Special Effects Photography

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 to Build a Chill Box and Make Smoke Lay on Water (A Lighting Breakdown)
Video Tutorials

How to Build a Chill Box and Make Smoke Lay on Water (A Lighting Breakdown)

Every so often a technique crosses my feed and I immediately think: I’ve been solving this the wrong way for years. That’s exactly what happened when I sat down with this tutorial from JP Morgan over at The Slanted Lens. The goal of the shoot sounds almost theatrical - a model standing on a fiberglass rock floating in a pool, smoke curling across the water’s surface, a massive painted backdrop behind her.

How to Light Rain in the Studio (and Make It Actually Look Like Rain)
Video Tutorials

How to Light Rain in the Studio (and Make It Actually Look Like Rain)

Rain is one of those elements that looks effortless in a great editorial image and absolutely terrible when you don’t know what you’re doing. I’ve watched photographers point a garden hose at a subject and wonder why the result looks like someone got splashed at a car wash. The problem is almost never the water. It’s the light. Water is transparent. If you don’t give it something to catch, it simply disappears into the frame.