Outdoor Portraits

How to Plan and Shoot a Meaningful Portrait Project (Lessons from Sean Tucker's Mentor Series)
Video Tutorials

How to Plan and Shoot a Meaningful Portrait Project (Lessons from Sean Tucker's Mentor Series)

Portrait projects are where photography gets personal. Not personal in a vague, artistic way — personal in the sense that you’re walking into someone’s home or workspace, pointing a camera at their face, and trying to make something that actually means something. I’ve done enough of those shoots to know that the ones that fall flat almost always come down to one thing: not enough planning before you ever pick up the camera.

How High-Speed Sync Finally Let Me Shoot Wide-Open Outdoors (And Why You Should Care)
Video Tutorials

How High-Speed Sync Finally Let Me Shoot Wide-Open Outdoors (And Why You Should Care)

For a long time, outdoor portrait sessions in bright light meant making a choice I hated: get the dramatic, blurry background I wanted, or use flash to light my subject properly. Doing both at the same time felt impossible. The moment I cranked my strobe up to compete with the sun, my camera forced me into a small aperture to stay within sync speed, and suddenly my subject looked like they were standing in a parking lot instead of floating in a dreamy scene.