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Lighting setup: Modifying the sun for natural light portraits

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I live in the U.K., so offering natural light portraits to my clients is far from a smart choice. We have almost no clue when or even if the sun is going to come out and help us on a shoot here in Britain, but for those rare moments where the sun does bother to show up on set, it’s definitely worth having a few techniques up your sleeve to enable you to work with it, rather than against it.

For those of you living in parts of the world where the indigenous population don’t have the pallor of wet tissue paper, the sun is probably a staple light source in your workflow. But whether you live in Norway or L.A., we all need to modify that sun in some way to either avoid washed out and flat images, or the dreaded squinting model. This article looks at a popular light controlling technique often used in the studio and brings it outdoors to give your daylight portraits a more refined look.

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How to use Photoshop’s Channel Mixer to colour grade your images

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There are a lot of ways to colour tone and grade your photos in Photoshop and although I primarily use Curves to colour tone my shots, a powerful tool that I’m starting to use more and more is the somewhat under-utilised Channel Mixer.

Every couple of weeks I Live Stream via my Facebook Page and there I colour tone images submitted by my community. During the streams we often discuss techniques and lighting for a couple of hours and it’s a great place to get some free feedback and critique on your shots. Those that have watched me live in the past will have seen me use the Channel Mixer a lot, but for those that have missed the streams, I thought I’d do a super quick intro to the extremely powerful ‘Channel Mixer’ Photoshop adjustment layer, to show you some popular looks that take seconds to add to your shot.

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Lighting setup: How to use colour gels outdoors

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You don’t often see photographers using gels outdoors in natural light, but why?

I think one of the core reasons you don’t see too many natural light gel shots, is that you need a lot of power and control from your lights to make gels visible in daylight. Whenever we’re outside during the daytime, sunlight has a tendency to creep in everywhere. Even when we’re standing in heavy shadow, there’s still a lot of light on us as the sun bounces around almost endlessly and sneaks into even the most shadowy areas. This is an issue for gels as bright, strong daylight will overpower and ruin a gel shot instantly, making the desired shot significantly harder to achieve over simply setting it up indoors.

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How to use scrims and strobes outdoors in bright sunlight for amazing portraits

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So before my regulars start to suspect that I’ve been kidnapped and forced to write this against my will, yes this is indeed a lighting setup article that involves natural light! But don’t worry, we’ll quickly skip over the easy, beginner daylight setup and move on to the adult version that combines gels and strobes later on. So, if you’re suspiciously U.V. averse to the point where you could star in an Anne Rice novel, don’t worry, stick around to the end and I’ll have something a little more visually engaging for you there.

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Five things we can learn from cinematic lighting

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One of the bigger personal projects I’ve been working on recently is my Cinematic Studio Lighting course. During the process of writing the accompanying notes and shooting promotional images for the event, I’ve done a ton of research on how cinematographers and directors of photography work, think and plan their shots. I originally thought the two worlds of photography and cinematography would be fairly similar, but I ended up learning a lot more than I thought I would and I think that’s down to how cinematographers approach the setup of their image compared to many of us photographers, especially those of us who primarily shoot in a studio.

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Lighting setup: Classic editorial portrait lighting

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There will always be ‘classics’ in any industry. Sure these classics may not turn heads or make the headlines and they may even take a dip in popularity for a while, but these ‘classics’ will always be a timeless safe bet.

Fashion has its ‘little black dress’ and ‘tan trench coat’, cooking has its lasagne, burger, pizza, and many, many more. They’re always going to be winners in most peoples eyes and they’re as popular today as they were years ago, plus they will undoubtedly be popular for many years to come.

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Here’s why you should upgrade your speedlight to a studio strobe

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I’d argue that nearly all of us owned a speedlight at some point before we owned a studio strobe. When we’re looking to dip our toes into supplemental lighting, strobes seem like a big investment. It just makes sense to pick up a cheap speedlight to play with right?

Like many others, I did the same thing. I bought a cheap speedlight (that was ultimately pretty crappy), then I got a proper one, but I was still unhappy, whereupon I quickly bought a strobe. I immediately wished I’d done it sooner. Here’s why.

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Cinematic lens-flare filter comparison

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Clearer, sharper, brighter!

In recent years, we’ve spent a lot of money investing in expensive camera tech and lenses that produce flawless and crystal-clear imagery (ironically, that’s a dated expression given that we actually want images to be a lot clearer than crystal). But, is it really necessary? Do we really need to remove all traces of the image making process from our photographs? Have our images lost some of their uniqueness along the way?

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Super-soft lighting in small home studios

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In this article I’ll explain a beautifully soft lighting setup that can be achieved in almost any sized space – In fact, this setup actually takes advantage of very small rooms and the tight spaces of home studios!

In recent months, many of us have struggled to get back into the studio to shoot. Lock-downs and safety concerns surrounding large teams of people have made certain photoshoots pretty tricky to achieve whilst still being safe. But whilst we wait for things to get back to ‘normal’, I thought I’d share a lighting setup that actually takes advantage of small shoot spaces. Maybe you can’t get back into the studio and maybe you’d prefer to shoot in a controlled space like your own home. What are some of the disadvantages/advantages of that?

Tight quarters is one thing, but low ceilings can be a real pain too. But is there a way we can use that to our advantage somehow?

In this setup I play with a clever little setup that uses the restrictive confines of your own home to your advantage, and this technique can be achieved in almost any size space!

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How to negotiate with clients and interpret mood boards

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This article will cover a client case study on how I organised not only myself, but the client prior to the actual shoot day.

Topics I’ll cover in this article include:

  • Initial client contact
  • Client phone call
  • Pricing
  • Brainstorming
  • Mood boards
  • Interpreting client mood board into an actual shoot plan
  • Final images

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