One of the hardest things I experienced as a beginner was not knowing how to create a simple lighting setup. I’d always imagined elaborate lighting setups of three to six lights or more, and it’s why I began to shy away from working in a studio.
Of all the various factors and variables involved in photography, light is by far the most important one. Photographer Karl Taylor argues that control over light will actually supersede the quality of a camera.
I am a professional wedding, portrait, and fashion photographer and have been photographing couples for nearly three decades and I have been teaching photography for over two years. My goal with this video is to provide simple but very effective posing tips when photographing a couple.
I am a professional wedding, portrait, and fashion photographer, and have almost three decades of experience photographing couples. I created this video to provide lighting, posing and location tips and tricks in a few different scenarios to give photographers some inspiration on how to photograph couples.
The purpose of a snoot is to take a light source and focus it down into a more defined point, but The Beyond Photography Show host Andrew explains in this 11-minute video that the physics of snoots makes them terrible at their job.
The world of macro photography is full of fascinating subjects, but eyes and irises have got to be among the most mesmerizing ones. As with most captivating subjects, capturing it can be quite a challenge.
Photographer and educator Karl Taylor believes that parabolic softboxes are nothing more than marketing and that any conventional softbox can achieve the same results. In this 10.5-minute video, he proves it.
Portrait and fashion photographer Lindsay Adler has started a new reality competition series called The Concept Challenge. In each episode, two talented artists are given a concept that they must complete before time runs out.
Lindsay Adler is an accomplished portrait photographer and educator, and in this 11.5-minute video she explains three different, versatile, and easy-to-master lighting setups using a beauty dish as the key light.
Karl Taylor, a photography educator, has published this 10-minute video that explains why hiring an assistant is one of the best investments of capital any photographer who is serious about growing a business can make.
When COOPH has something new published, it's very likely going to have some cool ideas that you can execute at home. In this 6.5-minute video, that remains true as they show eight clever lighting tricks you can easily try for yourself.
In this short tutorial, well-known portrait and fashion photographer Lindsay Adler will show you how to use "the most inexpensive and under-appreciated" lighting modifier to capture beautiful studio portraits. She's talking, of course, about the lowly umbrella.
This handy 7-minute lighting guide from Aussie music photographer PJ Pantelis shows how you can use 2 lights and a reflector to create a professionally-lit headshot. Even if you’re not shooting portraits, the video is a great tutorial on working with light.
There is a progression that takes place in the journey that is our lighting knowledge: ambient light > on-camera flash > bouncing that flash > off-camera strobes > gels.
When I first started photography, I struggled a lot with lighting. In the beginning, we're often told to shoot our subjects in open shade, but if you don’t know how to do this properly the results can be disastrous: faces with dark shadows, eyes with no depth, overexposed backgrounds, etc.
We're not entirely sure why, but product photography tutorials are coming hard and fast lately. So in case this DIY lightbox wasn't good enough, and 360° product photography isn't your thing, here's a great tutorial that will show you how to capture killer reflective product shots on a sea of black.
Getting into fashion or beauty photography doesn't have to involve getting lots of expensive gear right away. As New York City-based photographer Jeff Rojas shows you in this short tutorial, you can capture three totally different looks with a very small footprint and just a couple of lights.
The softbox is one of the staples of light shaping, but are you using it the same way as everybody else? If you need a bit of an inspirational spark to light your creative fire, this short video featuring lighting expert Andrea Belluso will show you how to, in his words, "think outside the softbox."
A few days ago, we stumbled on a new set of short interviews with portrait photography master Gregory Heisler that cover everything from lighting, to relating with your subjects, to getting creative, to (and we know you're all interested in this one) getting hired.