• You Just Shot a Bunch of Photos.

    Now What?

  • How can Beyond The Shutter help make you a stronger photographer?
    Press play, give me a few minutes, and I'll explain.

  • So Much Happens Beyond The Shutter

     

    Making photographs is so much more than just pressing the shutter button—like choosing the strongest frame from among many. How do you think about that? And how do you stay organized, build bodies of work, refine your images, or put them into the world?

    Beyond The Shutter was created to solve one big problem: you just shot a bunch of images—now what? What do you do once the camera work is over and how do you keep the creativity and momentum going? And perhaps most importantly: what if changing the way you think about the work you do after you've put the camera down could dramatically change the way you made photographs while the camera is in your hand? What if it could all be so much more intentional, without being quite so overwhelming?

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    "I never imagined this course would so increase my joy in making photographs. This deeper understanding of the editing process makes my own camera work more creative, focused, and playful. A wonderful offering with endless possibilities. Highly recommended." 
     

    - Corinna Hofer, Germany

    "I own several of your video series, and they all have such value, but this is the one I wish I’d seen first. It gives the creative stuff a direction and a place to live when I’m finished. "

    - Tina Blum, Oregon

  • 10 Powerful Video Lessons

     

    Beyond the Shutter is a 10-Lesson video course designed to change the way you think about importing and organizing your work, selecting the very best of it, and getting it out into the world in beautiful monographs, slideshows, and web galleries using the tools of Adobe Lightroom CC.

     

    Each lesson is 30 minutes long and filled with ideas and techniques to help you answer that nagging question: "What do I do with my photographs?" How do you get them into the world beautifully, quickly, and easily? How do you even choose which ones are the best? And what if knowing this ahead of time could help you make stronger photographs in the first place?

     

    Drawing from a project for which I shot 20,000 frames in the fall of 2021, Beyond The Shutter is not about landscape photography or wildlife photography, it's about what you do with our best photographs and how to filter through the many sketch images you need to make them—no matter the genre of those images.

     

    Lesson One

    Shoot For The Edit

    Before you can edit what you've shot, learning to shoot for the edit gives you the best chance at the strongest work.

    Lesson Two

    Organizing The Edit

    Learn to use Adobe Lightroom to stay organized and create a system that's simple and avoids the paralysis of analysis.

    Lesson Three

    Making The Edit, Part One

    Understanding your own criteria for choosing your best work, and getting comfortable with the art of the edit.

    Lesson Four

    Making The Edit, Part Two

    Begin thinking in sequences and hone your instincts when selecting your best images from among the many you've shot.

    Lesson Five

    Making The Edit, Part Three

    Learn to use Stacking to simplify your editing and explore the thinking behind my own choices in a project with 20,000 images.

    Lesson Six

    The Power of Collections

    Focus, organize, and refine your edits and make the process easier with Collections and tighter use-specific selections.

    Lesson Seven

    Books: The Ten Minute Monograph

    Learn to use Lightroom's Book module to make stunning PDF monographs and printed books.

    Lesson Eight

    Multi-Media: The Seven-Minute Slideshow

    Explore Lightroom's Slideshow module to create powerful and easily shared multi-media presentions.

    Lesson Nine

    Galleries: Easily to the Web

    Getting your work beautifully and consistently to the web is easier than you think—and it has nothing to do with Lightroom's Web module.

     

    Lesson Ten

    Protecting Your Work

    A discussion of real-world strategies for protecting your photographs and your work once you've done the hard part of creating it.

     

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    +3 Great Bonus Resources

    In addition to the 10 video lessons that make up Beyond The Shutter, there are some extra resources that I think make this an even stronger value and a more powerful learning opportunity.

    The Vision-Driven Development Video

     

    When I talk about editing, I do not mean "stylization" or "development"—but that doesn't mean those aren't an important part of what happens beyond the shutter. This 34-minute video explains a powerful framework for making your development work in Lighroom much simpler and more focused.

     

    2 x Live Q&A Sessions

     

    Twice after your enrollment in Beyond The Shutter you'll have an opportunity to hop onto a 60-minute Zoom call with me and others from the class (or watch the recording if you can't make it) and we'll explore some of your questions about the ideas and techniques in the course.

     

    16 PDF Monographs

     

    One of the best ways to learn about selecting your best work and putting that work into sequences for books, monographs, slideshows, or even web galleries is to look at what others have done. Beyond The Shutter includes 16 of my personal monographs to help with this.

     

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    One Amazing Course

    Beyond The Shutter was created to answer some specific questions and solve some very real problems for photographers who want to do more than just fire off a bunch of frames, pick a couple of them and throw them onto social media. Here are some of the questions for which I hope Beyond The Shutter will help you find answers of your own.

     

    • How can I go into my next shoot or project with the eventual edits and output in mind and get the most out of that shoot, make the edit easier, and the work stronger?

       

    • How can I think about choosing my final images as an integral part of the creative process and free up my camera work?
       

    • What can I do to overcome the usual challenges of staying organized and avoid the paralysis of choice that hundreds or even thousands of images presents me with?
       

    • How do I think like a photo editor? What criteria do I use for making my selections and avoid a process that results in just "choosing the images that don't suck" or merely meet some technical standard?

       

    • Is there anything I can do to make it easier to "sacrifice my darlings" and still make the tightest, strongest edits?

       

    • What do I do with my images once I've made them? Isn't there an easier way for me to get the best of my work into the world?
       

