Ryan Darius’s Portrait Series

Photographer Ryan Darius has astonished us with his sharp and crisp portraits of subjects, sometimes lit with dramatic strobe light, and also nicely executed in natural light.

A quick excerpt from Photographer’s bio:

“I’m a published photographer here in New York City who is a Tireless Pursuer of Excellence. I love shooting portraits, Fashion, Lifestyle, weddings and astro to name a few Some of my work can be found in Christie’s magazine and The New York Times.”

This session’s crew comprised of:

photographer: Ryan Darius | @Ry_McFly_

The stage:

Simply described as “Morning light studio with rough exposed wall and metal door” NY Studio 6 is all you need for the vast majority of fashion/lifestyle/beauty photoshoots. Minimalistic and industrial, white and bright stage will give an abundant amount for natural light to play with. Find out more about our new NY Studio 6 “Exposed Block”! ‘s pricing and availability by visiting our website!

Tyler Hagen X Genuxmal

Photographer Tyler Hagen seemed to have a somewhat easy task of capturing gorgeous model @Genuxmal. See Tyler’s short note about himself below.

Few words about the Photographer:

“Tyler Hagen is a photographer and videographer based out of Southern California. ”

Check out participants of the project:

photographer: Tyler Hagen

At the location:

Stage Hill 4 is one of our largest and brightest stages. Advantageously positioned with the windows facing west and north, this stage gets plenty of sift indirect sunlight in the first half of the day and lots of direct sunbeams in the second half. Hill 4 is furnished with several comfy and photogenic couches of cream and and golden/brown leather color. As with any our other stages a standard package of three basic backdrops and three lights is available within the stage already. For more information visit stage Hill 4 on our website.

Justin Gordon’S Antigravity Experiments

Photographer Justin Gordon stopped by in stage F for a quick photo shoot of his model friend Alexis Carson. Mr. Gordon continues his story below.

A snippet of the shoot’s story:

“This was my first experience with FD Photo Studio and I must say this place is nothing I’ve ever experienced before. I was visiting Los Angeles for the first time and my friend suggested I rent a studio for one of my shoots. With the help of the studios perfect natural lighting and the external flashes available at your leisure I produced this photo. Thank you to my model (Alexis Carson) for being apart of the concept and Tyree Pope III for help as well. “

Members of the crew:

photographer: Justin Gordon | IG Justin.gordon | Website justingordonphoto.com

model: Alexis Carson | alas_bonita

Assistant: Tyree Pope III

About this location:

StageF was used for this team’s creative session. The studio is the smallest space we currently offer for our clients. Yet it is one of the most brightest stages with the tremendous amount of natural light coming from North West. It has gained a nickname – “light box” by some of our regulars and it truly fulfills it at any time of the day from dawn until dusk. This studio also features two section laminate floor of white and dark color for your creative needs. As with any of our stages, Studio F comes with 3 strobe lights already included in the hourly rate and backdrop seamless paper installed. Take a closer look HERE.

Jabari Jacobs and M A R Z L É O N

Photographer Jabari Jacobs is one of our most prolific clients. Each one of his submissions is breathtaking and always another level of professional photo art. This set with M A R Z L É O N is not an exception.

About the artist:

I am a musician, Singer / Songwriter.
I am from Los Angeles, the beautiful valley 818.
I have been making musiq now for around 4 years close to 5 now.
I have plenty of musiq to listen to on Spotify, SoundCloud, Apple Music, iTunes, YouTube, Etc.
I have new musiq and musiq videos releasing soon.
I designed all of my wardrobe for this shoot.
I also do modeling.
I hope that you all enjoy!

About the crew:

Photographer: Jabari Jacobs |@JabariJacobs

Model: M A R Z L É O N | @Marzxleon

About the stage:

StageF was used for this team’s creative session. The studio is the smallest space we currently offer for our clients. Yet it is one of the most brightest stages with the tremendous amount of natural light coming from North West. It has gained a nickname – “light box” by some of our regulars and it truly fulfills it at any time of the day from dawn until dusk. This studio also features two section laminate floor of white and dark color for your creative needs. As with any of our stages, Studio F comes with 3 strobe lights already included in the hourly rate and backdrop seamless paper installed. Take a closer look HERE.

Become Better Photographer: Working with Ugly Indoor Light Using 1 Strobe and No Modifier with Vanessa Joy

*For more information visit AdoramaTV YT page, and of course you can keep up with Vanessa on Instagram @VanessaJoy.

Making the best out of worst possible conditions is sometimes required of professional photographer to save his clients day. In this episode with tremendous Vanessa Joy and AdoramaTV, we will explores Vanessa’s strategy of keeping control of the situation in any room/stage/location.

