Chicago: Foundations Four Day Workshop

Harness Flash: From Fearful to Fearless is an immersive four-day lighting workshop designed to help photographers move beyond confusion and build real confidence with off-camera flash

If flash has ever felt inconsistent, overly technical, or intimidating, this class is built to help you finally understand how light works and how to control it intentionally. Rather than relying on memorized settings or copying diagrams, students will learn the underlying principles that make lighting predictable, repeatable, and adaptable in real-world situations.

Over the course of four days, we’ll build a strong lighting foundation step-by-step, covering both technical concepts and practical application. Students will work through hands-on exercises designed to reinforce the relationship between light position, modifier choice, contrast, texture, shadow transition, and overall image quality. The workshop focuses on understanding why lighting behaves the way it does so you can confidently create your own setups long after the class ends.

Topics covered throughout the workshop include:

• Classic portrait lighting patterns and how to identify and recreate them
• The relationship between light size, distance, contrast, and texture
• One-light setups and foundational multi-light setups
• TTL, manual flash, high-speed sync, and ND filters
• Light meters, lighting ratios, feathering, and negative fill
• Using modifiers, flags, V-flats, grids, and bounce to shape and control light
• Balancing flash with ambient light indoors and outdoors
• Visual problem solving and lighting vocabulary for portraits and commercial-style imagery

This is not a passive lecture-based workshop. Students will spend the majority of the week actively photographing, building setups, working in teams, testing ideas, and repeating exercises designed to strengthen technical understanding through practice. The goal is to develop lighting instincts and confidence, not simply recreate someone else’s setup for a single shoot.

Whether you want to create stronger portraits, improve your client work, refresh your technical foundation, or simply feel comfortable using flash for the first time, this workshop is designed to give you a clear understanding of how to shape and control light with intention.

Workshop Schedule

Thursday, Nov. 12: 10am–6pm
Friday, Nov. 13: 9am–6pm
Saturday, Nov. 14: 9am–6pm
Sunday, Nov. 15: 9am–4pm

The later Thursday start and earlier Sunday finish are designed to make travel easier for attendees flying or driving in from out of town.

For more information about my workshops in general, please click here.

This workshop is limited to only 15 participants.

Wheelchair Accessible