Test Shoots That Work for You: Planning, Lighting and Marketing From One Session
How I taught an ASMP Houston workshop that took a test shoot from mood board to lights to a finished marketing mailer.
Being a photographer or an entrepreneur can be an isolating experience. You're by yourself for long stretches, whether it's marketing, retouching, business administration or the countless other tasks it takes to run a working business. I know the struggle. Even before I set out on my own, I was working out of my house as a national sales representative.
Here's what we have to remember: humans are social creatures. Even if we're loners or introverts, we still need community, and one of the easiest ways to set yourself up for time with peers is by joining an organization. For me, that has been ASMP. I've been involved in the Houston chapter since I joined, serving on the board and teaching topics ranging from sales to creative voice. One of those opportunities was a workshop for about 12 people at my old studio space.
Why test shoots
We all have fast and slow seasons. When things slow down, it's time to switch focus from executing to finding new work and new customers. Marketing yourself isn't glamorous, and we like to pretend our work will bring customers flooding into the studio on its own. It won't. Everybody has to market.
Part of the marketing process is deciding who you want to work for and creating images that show that brand what you can do. The way I like to do that is by shooting tests. Find models, stylists, hair and makeup artists, and assistants who want to work with you, and build a team just like you would for a paid shoot. That's exactly what I did for a shoot with Diana Hare: we pulled an idea together, a team to execute it and a space to host it, for about $150 out of pocket. All of us walked away with strong new work for our portfolios and marketing. It's a lot of work, but it's worth it.
Test shoots aren't a bad thing, as long as you see a benefit to yourself and make sure you actually realize it. Put your photos to work for you.
That's the business side, and there's more to it than lights and apertures. There's no magic bullet or proven formula, and what works for one person may not work for another. That's the frustration and the beauty of marketing. What is proven is that consistency is key. You won't get hired if people have never heard of you, and you have a much better shot at winning work if you're top of mind.
So how do you find the people you want to work for? For me it came from a number of sources, but the one I used most consistently was Agency Access, a database service that keeps client contacts current. People are constantly changing jobs, so keeping up with contact information is a challenge. Instead of spending hours on LinkedIn and Google, I could run a filtered search for a client type and have a list in minutes. That let me spend my time on the work that mattered.
Come up with a marketing plan. Understand who your customer is, decide how you're going to reach them, and do it. And don't do it alone: find people who can help you market so you can focus on what drives you.
The workshop plan
The idea behind the ASMP workshop was to show a test shoot from beginning to end and how to turn it into marketing materials. I led the group through pre-production, lit two sets to shoot with the model, and finished by editing one of my images and building a mailer for a marketing campaign. That covered pre-production, lighting and shooting, retouching, and the business of photography. I always emphasize that last part, because you can be an amazing artist, but if you can't turn it into a business, it's a hobby you're really good at.
Pre-production
We gathered everybody at the studio and started the night with pre-production. You can always show up on set and try to make it work, but your odds of success drop drastically, because you're mentally all over the place thinking about lighting, styling, posing and a hundred other things. Eliminate as much of that as you can before you get to set, and you'll be far more focused on creating images and connecting with the talent. We went over building and presenting a mood board and communicating with the talent while we waited for our model, Juan Valentine, to arrive.
Set one: one light
Next I got both setups as ready as possible before Juan got there. The first set was a simple seated pose with one light, and the second was a standing shot with two lights. The goal was lighting people could recreate without huge resources or expensive equipment.
For the first set, I used a trunk as a foreground prop and my warm-toned Oliphant backdrop behind it. The light was a single Profoto B1 in a 69" Elinchrom Rotalux Octabox, placed off to camera right. We talked about positioning and feathering the light and demonstrated what each move did to the light on the subject's face. Because I was shooting tethered, everybody could see the difference as each test shot came in. Our chapter VP, the excellent photographer Adolfo "Killy" Chavez, jumped in as the test subject, and I had a blast making a couple of portraits of him.
When Juan arrived, I approached the shoot just as I would with a client or a client's model. We went through the mood board together and talked about wardrobe and grooming, then switched him in for Killy and got after it. The connection and collaboration between the person in front of the lens and the person behind it is a huge part of great images, and I wanted to show that before handing the camera over. I took 5–10 minutes to capture what I wanted, then passed the Profoto trigger to the first student and coached as different people jumped in.
Set two: building two lights, subtle first
As the line died down and Juan needed a break, we moved to the second set. This is a setup I like for darker portraits on black. Two V-Flat World v-flats knock down spill on either side and create a little cave for the model to stand in. The backdrop was plain black Savage paper, nothing special. I've also done this with no paper at all by turning the v-flats the other way.
I wanted to show how to build a multi-light setup piece by piece. The first light was a Profoto B2 head on a boom with a 39" Elinchrom Rotalux Octabox, coming from the top down. It adds a little separation from the darkness around the subject and a glancing light down the face and across the hair and shoulders. We added it first because it was the subtler of the two lights. Always start with the subtle lights first so you can see exactly what they add to the image.
Next came the main light: a second B2 head on the same battery pack, with a 1x4' Profoto Stripbox turned horizontal, raised high and angled down. Together, the two lights act almost like one giant source that wraps around the subject.
It was great to watch people see the scene build into what I had envisioned. Too often people turn on several lights at once without understanding what each one is doing. That can be overwhelming and turn people away from learning to use light well, so showing the step-by-step process in person was a highlight for me.
With everything set, Juan jumped back in and we shot from different angles and positions. I tried something in the spirit of Platon, getting in close with a wide perspective, but the real goal was to show how many different images you can get from a simple setup. After a few minutes, the students put their cameras to work.
From RAW file to mailer
The finale was a ton of fun. Everybody pulled out their laptops, and we walked through an edit from RAW capture to a finished file out of Photoshop. For me, seeing that full process is the best way to watch a photographer work. A light setup or a capture is one thing, but process has always been a huge part of photography, and everybody has a different idea of what "finished" looks like. So for those who stayed, I finished the edit and dropped the file into a marketing design ready to send to prospective clients.
It was a great evening. As a self-taught photographer, I know the thirst for knowledge that keeps you looking for ways to get better, and it's always a pleasure to pass a little of what I've learned along. Thank you again to ASMP for inviting me to host it.
Originally published on the Ruddock Visuals blog, February 2020. Lightly edited in 2026.