I got my first camera when I was 6 years old, my second when I was 14, my third when I was 17, my fourth at 19, and my current one at 22. For the majority of those years, I have had little access to any sort of professional lighting rigs, meaning that while I do know how to use giant fucking lights with softboxes the size of my torso, I’ve spent most of my time learning how to use any goddamn light source I can find. This is particularly funny when people compliment me on my lighting and I have to refrain from explaining to them that I used a desk lamp, a sheet of watercolour paper as a reflector, and eleven candles to get that look. Sometimes, I just want to say that I had [EXPENSIVE LIGHTING RIG] and a big white infinity backdrop at my disposal, but I don’t. Instead, I’ve learned how to turn my kitchen into a studio, my bedroom into a boudoir, and chocolate syrup into blood. Sometimes I don’t feel like this counts for much, and I know that if I ever got the chance to do some professional studio work that they don’t care that I can makeshift a rig with two bare bulbs and some gampi, but I take solace in the fact that I’ve made the best with what I got. That and beer. God, I love beer.

PARTIAL LIST OF THINGS I’VE USED TO LIGHT SETS: An emergency lamp, an iPhone, 4 flashlights, a desk lamp with a 150 watt bulb in it, fluorescent tubes, a fridge light, stadium lights in an empty field, and the sheer light produced by my undying anger.