On-Location Shooting

How to Read a Location for Light Before You Shoot a Single Frame
Video Tutorials

How to Read a Location for Light Before You Shoot a Single Frame

Every location shoot I walk into, I do the same thing before I touch a single piece of gear. I stop at the door and I look for the light that’s already there. Not the light I brought. The light that exists. Most photographers I know do the opposite. They walk in with a plan built in the parking lot and spend the next hour trying to force that plan onto a space that doesn’t want it.

Studio Anywhere: What Joel Grimes' Sprinter Van Teaches Us About Portable Portrait Lighting
Video Tutorials

Studio Anywhere: What Joel Grimes' Sprinter Van Teaches Us About Portable Portrait Lighting

There’s a specific kind of anxiety that hits when a client wants “something different” and your entire lighting setup lives in a studio you can’t move. I’ve felt it. You start mentally cataloging what you can rent, what you can beg from another photographer, whether a speedlight-and-reflector combo can pull off the look you promised. The answer is sometimes yes, but the planning overhead is brutal. That’s why when I came across this Joel Grimes tutorial showing how he built a fully functional portrait studio inside a Winnebago Revel Sprinter van, I watched it twice before breakfast.