Video Tutorials

How to Build Engagement Poses From the Ground Up: 3 Techniques From Pye Jirsa
Video Tutorials

How to Build Engagement Poses From the Ground Up: 3 Techniques From Pye Jirsa

Engagement sessions have a way of exposing weaknesses fast. Unlike a controlled studio shoot, you’re working with whatever light the location gives you, a couple who may never have been photographed together before, and a timeline that doesn’t care if the shot isn’t working. For years, I handled this by over-planning, showing up with a shot list so detailed it left no room to read what the light was actually doing.

The Profoto A1 First Look: What It Means for Photographers Who Actually Hate Flash
Video Tutorials

The Profoto A1 First Look: What It Means for Photographers Who Actually Hate Flash

I have labeled every flash in my studio with masking tape. Not because I’m obsessive, although my assistants would argue otherwise, but because I’ve learned the hard way that ambiguity on set costs time and money. So when a new flash unit comes along that’s designed from the ground up to reduce confusion and friction, I pay attention. I’ve watched a lot of gear releases come and go, and most of them are incremental.

How to Balance Strobe Lights with a Setting Sun Without Losing Your Mind (or Your Shot)
Video Tutorials

How to Balance Strobe Lights with a Setting Sun Without Losing Your Mind (or Your Shot)

Every location shoot I’ve done at golden hour has the same problem baked in: the sun doesn’t care about your shot list. It moves, it dims, and if you’ve built your entire exposure around it, you’re scrambling to keep up while your subject stands there wondering why they agreed to do this. The traditional answer is to shoot fast and accept the chaos. The better answer is to treat the sunset as one controllable variable in a multi-light equation and adjust only what needs adjusting.

One Light, Two Lights, Three Lights: Building a Home Studio Setup That Actually Works
Video Tutorials

One Light, Two Lights, Three Lights: Building a Home Studio Setup That Actually Works

Most of my clients assume I shoot in a massive rented studio with a grip truck parked outside. The reality is that some of my best-performing commercial work has come out of a spare bedroom with a paper backdrop and a couple of lights I can carry under one arm. Budget constraints are not a creative death sentence. They’re a focusing mechanism. That’s exactly why I keep coming back to this tutorial from J.

Taking Studio Strobes Outside: A Location Lighting Breakdown from a CreativeLive Shoot
Video Tutorials

Taking Studio Strobes Outside: A Location Lighting Breakdown from a CreativeLive Shoot

Every time I pack a strobe into a location kit, I think about the photographers who trained themselves to leave all that hardware at home because outdoor shoots felt too unpredictable. I understand the impulse. Ambient light shifts. Backgrounds are messy. You can’t control who walks through your frame. But when you learn to treat the sun as a second light source rather than your only one, the whole equation flips.

Stop Fighting Bad Room Light: A Working Photographer's Guide to Bounce Flash
Video Tutorials

Stop Fighting Bad Room Light: A Working Photographer's Guide to Bounce Flash

Most of my studio work happens under controlled conditions, with lights I’ve labeled with masking tape, positions I’ve mapped in my lighting app, and modifiers I’ve tested before any client walks through the door. But I don’t always get to shoot in my studio. Editorial work takes me into offices, event halls, hotel rooms, and warehouses, and every one of those spaces has its own agenda when it comes to light.

How to Build a Cinematic Jungle Scene with Smoke, Dry Ice, and Five Lights
Video Tutorials

How to Build a Cinematic Jungle Scene with Smoke, Dry Ice, and Five Lights

Smoke is the thing that separates a dramatic image from a genuinely cinematic one, and it is also the thing most likely to ruin your shoot if you do not understand how light interacts with it. I have been in that position more times than I want to count - pumping smoke into a set, firing a strobe, and watching the entire foreground turn into a glowing white wall. The light was hitting the smoke head-on and blowing it out completely.

How to Turn Any Spare Room Into a Working Studio (Without Destroying It)
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How to Turn Any Spare Room Into a Working Studio (Without Destroying It)

I shoot commercial work out of a rented studio most of the week, but there are jobs — quick corporate headshots, product pickups, last-minute editorial requests — where dragging everything to a paid space doesn’t make financial sense. For years I told myself I needed a dedicated room with proper infrastructure before I could do serious work at home. What I actually needed was a smarter approach to the space I already had.

How to Actually Use LED Panels in the Studio (They're Not Hopeless, But You're Probably Using Them Wrong)
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How to Actually Use LED Panels in the Studio (They're Not Hopeless, But You're Probably Using Them Wrong)

I have a piece of masking tape on the worst light in my studio that just says “handle with care.” It’s not fragile. It’s a flat LED panel, and that label is a warning to myself. For years I reached for those panels as quick fill sources and walked away with portraits that looked like someone lit a subject with a laptop screen. Harsh, flat, unflattering. The problem was never the light itself.

How to Fake Studio Lighting in Photoshop (And Why It Actually Holds Up)
Video Tutorials

How to Fake Studio Lighting in Photoshop (And Why It Actually Holds Up)

Product photography has a dirty little secret: the background matters as much as the light. I’ve shot on white seamless more times than I can count, and even with three well-placed continuous lights, the final image rarely has that clean, deliberate “studio” feel right out of camera. The background goes flat, the subject looks like it’s sitting on a table rather than floating in controlled light, and you end up spending real time in post trying to manufacture what you thought you built on set.

How to Plan and Shoot a Formal Wear Session That Actually Moves
Video Tutorials

How to Plan and Shoot a Formal Wear Session That Actually Moves

Formal wear sessions have a way of exposing every weakness in your workflow. The dresses are expensive, the clients are nervous, and you have maybe two hours before someone wants lunch and the energy collapses. I’ve learned the hard way that improvising your way through a five-outfit session is a fast route to mediocre images and a stressed subject. What you need is a plan that’s tight enough to keep you moving but loose enough to follow the light when something better appears.

Building a Fantasy Portrait Set From Scratch: Smoke, Tombstones, and the Lighting Math That Holds It All Together
Video Tutorials

Building a Fantasy Portrait Set From Scratch: Smoke, Tombstones, and the Lighting Math That Holds It All Together

Fantasy portraits are a category where everything that can go wrong usually does, and it happens fast. The location falls through. The props don’t arrive. The smoke machine turns a controlled exposure into a moving target. I’ve pulled out of enough shoots like this mid-setup to know that the photographers worth studying are the ones who solve problems in real time, not the ones who had a perfect plan. That’s why this particular tutorial from The Slanted Lens caught my attention and stayed in my lighting journal.