# Creative Portrait Photography: Plan, Shoot, and Edit Original Portraits - review & insight | Gareth B. Davies Source: https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/creative-portrait-photography-plan-shoot-and-edit-original-portraits/ [← All courses](https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/) Photography · Quick win · Rated 6 /10 # Creative Portrait Photography: Plan, Shoot, and Edit Original Portraits Updated August 2026 Sean Dalton · Travel Photographer Intermediate · 73 min A Bali-based photographer walks you through two real shoots start to finish, but 73 minutes leaves little room for depth beyond his own workflow. [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fcreative-portrait-photography-plan-shoot-and-edit-original-portraits%2F652008279) New to Skillshare? Your first month is free, enough to take this course at no cost. ## A short course built around two real shoots Sean Dalton structures this course the way he shoots: light on rigid technique, heavy on process and mindset. The first third covers ground familiar to anyone who has taken a portrait class before, the four factors he says drive a good portrait (model, location, lighting, composition), then moves into planning: finding inspiration on Instagram and Pinterest, sourcing models through friends or local photography Facebook groups, and building a checklist of location, time of day, clothing, and props before ever picking up the camera. None of this is groundbreaking, but it is clearly laid out and gives a beginner a repeatable process rather than just inspiration. The gear and camera settings lesson is the weakest link. Dalton runs through aperture, ISO, and shutter speed in broad strokes and then defers to his own separate Photography Essentials course for anyone who wants real depth. That is an honest disclosure, but it also means this lesson adds little if a viewer already understands exposure basics, and it undersells anyone who does not, since the explanation stays surface level and points elsewhere for the substance. Where the course earns its keep is in the two shoot lessons. Watching Dalton work through an oceanside golden-hour session, he narrates his lens and aperture choices in real time, switching between a 35mm, a 55mm f1.8, and a vintage Helios 44M manual-focus lens for its washed-out, cinematic look when shot into the sun. He also demonstrates a genuinely useful trick: holding a glass prism in front of the lens to bend and refract light into the frame. The indoor lesson that follows is arguably the more interesting of the two, using a pair of cheap rotating LED "sunset lamps" (one warm, one rainbow) against a plain wall to build colored lighting from scratch in a single room, proving that a completely unremarkable space can produce striking results with the right light control. ## Editing gets a fair but shallow treatment The Lightroom section walks through a full workflow: cropping, building contrast with an S-curve in the tone curve panel, adjusting individual colors through the color mixer, dialing back clarity for a softer look, and adding grain for texture. Dalton is transparent that the course images were shot and edited using his own paid preset pack, then explains how to approximate the same look manually, which is a reasonable compromise. The lesson works well as an overview of what each slider does but does not go deep into any single technique, and viewers hoping for nuanced skin-tone retouching or advanced masking will need to look elsewhere. At under 75 minutes, the course is efficient rather than exhaustive. It succeeds as a demonstration of how one photographer thinks through concept, planning, and execution, and the two shoot lessons in particular offer specific, replicable ideas (prisms, vintage lenses, colored LED lamps) that beginners can try immediately. What it does not offer is technical depth in camera settings or editing, both of which are treated as brief overviews rather than instruction. Photographers already comfortable with manual exposure and Lightroom fundamentals will find the course thin, while true beginners get a clear, encouraging, well-organized introduction to planning and shooting a themed portrait session. The standout The live demonstration of pairing a cheap rotating LED sunset lamp with a prism to build layered, colored backlighting in an otherwise dark room. ## What you will learn - · How to break a portrait concept into the four planning pillars: model, location, lighting, and composition - · How to source inspiration from Instagram, Pinterest, and everyday locations and turn it into a concrete shoot plan - · How to use in-camera creative tools like prisms and vintage manual-focus lenses to add visual texture - · How to build a mixed-lighting indoor setup using cheap LED sunset lamps for colored backgrounds - · How to build a base edit in Lightroom using the tone curve, color mixer, and grain, then copy settings across a shoot - · How to plan and light an outdoor golden-hour or overcast shoot around a single creative concept Best for: Beginner to early-intermediate photographers who already own a camera and want a repeatable framework for planning and shooting a themed portrait concept. Skip it if: Experienced portrait shooters looking for advanced lighting ratios, off-camera flash, or in-depth Lightroom color grading technique. Helpful Examples Engaging Teacher Clarity of Instruction Audio & Video Quality [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fcreative-portrait-photography-plan-shoot-and-edit-original-portraits%2F652008279)