    • How can I do all of this in less time, with less paralysis, and more enjoyment?
       

    I want to help you with this, and more. I want to talk about using the power of time and multiple edits, the power of daily edits, the insanity of deleting images and trusting your first edits.
     
    I want to show you tools in Adobe Lightroom CC that will make this all so much easier, but I also want to show you how to make stunning monographs, slideshows, and web galleries—easily and in less time than you might imagine.
     
    I also want to talk about protecting your work, show you my personal backup strategies, and discuss alternatives so you can sleep at night without worrying about losing the photographs you love.
     
    And I want to show you how to love the images you've already made with the same energy that you love the ones you haven't yet made (you know, the ones for which we all keep buying that new piece of gear). Beyond The Shutter will make your life easier (and your photographs stronger), but it will also give you new ways to be creative with the work you're making with your camera and get it out into the world.

     

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    "3 weeks ago, I had over 10,000 images sitting on my external hard drive after a trip to Africa; I was overwhelmed and frustrated. After Beyond the Shutter, I had all my images quickly and easily organized and edited, I made my first monograph and am already on my way to finishing that website I told myself I would make years ago. "


    - Heather Mattera, Minnesota

     

     

    “You’ve hit this one out of the ballpark! I am so impressed with this series. I'm picking up so much concrete advice. I am embarrassed at how much of the power of Lightroom I have been wasting. I've been mostly editing with brute strength and ignorance, which has led me to really dislike the process. The system you're teaching in this series is so simple but powerful and easy to implement. Thank you!”


    - Tina Blum, Oregon

  • Here's What's Included

    10 x Powerful Video Lessons

    These 10 episodes are both streamable and downloadable and are yours forever. Each episode is about 30 minutes long and comes with a written transcript.

     

    Vision-Driven Development Video

    Beyond The Shutter comes with a bonus video, Vision-Driven Development, which teaches a simple but powerful framework for developing images in Adobe Lightroom.

     

    16 x Bonus PDF Monographs

    Your enrollment includes instant access to 16 of my PDF monographs as examples of the power of a great edit and the kind of monographs I teach you to make in Lesson 07.

     

    2 x Live Q&A Sessions

    Courses like this inevitably lead to questions, and I want to give you a couple of chances to ask them. These are group Zoom calls which will be recorded in case you can't be there.

     

  •  

    "What can I say but ‘bloody brilliant!’ Seriously, this course is so good and taught me so much. I have to admit to having many many years worth of photos trapped on my computer and not having a clue how to approach doing something with them. But now I feel like I have a plan and a way forward for them. Thank you!"

     

    -Donna Zaadstra, New Zealand.

     

    "Bravo! Beyond The Shutter is concise, enjoyable, and so practical. I'm already proficient in Lightroom and still learned a lot! The value of this course is well worth the cost, and the bonus lesson is like another extraordinary short course."

     

    - Albert Adroer, Spain

     

  • Beyond Excited About Beyond The Shutter

    A Wonderful Offering!


    "I never imagined this course would so increase my joy in making photographs. David's enthusiasm and passion for this craft is contagious. I felt like I was sitting at the same table watching David's whole process. This deeper understanding of the editing process makes my own camera work more creative, focused, and playful. A wonderful offering with endless possibilities. Highly recommended."
    - Corinna Hofer, Germany

    Bravo!


    "Bravo! Beyond The Shutter is concise, enjoyable and so practical. I'm already proficient in Lightroom and still learned a lot! The value of this course is well worth the cost, and the bonus lesson is like another extraordinary short course on intent and vision-driven development"
    - Albert Adroer, Spain

    A Game-Changer.


    “Exceptional! This is a game-changer for photographers like me. 3 weeks ago, I had over 10,000 images sitting on my external hard drive after a trip to Africa; I was overwhelmed and frustrated. After Beyond the Shutter, I had ALL my images quickly and easily organized and edited, I made my first monograph, and am already on my way to finishing that website I told myself I would make years ago. This class is well worth the time and money! I just wish it had been around 10 years ago!”

    - Heather Mattera, Minnesota

    Simple But Powerful!


    “You’ve hit this one out of the ballpark! I am so impressed with this series. I'm picking up so much concrete advice. I am embarrassed at how much of the power of Lightroom I have been wasting. I've been mostly editing with brute strength and ignorance, which has led me to really dislike the process. The system you're teaching in this series is so simple but powerful and easy to implement. Thank you!” - Tina Blum, Oregon

     

    Enjoy Your Images More.


    "This course is great! If you're anything like me and you plan weekends & vacations around opportunities to photograph and you want your photographs to have a life outside the hard drive, Beyond the Shutter is for you. I'm a Capture One user and still benefited greatly from each lesson. Beyond the Shutter will not only help you create better images during your trips, it will help you and others enjoy them more afterwards. It's a definite five stars!"

    - Dan Terrell, Portugal

    Worth Every Penny!


    "Beyond the Shutter was an amazing experience for me. I own just about every course that you have created and am as inspired as ever with your teaching. This course has put into perspective new thoughts about how I can deal with my images; I've learned many new ideas and tricks to apply to my workflow. I have always admired your talent and ability to explain things to any level of photographer. I can't wait to hone my skills even further. Thank you so much for this course. It is truly worth every penny spent."
    - Nancy L., USA

  • Some Good Questions

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    More Questions? Need Help?

    Send me an email here. I've got your back.

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