Pro tips

I got sucked into watching a bunch of home construction videos on YouTube today and I really made an interesting connection to other things in my life.

So, you go to Home Depot to do some DIY and you have a certain set of materials that you normally think of. Sure, they might carry it, but it's not something that you go for as your average homeowner. Hell, most average homeowners aren't going to be building bathrooms or tiling their floors.

It's like photography.

You can go down to your local camera store and you have all of the stuff that the pros have access to. Even if you don't have a local shop, you can get everything you need from online stores like B&H, Adorama, or Amazon. You can get all of the stuff. The problem is you don't really know the extent of the stuff you need.

My friend Jackie was shooting a Santa shoot at one of her clients. She was using your normal Canon DSLR with good lenses. That's the stuff that you would buy if you walked into the store.

What she also had with her was lighting that was half the cost of the rest of the kit. Three flashes, light stands, light modifiers, and all of the stuff to make that work.

You don't know what you need until you've really been shown that you need it in the first place.

It's the same with everything.

Until you've been shown what you need and why you need it, you'll never really know.