Studio Setup

Controlling Reflections on Glossy Bottles: Why Silver Outperforms White
News

Controlling Reflections on Glossy Bottles: Why Silver Outperforms White

The Glossy Bottle Problem I’ve spent enough time in the studio photographing reflective products to know that glossy surfaces are both a blessing and a curse. They catch light beautifully—that’s why brands love them. But they also catch everything on your set, turning your meticulously arranged props into distracting mirror images scattered across your subject. Recently, I worked through a particularly challenging shoot involving a haircare bottle with an acrylic rod prop.

Inside a Pro Recording Studio: Gear Choices That Actually Explain Themselves
Video Tutorials

Inside a Pro Recording Studio: Gear Choices That Actually Explain Themselves

I spend a lot of time thinking about how professionals build their working environments, because the gear someone chooses - and the order they choose to use it in - tells you almost everything about their philosophy. That applies whether you’re stacking compressors in a recording studio or arranging modifiers on a lighting grid. When I came across this CreativeLive walkthrough with producer Andrew Wuepper, filmed at Triangle Sound Studios in Los Angeles, I kept pausing it to sketch notes.

How to Meter, Control Bounce, and Nail White Balance in the Studio: Notes from a Daniel Norton Tutorial
Video Tutorials

How to Meter, Control Bounce, and Nail White Balance in the Studio: Notes from a Daniel Norton Tutorial

Group shoots used to expose a fault in my workflow I didn’t want to admit. I’d meter one subject, lock in my settings, and assume the light was consistent across the frame. It wasn’t. The person standing two feet to the left was half a stop darker, and I’d only find out in post when the client was already reviewing selects. It took embarrassingly long to build a proper metering habit, and even longer to understand why my studio’s walls and my white balance choices were compounding the problem.

Home Studio Setup Decisions That Actually Matter: Lessons from Mike Metlay's Q&A
Video Tutorials

Home Studio Setup Decisions That Actually Matter: Lessons from Mike Metlay's Q&A

I spend a lot of time thinking about studio infrastructure. Not the glamorous part of the job, but the decisions that determine whether a shoot runs smoothly or falls apart before the first frame. What computer controls my tethering rig. Whether my audio playback for client presentations drops out mid-meeting. How I spec a workspace so it serves the work instead of fighting it. These are the unglamorous fundamentals, and getting them wrong costs you money and credibility.

Inside KL Taylor's Studio: What a Purpose-Built Photography Workshop Space Actually Needs
Video Tutorials

Inside KL Taylor's Studio: What a Purpose-Built Photography Workshop Space Actually Needs

Every few months I get a message from someone asking what they should look for in a photography workshop. My answer has always been the same: look at the space before you look at the curriculum. A bad room with great instruction is still a bad workshop. I learned that the hard way after attending a “professional lighting” seminar held in what was essentially a carpeted conference room with nine-foot ceilings.

Solo Studio vs. Shared Space: How to Make the Right Call Before You Sign a Lease
Video Tutorials

Solo Studio vs. Shared Space: How to Make the Right Call Before You Sign a Lease

Every photographer I know has had the same conversation with themselves at least once: do I actually need my own studio, or am I romanticizing it? I spent two years renting by the day before I finally committed to a permanent space in Los Angeles, and even then I second-guessed the decision for months. The real question isn’t whether you want a studio. It’s whether the structure of your work actually demands one, and if so, which model fits that structure.

How I Build Every Studio Shot Before I Touch a Single Light
Studio Workflow

How I Build Every Studio Shot Before I Touch a Single Light

Every minute I spend confused on set costs me money. That’s not a metaphor. I shoot for fashion clients and beauty brands that bill studio time by the hour, sometimes with a stylist, an art director, and a model all standing around watching me squint at a histogram. I learned early that confusion is expensive, and that the photographers who look effortless in a studio aren’t guessing. They showed up with a plan.

Audio for Your Home Studio: 5 Options Ranked by a Working Photographer Who Got It Wrong First
Video Tutorials

Audio for Your Home Studio: 5 Options Ranked by a Working Photographer Who Got It Wrong First

I shoot video content in my studio almost every week now. Behind-the-scenes footage for fashion clients, talking-head segments for corporate campaigns, the occasional tutorial. For the first couple of years, I treated audio as something I would “figure out in post.” That is a lie photographers tell themselves. Post cannot fix bad audio. It can clean up noise, but it cannot reconstruct presence, proximity, or warmth that was never captured in the first place.

Know Your Sizes: The Stand and Thread Standards Every Studio Photographer Should Memorize
Video Tutorials

Know Your Sizes: The Stand and Thread Standards Every Studio Photographer Should Memorize

I keep a roll of masking tape in every corner of my studio. Labels on lights, labels on cables, labels on adapter pouches. That habit started because I once spent twenty minutes on a paid shoot hunting for the right fitting to mount a strobe to a C-stand arm, and the client was watching me do it. Never again. The unglamorous truth about studio photography is that the gear has to work before the light can work, and that means knowing your sizes cold, before you’re under pressure.

What Peter McKinnon's Studio Desk Setup Taught Me About Building a Space That Actually Works
Video Tutorials

What Peter McKinnon's Studio Desk Setup Taught Me About Building a Space That Actually Works

There is a version of my studio from about six years ago that I am not proud of. Cables everywhere, a monitor positioned so the window threw glare directly across the screen, editing happening on a machine that wheezed through Lightroom exports. The work I was doing for clients was solid but the environment I was doing it in was working against me. I have spent years since then iterating on the setup until it actually supports the pace of commercial work.

What a 325-Square-Foot Craft Studio Teaches Photographers About Creative Constraint
Video Tutorials

What a 325-Square-Foot Craft Studio Teaches Photographers About Creative Constraint

There’s a version of “studio envy” that I think quietly poisons a lot of photographers’ thinking. We tell ourselves we’ll finally get organized once we have more space, better gear, a dedicated room. I’ve caught myself doing it. Then I watched this CreativeLive tour of designer and maker Robert Mahar’s workspace in downtown Los Angeles and felt genuinely embarrassed by that excuse. Watch the full tutorial on YouTube Mahar runs a real creative practice out of under 325 square feet, shared with another artist, inside a century-old converted bank building.

What It Actually Costs to Build a Fashion Photography Studio From Scratch
Video Tutorials

What It Actually Costs to Build a Fashion Photography Studio From Scratch

Every few years I walk through what it would cost to start over. Not because I’m planning to, but because it keeps me honest about what equipment actually matters versus what I’ve accumulated out of habit. The exercise gets uncomfortable fast, especially when clients ask me to help them build out an in-house studio for their clothing brand. They always underestimate the lighting budget and overestimate how much the camera matters.