Vanessa starts: “You ever walk into a venue and it looks amazing but then you take a picture and it looks like this?”

“so here’s the thing sometimes you work with clients and they think this picture spot is gorgeous because of all the chandeliers and this and that one the other thing then you go to take a picture and it’s absolutely horrible. Well I could look at this picture here and then attempt to just fix it with white balance but it’s just gonna look like this.”

“…and that still doesn’t look good and then I’ve got a lot of post work to do I don’t want to do that I want to get it as right and camera as I possibly can, so what I’m gonna look for is just finding the biggest solid surface that I can and in my case this is a pale yellow wall.”

“I’d love the white wall but pale yellow will do. So we’re gonna point it at that. Light travels in straight lines ,so back to geometry class kids – you’re gonna have to think about the angle that the light is hitting that wall. It’s going to bounce off at an equal angle. If you play pool – kind of the same thing. I don’t have a modifier in this case so I’m just firing this light on this wall in that entire wall and that becomes my light source.”

“First shot doesn’t look so great. Why does it look yellow even though my white balance really isn’t all that off ? Because my light is reflecting off the yellow wall so therefore everything’s a little bit yellow! I have to adjust for that.”

“So adjusting for it works okay and now we’re just gonna tweak our settings adjusting the white balance,”

“adjusting the exposure to try to make it look good. When I’m doing this I’m getting my exposure just like I normally would as if I didn’t have a flash, and then I’m turning on my Profoto b1 and setting it to TTL . It does a little work for me. I don’t have to guess -I’m just gonna let it do the work for me.”

“Now we’re okay! We get it around where I want it to be as far as color goes but I see some ugly shadows on the wall. I can’t really do too much about that unless you have another light or maybe you’re reflecting a light so I decided to just move them over a little bit so that the angle of the light isn’t so bad because I don’t have another light.”

“Here in the situation I’m using reflector to bounce light back at them so my shadows aren’t as harsh, and it just looks a little bit more flattering on their face. So I’m gonna scoot them over a little and get them in a better spot where the shadow isn’t gonna show up on the wall not just because of where the light is but because I also move over so I’m just not seeing as much of the shadow on the wall.”

“It looks okay. Try to get a little bit better, cleaner background, making sure there’s nothing behind their heads and then zooming in. There really allows me to just crop out the shadow. Now I’ve got some nice portraits of them in an area that would have been extremely ugly.”

Check out our WORKSHOPS in Los Angeles that teach you hands-on how to make great photos!

One of our closest workshops –Studio Lighting 101: Introduction to Studio Lighting and 3-Light Set Up will take place on August 7th, 7-9pm, in one of our Los Angeles studios !!!

Watch the full episode with Vanessa Joy and Adorama TV:

Khiari Bakar In NYC Studio 6.

Creative trio of photographer, MUA and model is all you need to create a perfect beauty/portrait shoot in NYC Studio 6.

A quick excerpt from the shoot’s bio:

“Gabby and I connected on Instagram, after tossing around a few ideas we agreed on a mood board and scheduled a simple test shoot. I was primarily inspired by the versatile, rustic space and its abundance of natural light. “

GabbyLuna(Flex) 005

This session’s crew comprised of:

Photography: @khiaribakar

Model: @gabbyluna

MUA: @saragrace

The stage:

Simply described as “Morning light studio with rough exposed wall and metal door” NY Studio 6 is all you need for the vast majority of fashion/lifestyle/beauty photoshoots. Minimalistic and industrial, white and bright stage will give an abundant amount for natural light to play with. Find out more about our new NY Studio 6 “Exposed Block”! ‘s pricing and availability by visiting our website!

TBT To Whoville City In Studio Hill 5

Magic were days of December 2018, when creatures from fairy tales would pop up at our door for a quick photo shoot and transform our stage into a never-land, or Whoville. Photographer Ferguson Sauve-Rogan had a pleasure to capture this fable is Hill 5.

A quick excerpt from about the shoot’s bio:

“Some people may call us crazy but, every year we try to out do the previous years Christmas card. And this year we went with the idea of “Who’s from Whoville”. We were fortunate enough to have a special effects team/friends who know their way around prosthetics and amazing hair/makeup. And with the help of another friend (who is also a film maker/DP) to shoot the whole thing, we were ready to go.”

