Outdoor Portrait Photography

Video Tutorials

Lens Choice, ND Filters, and Strobe Balance for Outdoor Senior Portraits

Every outdoor portrait session I’ve ever botched came down to the same problem: I was fighting the ambient light instead of controlling it. You either blow out the background chasing exposure, or you wrestle with high-speed sync and lose half your strobe power in the process. It’s a solvable problem, but the solution requires making a few deliberate decisions before you ever fire a frame. That’s exactly what Jay P. Morgan walks through in this tutorial from The Slanted Lens, covering lens choice, camera settings, and strobe balance for a full senior portrait session shot entirely outdoors.

October 2, 2026

Video Tutorials

How to Use a Battery-Powered Monolight Outdoors Without Losing Control of Your Exposure

Every location photographer eventually hits the same wall. You find a beautiful spot, the natural light is doing something interesting, and then your subject steps into the shade and becomes a muddy silhouette. You can expose for the shadows and blow out the background, or expose for the background and lose your subject entirely. Neither is acceptable on a commercial job. For years, the only real solution was hauling a generator or accepting the compromise.

July 21, 2026