Video Tutorials

Shooting in Terrible Weather: What Iceland's Worst Storm Taught Me About Dramatic Photography
Video Tutorials

Shooting in Terrible Weather: What Iceland's Worst Storm Taught Me About Dramatic Photography

Every photographer I know has a version of the same story: you’ve planned a shoot for weeks, you show up, and the weather is genuinely miserable. Not moody-miserable. Actually miserable. Wind, rain, low visibility, the works. Most people pack up and leave. I used to be one of those people. What changed my thinking wasn’t a book or a course. It was watching how working professionals handle exactly those conditions in real time.

The Photography Skill You Can't Buy: How Visual Exercise Will Transform Your Eye
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The Photography Skill You Can't Buy: How Visual Exercise Will Transform Your Eye

I used to think I needed to be out shooting to get better at photography. If I wasn’t behind a camera, I wasn’t practicing. That belief kept me stuck for longer than I’d like to admit, because real life rarely cooperates with scheduled creative sessions. Between client calls, errands, and the general chaos of adult existence, my camera spent a lot of time sitting on the shelf. Then I came across this Sean Tucker tutorial on developing your photographic eye through what he calls “visual exercise,” and it reframed something I thought I understood but clearly didn’t.

How a Variable ND Filter Finally Fixed My Outdoor Video Problem (And What to Look For in One)
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How a Variable ND Filter Finally Fixed My Outdoor Video Problem (And What to Look For in One)

Every Sunday morning I take a photo walk around Seattle, and for a long time, outdoor video was my nemesis. I’d set up a beautiful wide-open shot near the water, soft background blur, gorgeous light coming through the trees, and then watch the footage back and cringe. Jittery, overexposed, nothing like what I saw through the viewfinder. I’d bump my shutter speed to compensate for the brightness and ruin the cinematic motion quality entirely.

What a Perfect Namibia Shot Teaches Us About Editing With Restraint
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What a Perfect Namibia Shot Teaches Us About Editing With Restraint

There’s a trap I fell into for years early in my photography practice: the better the shot, the more I felt compelled to edit it. Like somehow a stunning location deserved a dramatic edit to match. I’d crank the saturation, push the contrast, add a heavy preset, and walk away thinking I’d made it better. Spoiler: I hadn’t. I’d just made it louder. That’s exactly why I keep coming back to this tutorial from Thomas Heaton, where he walks through his processing workflow for a landscape image shot in Deadvlei, Namibia.

Why Personal Photography Is the Most Powerful Work You'll Ever Make (And How to Start)
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Why Personal Photography Is the Most Powerful Work You'll Ever Make (And How to Start)

There’s a version of photography where you chase the technically perfect shot. Perfect exposure, perfect light, perfect composition. I spent a long time living in that version, and honestly, some of my most forgettable images came from it. The ones that stopped people mid-scroll, the ones that strangers at coffee shops asked me about, those almost never came from a calculated setup. They came from something real. That’s the problem this tutorial addresses head-on, and it’s one I needed someone to put into words for me.

The DJI Ronin 4D Changed How I Think About Handheld Cinema Cameras
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The DJI Ronin 4D Changed How I Think About Handheld Cinema Cameras

I’ve spent a lot of Sunday mornings walking around Seattle with a camera in my hand, and the single biggest friction point I run into isn’t exposure or composition. It’s stability. Getting smooth, controlled footage while moving through a scene is something that normally requires either a dedicated gimbal operator, a heavy rig, or a lot of patience in post. So when I saw Peter McKinnon’s reaction to the DJI Ronin 4D, I stopped what I was doing and watched the whole thing twice.

How to Shoot Stunning Sunset Photos: Lessons from a Rooftop in Los Angeles
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How to Shoot Stunning Sunset Photos: Lessons from a Rooftop in Los Angeles

Sunset shots are the ones I get asked about most. Not portraits, not landscapes in general – sunsets specifically. And for a long time, my honest answer was something like “show up and hope for the best.” I’d get a decent shot every few outings, but I wasn’t making them happen. I was just getting lucky. That changed when I started paying closer attention to photographers who treat sunset sessions as a system, not a lottery.

Giant Heads, Birthday Cakes, and the Photoshop Skills Behind a Viral Promo Photo
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Giant Heads, Birthday Cakes, and the Photoshop Skills Behind a Viral Promo Photo

Every so often a photo stops people mid-scroll. You know the kind. Someone posts it, the comments flood in, and half of them are just “wait, how?” That’s exactly what happened when the team at PHLEARN put out their fifth anniversary promo image - a surreal, oversized-head-meets-giant-birthday-cake composite that looked equal parts chaotic and polished. The requests for a breakdown came pouring in, so Aaron Nace did what he does best and made a tutorial out of it.

How to Plan an Aerial Photography Flight That Actually Gets the Shot
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How to Plan an Aerial Photography Flight That Actually Gets the Shot

Aerial photography from a small plane is one of those experiences that sounds dreamy right up until you’re buckled in, the door is off, and you have about forty-five minutes to come home with something you’re proud of. There’s no reshoot. There’s no “let me adjust and try again tomorrow.” The light does what it does, the plane moves whether you’re ready or not, and your pilot is waiting on your direction.

Broncolor's Gen NEXT Competition: What It Means for Young Photographers Chasing Serious Gear
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Broncolor's Gen NEXT Competition: What It Means for Young Photographers Chasing Serious Gear

There’s a specific kind of frustration that comes with knowing your vision is bigger than your gear. I felt it hard when I was starting out, borrowing flashes, renting strobes I couldn’t afford, and trying to build a portfolio that looked professional on a budget that absolutely was not. That gap between what you can imagine and what you can actually produce with the equipment in your hands is real, and it slows a lot of talented people down.

How to Stop Copying Other Photographers and Actually Find Your Own Style
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How to Stop Copying Other Photographers and Actually Find Your Own Style

Every Sunday morning I do a photo walk. No agenda, no client, no mood board. Just me, whatever camera I grab off the shelf, and whatever Seattle throws at me. And for the longest time, I kept coming home with images that looked like someone else made them. Not bad photos, but not mine either. I could tell I was unconsciously copying the photographers I admired most, and I had no real framework for breaking out of that.

How to Plan and Shoot Aerial Photography Like a Pro (Lessons from New Zealand's Skies)
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How to Plan and Shoot Aerial Photography Like a Pro (Lessons from New Zealand's Skies)

There’s a category of shot I’ve wanted to level up for years: aerials over dramatic landscape. Every time I’ve booked a scenic flight, I’ve come back with images that look fine but feel flat. Nice enough for a travel album, not good enough to print. The problem wasn’t the scenery. It was that I had no system. I was just pointing a camera out a window and hoping. That changed when I found William Patino’s aerial photography tutorial, filmed over the jaw-dropping fjords of New Zealand.