Profoto

How to Light and Control a Group Portrait Using Profoto Flashes and Umbrellas
Video Tutorials

How to Light and Control a Group Portrait Using Profoto Flashes and Umbrellas

Group portraits are where lighting setups go to die. You dial in a beautiful exposure for one face and suddenly the person on the far left looks like they’re standing in a cave. Add a reflective surface anywhere in the frame and you’re fighting hot spots all afternoon. I’ve had editorial shoots derailed by exactly this problem, and I still keep a sketch of every group setup I do in my lighting journal because the variables multiply fast.

Flash Duration, Not Shutter Speed: How to Freeze a Liquid Pour in the Studio
Video Tutorials

Flash Duration, Not Shutter Speed: How to Freeze a Liquid Pour in the Studio

Every few months a client sends me a brief with a liquid shot in it. Coffee pouring into a cup. Whiskey splashing over ice. A serum drop hitting a surface. And every time, I watch junior photographers on set reach for the shutter speed dial as if that’s what’s going to save them. It isn’t. In studio conditions with flash, your shutter speed is nearly irrelevant to motion blur. What actually freezes the liquid is the duration of the flash itself, and if you don’t understand that distinction, you’ll keep getting soft, ghosted pours no matter how fast you shoot.

The Vanity Fair Two-Light Setup That Reignited My Love for Studio Portraiture
Video Tutorials

The Vanity Fair Two-Light Setup That Reignited My Love for Studio Portraiture

There’s a specific kind of dread that creeps in when a shoot isn’t working and you can’t diagnose why. The lights are set, the camera is dialed in, the subject is in front of you — and nothing. I’ve been there more than I’d like to admit. Usually the problem isn’t technical. It’s that I’ve stopped thinking about why I’m making the photograph and started just executing a sequence of habits.