, the Kodak P880 is a capable camera with great flexibility. Like the rest of the EasyShare line, the Kodak P880 is compatible with Kodak's popular Printer Docks, offering one-button printing of high-quality photos. The EasyShare P880 should appeal experienced photographers, as well as novices looking for a camera to grow into as their skills mature, making it a good fit for many consumers. Read on for all the details... Highlighted Features Fast f/2.8 24140 mm wide-angle lens 8.0 MP sensor for prints up to 30 x 40 in. (75 x 100 cm) Advanced video features Hot shoe flash connector and PC flash sync Program, aperture priority, shutter priority, manual, custom modes Proprietary RAW file format Histogram technology with highlight and shadow clipping Standard Features CCD resolution 8.3 megapixel (3350 x 2483 pixels) Effective image resolution 8.0 megapixel (3264 x 2448 pixels) Picture quality 8.0 MP (3264 x 2448 pixels) 7.1 MP (3264 x 2176), 3:2 print mode 5.0 MP (2560 x 1920) 3.1 MP (2048 x 1536) 0.8 MP (1024 x 768) Still format JPEG/EXIF v 2.21, RAW, TIFF Lens 5.8X optical zoom, f/2.8 f/4.1 (24 x 140 mm, 35 mm equivalent) Advanced digital zoom 2X Aperture f/2.8 f/8.0 (wide), f/4.1 f/8.0 (tele) Shutter speed automatic: 1/2 1/4000 sec.; manual (S & M mode): 16 1/4000 sec. Viewfinder electronic, 237K pixels LCD 2.5 in. (6.4 cm) indoor/outdoor LCD with adjustable brightness settings Performance features Still capture modes auto, SCN, PASM, C, flower, super close-up, landscape (standard and night landscape), portrait (standard, night portrait, anti-shake night portrait) Scene modes sports, sunset, backlight, candlelight, text/document, manner/museum, snow, beach Color modes high color, natural color, low color, sepia, black and white Contrast high, normal, low Sharpness high, normal, low First burst mode approx. 2 fps, maximum 12 images in standard JPEG mode at full resolution Last burst mode approx. 2 fps, maximum last 6 images in any JPEG mode Time lapse burst mode user-selectable time lapse (10 sec-24 intervals, 2/99 images) Click to capture 0.3 sec. (wide) Shot to shot 1.2 sec. interval Video mode continuous QUICKTIME compressed video with audio recording during video capture Video resolution 640 x 480 pixels at 30 fps 320 x 240 pixels at 30 fps Video length continuous based on memory capacity Video features 5.8X zoom during video with digital video auto focus, print wallet-sized photos from video, video editing including trim, cut, split, merge, fast forward, rewind Video format QUICKTIME video format, motion JPEG (video), PCM (audio) Auto focus TTL-AF, hybrid AF external passive sensor, low light AF: high performance with AF assist light Auto focus control single AF, continuous AF Auto focus modes multi-zone, center-zone, 25 selectable points Manual focus with indicator and enlargement in LCD/EVF Focus range normal AF, wide: 2 in. (5 cm) infinity; tele: 10 in. (25 cm) infinity macro AF, wide and tele: 10x19.7 in. (25x50 cm) super close-up, wide: 2x10 in. (5x25 cm) Sensitivity auto; 50x1600; selectable in PASM and custom modes; 8.0 3.1 MP: 50 400; 0.8 MP: 400 1600 White balance auto, daylight, tungsten, fluorescent, cloudy, open shade, sunset, custom 1 3, click white balance available as one of white balance modes, white balance compensation available in PASM and C modes Exposure metering selectable zone AE (25 positions), multi-pattern AE, center-weighted AE, center-spot AE Exposure control AE, selectable exposure metering, compensation, and bracketing Exposure compensation +/- 2.0 EV with 1/3 EV steps Exposure bracketing selectable: 3 or 5 images with selectable +/- 1/3, 2/3, and 1.0 EV steps Back