So for many of us wedding photographers we still have a few more months of “off season” or at least a few months until it really gets busy. One thing we love doing during the offseason or slow season is continuing our education. I think one of the worst things you can do as a business owner is to stop evolving. Having the urge to update and push your craft further is going to amplify your business. And honestly why not take some courses from photographers who have done this for way longer than we have. It takes years and tons of time to learn some of this stuff on your own. Continued Education is one of the things I wish I would’ve started earlier in my career. Within the past two years, online photographer education has EXPLODED. There is education for everything out there! Every niche! Every style! Everything!
So I’m going to walk you through some of my favorite online courses that we’ve seen over the years:
The Art of Authentic Posing – $260
This course from Justin and Mary is worth its weight in gold. I think this was one of the first courses we invested in. Their posing style clicked with us, where some of the other classes out there were just too complicated or just didn’t make sense. The way this husband and wife team teaches you to pose your clients has been a game changer for our posing confidence – specially when were in a time crunch and need to knock out lots of poses in just a few minutes.
SLR Lounge Premium – $348/ Annually
Pye Jirsa owner of SLR Lounge and Partner at Lin and Jirsa Photography has created, in my opinion, one of the best online education platforms. Not only is SLR Lounge a great free blog to follow – there is also a premium version of his site. So SLR Lounge Premium is a vast catalog of courses for photographers. Everything from posing to editing to SEO for your website. There’s not a lot that he doesn’t have a course on! The best part? It’s constantly updating. Pye has new content monthly! How he keeps coming up with new content is baffling. But it’s all great education. I would honestly go as far to say, if you’re going to purchase one thing from my suggestion, it would be this one! Because it covers almost everything that my other suggestions include. It’s everything all-in-one.
If you were to buy each of his courses out right, they’re $99-$150 each. So the $348 is a great bundle. PLUS he gives you his great Lightroom presets that are $150 FOR FREE. I’m telling you this site is great!
A Practical Wedding Workshop Live – $397
Abby Grace is one of my favorite educators. She’s young, quirky, and smart! Although I’ve never met her in real life (its on my bucket list) I feel like she’s my online best friend. I think she treats everyone that way. I love all of her education products and own a lot of them. But A Practical Wedding Workshop is perfect for photographers who are getting started OR photographers who struggle in particular areas on a wedding day. She walks through the basics and even gets to some advanced stuff like lighting and shooting details. Her posing course is great as well. It has the same feel as Justin and Mary’s course but a little more condensed. She also is always updating this course. We signed up back when she first announced it last year and she’s added a handful of more classes and freebies based on feedback from her students.
There is also a great online Facebook group once you become a member. This is awesome because it’s a small group, so your posts don’t get lost and you have plenty of people to get answers or tips to your questions without getting overloaded with feedback like other groups AND Abby will reply to each post individually. That’s worth the cost of the course right there. Having an online mentor to help you when you’re stumped or need help can be priceless when you’re in a pickle! I can not say enough great things about Abby Grace and her course. The kicker is she has an enrollment period.
KJ Consistency Course – $449
I know everyone has heard of Katelyn James Photography. She’s kind of like the industry leader in blogging and photographer education. If you’ve been living under a rock, go and check out her blog. It’s filled with free education and tips for photographers. But specifically, her Consistency Course is Da-Bomb. It’s 100% focused on editing consistency in Lightroom. Now, this isn’t a Lightroom training course! Although she does give you a quick intro, is targeted for people who do have an understanding of Lightroom. SLR Lounge has an excellent in-depth course for Lightroom. If you love bright and airy photos and want to learn how to edit cleanly, KJ’s course is where you need to go. So moody or film photographers, this probably isn’t for you.
Yes, this course is specifically on editing to achieve that style, but it’s also about learning how to fix some specific problems. Like skin color cast issues or how to fix images that weren’t shot properly. There’s also some great bonuses in this course that aren’t specifically on editing. She talks about her wedding workflow, outsourcing, blogging with intent and much more. It’s a TON of info. At the second most expensive course on here – it’s an investment but one that could really push your appearance and work to the next level! There’s a kicker – this course only rolls around 2 or so times a year, so make sure to get on her wait list.
The Academy – $1799
Ok before your heart skips a beat and you just skip this section because the price is so high, hang on one second. We were able to snag their full certificate program for only $847.00. So sign up for their email list to be notified when they run a promotion like this! Now still don’t run away. This is an expensive course, but It’s like all of the classes mentioned in one place. Taught by industry leaders like Katelyn James, Justin & Mary, Amy & Jordan, Matt Kennedy and much more.
This goes beyond traditional online education!!! This is a “college type” class. You actually get a certificate saying that you are a certified wedding photographer. Sounds corny but its actually pretty impressive that you could put this on a resume or your website. But you have legit homework that you have to do to finish each course. It’s all self-paced, so you can do this in a few months or a few years – whatever works for you.
With eight full courses, each being about 8-10 hour classes, there is a lot of information you can get from this course. And again, you’re learning from the best wedding photographers in the US (and Canada) These guys are at the top of their game, and they share their tips. That’s priceless. Matt Kennedy is the brains behind this whole organization, and I can’t say enough nice things about him, his work and his education.
The Academy takes online education to an entirely new level. You can learn everything from how to run a successful wedding photography business to branding to off camera flash. I promise it’s worth the cost. PLUS you get $2000 worth of bonuses when you sign up. Most of which basically make the course free. Some of those bonuses include a fee year of PASS Unlimited Subscription – worth $360, Half off ShowIt for a year (up to $200 savings), and my personal favorite 10% off EVERY Photographers Edit order. Plus so much more!
Creative Live – FREE!!!
Creative Live was started in 2010 by photographer and business genius Chase Jarvis. Besides YouTube, this was one of the first places I remember getting the online education. Heck, he’s probably the reason online photographer education exploded. When Creative Live launched, it was groundbreaking. Free premium education to anyone who wanted it. With the largest list of education for ANY type of creative on the internet. For graphic designers, to DIY’ers this website has something for you. In the beginning, it was just photography but has grown to so much more. But with courses from Jasmine Star, Katelyn James, Sal Cincotta, Joey L, Zach and Jody and virtually every professional photographer in the world – you are bound to find something from your favorite photographer on this site. Now when I say this site has everything, It literally has full on 8 hour – 30-day classes on every aspect of life. But for real. Everything from cooking to money management!
The thing that sets Creative Live apart is the fact that if you log in while they broadcast it live, it’s 100% free. No gimmicks no B.S… 100% free content. But you can only watch it live. If you want to re-watch it on your own time, you have to pay for the course, and they range from $30-$300. Creative Live runs 24/7, so there is always something new on or a reply of an old class. So the education is never ending! I’ve never purchased a class, but I watch any class I have time to watch – BECAUSE IT’S FREE!!!
So these are my top 6 photographer education courses. But I didn’t want to leave out a few of my favorite day-to-day blogs that I love to read and learn from. All of these sites I’m about to list have 1000’s of posts of free content.
Fstoppers
SLR Lounge
Peta Pixel
Jasmine Star Blog
The Rising Tide
Align Album Design Blog
Behind The Shutter
Amy & Jordan Blog
Melissa Jill Blog
What’s your favorite online education?
4 Comments
for me, my favorite would be SLR lounge and fstoppers!
very interesting article ! more informative thanks for sharing.
especially when we’re in a time crunch and need to knock out lots of poses in just a few minutes. It’s a great article. I like it. Thanks for sharing
Thank you so much really very good Photography course tutorials. please keep sharing more information about photography