Check out participants of the project:

photographer: Ferguson Sauve-Rogan | @fergusonsr | Website

model: Angela Noriega| @lil_dorkus_thephotog | Website

model: Gary Neil | @nohealii

mua: Roxanne | @roxannepike.mua

Makeup/Hair/Prosthetics: Jacquelyn Coon | @jackcoon

At the location:

Studio Hill 5 is one of the best option we have for creative crews on the budget. This Romantic White Stage has its windows facing South, which provides plenty of natural light for photographers. Among studio’s unique props are Gold Bellman Cart, White Decor Frames Wall, “Victoria Secret” like pink striped wall section and a pink upright piano. As with any our other stages a standard package of three basic backdrops and three lights is available within the stage already. For more information visit stage Hill 5 on our website.

Josh Williams Fashion Photography

Another amazing set of photographs, captured in NYC studio 7 by talented photographer Josh Williams and his professional team. Check out his story below.

A snippet of Photographer’s story:

“Josh Williams is a Fashion and Portrait photographer based out of Virginia Beach, Virginia. He is currently attending The Art Institute of Virginia Beach pursuing a BFA with a focus in Digital Photography. Four years of experience in the industry under his belt Josh Williams has gain some attention for himself working with numerous agencies and models throughout the east coast. Having a very minimal style consisting of mainly black and white images, he shows his unique ability to capture emotion and moments from his models that are monumental. ”

Members of the crew:

Photographer: Josh Williams / Joshandretti.com

Model Agency: State Management

Model: Alexia Olguin

Model: Lexa Henwood

Wardrobe Stylist: Suthee Rittaworn

Hair Stylist: Karla Serrano

Makeup Artist: Isabel Rosado

Elegant Magazine December Issue No. 14

The stage:

NYC Studio 7 also known as moroccan style stage, offers few unique features: conveniently installed by the window in our New York Studio 7 this shower setup opens up possibilities for your photography that were “drying up” before! As with any our other stages a standard package of three basic backdrops and three lights is available within the stage already. For more information visit NY Studio 7 on our website.

Become Better Photographer: Photography Pricing Pitfalls with Vanessa Joy

*For more information visit AdoramaTV YT page, and of course you can keep up with Vanessa on Instagram @VanessaJoy.

Continuing sensitive topic of pricing your photography services right, this lesson with Vanessa Joy and AdoramaTV will reveal 5 common pricing pitfalls many photographers (and artists in general) fall into.

#1 DO NOT make your pricing super complicated.

“Make sure you have packages, and a la carte, or if you’re not an a la carte person… fine, but just make it easy to read. Don’t talk too much, don’t type too much. Don’t send the 500 megabyte PDF. Make it simple. Make it clean!”

#2 DO NOT lower your prices

“A huge pitfall is thinking that because you raised your prices, a whopping $25, that’s why no one’s booking! Guess what? It’s not. There are a myriad of reasons why someone is not booking you. It’s probably not because you’re charging $10 more than the guy down the street. If somebody loves you, they love your work, they’re going to book you. Don’t make price the first thing that you attack, when you think you aren’t booking enough. Don’t lower your prices because you’re scared. I have seen photographers have success, and start booking more clients, because they’ve raised their prices. Don’t fall into that pitfall, don’t blow your prices just because you’re not booking. Instead of lowering your prices, find ways to be more valuable as a photographer.”

#3 DO charge more.

“The third pitfall is that you’re probably charging too little. Most people don’t take the time to do the math, and figure out their cost of sales, or cost of business and all of that. More often than not you’re actually charging too little for what you’re worth, and what the industry commands. A lot of people think that they’re charging too much, because they have a ton of money in their bank account, and that’s pitfall #4! “

#4 DO NOT overestimate your resources.

“Thinking you have more money than you actually have… You’re collecting sales tax, you’re collecting income tax, you’re collecting what you’re going to have to pay out in, in freelancers, and graphic designers, and products….All that money that you take, it feels like you’re rich, you’re not rich, what does 80% of that, is going out the door maybe you’re keeping 20% of it.”

#5 DO the math.

“Finally pitfall #5… You’re not doing the math… you have to do the math! You have to add up your cost of sales, add up your cost of business, the cost of business is all the subscription stuff that you buy. All the equipment that you buy here at Adorama. The album that you have to purchase, the canvas that you have to purchase, what it is that you pay in order to make the actual sale. So you have to do the math. Add it all up, and then add up how much you want to make per hour, add up how many hours you work on a typical job, and then that is the minimum price that you can charge. Adding your cost of sales, cost of business, and cost per hour.. that you want to make.”

Check out our WORKSHOPS in Los Angeles that teach you hands-on how to make great photos!

One of our closest workshops – Learn how to Shoot on Manual Mode will take place on July 20th, 4-7pm, in one of our Los Angeles studios !!!

Watch the full episode with Vanessa Joy and Adorama TV: