Lighting Setup

How to Pose Men for Portraits and Headshots: A Studio Photographer's Breakdown
Video Tutorials

How to Pose Men for Portraits and Headshots: A Studio Photographer's Breakdown

Male subjects are, without question, the harder posing problem. Not because men are difficult to work with, but because the margin for error is smaller. A slightly hunched shoulder reads as insecure. A stiff jaw reads as uncomfortable. A flat, straight-on stance reads as a passport photo. I’ve shot enough corporate headshots and editorial work to know that most photographers who struggle with male portraits aren’t making lighting mistakes. They’re making posing mistakes and blaming the light.

85mm, Controlled Light, and a Repeatable Process: My Breakdown of a Solid Studio Portrait Tutorial
Video Tutorials

85mm, Controlled Light, and a Repeatable Process: My Breakdown of a Solid Studio Portrait Tutorial

There’s a question I get from assistants and younger photographers on set more than almost any other: “What settings are you shooting at?” It sounds simple, but behind it is a real anxiety about the technical side of studio work. The honest answer is that the settings matter less than the decisions that lead to them, and those decisions start with your lens, not your camera. When I came across this The Slanted Lens tutorial from Jay P.

One Exposure, Two Flashes: How to Photograph Shiny Chrome Without Destroying Your Gradation
Video Tutorials

One Exposure, Two Flashes: How to Photograph Shiny Chrome Without Destroying Your Gradation

Shiny metal is one of those subjects that separates photographers who understand light from photographers who just point it. Chrome cutlery, polished hardware, jewelry with high-gloss finishes — these objects don’t have a surface so much as a mirror, and that mirror reflects everything in your studio back into the lens. I’ve watched otherwise confident photographers completely fall apart when they have to shoot a set of silverware for a catalog client.

Six Lights, One Wrecked Hotel Room: What This Darren McMullen Shoot Taught Me About Layering Light
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Six Lights, One Wrecked Hotel Room: What This Darren McMullen Shoot Taught Me About Layering Light

There is a specific problem I run into on location editorial work that no amount of prep fully solves: how do you build a lighting setup that feels like it belongs in the room? Not dropped onto the room from outside. Not obviously “lit.” Practical lights on their own are almost never enough, but the moment you add a strobe without thinking it through, the whole scene reads as fake. Getting those layers to coexist convincingly is the thing most photographers underestimate when they move from a clean white studio into a real environment.

Why I Label Every Light in My Studio (And How It Saved My Workflow)
Studio Workflow

Why I Label Every Light in My Studio (And How It Saved My Workflow)

The Shoot That Made Me Build a System I walked into my studio last spring to prep for a beauty campaign, three models, six looks, a client rep sitting on the couch with her laptop open. My assistant had moved the strobes the night before for a different job and “put them back.” The key light was two feet off its mark. The fill ratio was completely wrong. The background light was aimed at the ceiling.

How to Light a Time-Lapse Scene That Actually Tells a Story
Video Tutorials

How to Light a Time-Lapse Scene That Actually Tells a Story

Time-lapse photography sits in an unusual corner of my practice. I shoot primarily commercial and editorial work, and for years I treated time-lapse as a novelty - something interesting to watch but hard to justify billing a client for. What changed my thinking was seeing someone treat it not as a technical stunt but as a narrative tool, a way to move through a scene with intention rather than just compressing time.

How to Light a Bottle So It Actually Looks Alive (And Strip It Into Any Shot)
Video Tutorials

How to Light a Bottle So It Actually Looks Alive (And Strip It Into Any Shot)

Every few months a client sends me a brief that includes a lifestyle shot with a person holding a product, usually a bottle of some kind, and somewhere in the fine print it says “the product should look great.” It never does. The second a hand wraps around a bottle, you lose control of the light on the glass. The label goes flat, the interior goes dead, and no amount of Photoshop rescues it cleanly.

Broad Lighting Explained: The Friendly, Flattering Pattern Every Portrait Photographer Should Master
Video Tutorials

Broad Lighting Explained: The Friendly, Flattering Pattern Every Portrait Photographer Should Master

There’s a category of client I get regularly in my Los Angeles studio: the corporate headshot subject who walks in tense, arms crossed, absolutely certain they’re not photogenic. My job in the first ten minutes isn’t to take pictures. It’s to make the light so open and welcoming that they stop thinking about the camera. Broad lighting is one of my go-to tools for exactly that situation. It’s generous, it’s readable, and it communicates warmth before the subject even registers what you’ve done.

Plan Your Studio Shots Before You Ever Plug In a Light: A Guide to Virtual Lighting Tools
Video Tutorials

Plan Your Studio Shots Before You Ever Plug In a Light: A Guide to Virtual Lighting Tools

I keep a lighting journal. Every setup from every shoot gets a sketch - light positions, modifiers, approximate power ratios, what worked, what didn’t. It took me years to build that reference library, and it cost me real money in wasted studio time and blown test shots along the way. When I was starting out, the only way to understand what a beauty dish actually does differently from a softbox was to rent both, set them up, fire them, and compare.

How to Shoot a Live Event: Lighting, Gear, and the Etiquette Nobody Teaches You
Video Tutorials

How to Shoot a Live Event: Lighting, Gear, and the Etiquette Nobody Teaches You

Event work terrifies most studio photographers, and I’ll admit it used to rattle me too. In the studio, I control everything. Every light is labeled with masking tape, diagrammed in my phone app, and tested before the client walks in. At a live event, none of that applies. The room is what it is, the crowd moves when it wants to, and the window to get the shot is usually about three seconds wide.

How to Suspend a Subject for Action Shots (And Light It Like a Stadium)
Video Tutorials

How to Suspend a Subject for Action Shots (And Light It Like a Stadium)

Clients come to you with ideas that sound impossible until you break them down into problems you already know how to solve. A stretched, reaching, mid-air pose for a soccer player sounds like a job for a trampoline or a very patient athlete. In practice, jumping produces chaos: uncontrolled body position, expressions you can’t predict, and a setup you can’t repeat. I’ve been in that situation more than once, and the solution is almost always more control, not more attempts.

How a Working Commercial Photographer Packs, Plans, and Shoots on Location with Six Lights
Video Tutorials

How a Working Commercial Photographer Packs, Plans, and Shoots on Location with Six Lights

Every location shoot I’ve done in the last decade has started the same way: a mental list that I’m convinced is complete, and a bag that proves otherwise. I’ve arrived at industrial facilities without a trigger, shown up to editorial jobs with dead batteries, and once spent twenty minutes hunting for a support plate while a client watched. The checklist isn’t glamorous, but it’s the difference between a shoot that flows and one that hemorrhages time and money.