Creating Photos that People will Remember with Forrest Mankins

Creating Photos that People Will Remember with Forrest Mankins — a creative skills course for building a photography career

The gist: A 19-lesson CreativeLive video course from working commercial photographer/director Forrest Mankins aimed at the conceptual and directing skills that separate a hobbyist from someone who can land paid shoots.

• ~2 hours of structured video lessons: Streams on desktop and mobile, making it realistic to complete alongside a full-time job or freelance schedule.
• Directing and team-building lessons: Covers finding people to shoot with and building a creative team — skills directly transferable to running a commercial photo/video shoot for a client.
• Budget-production challenges: Two "$500 Challenge" segments show how to deliver professional results on a client-realistic budget, a useful case study for pricing freelance work.
• 4 bonus presets included: Gives a ready-made editing starting point that can be adapted into a personal or client-facing style.

Per CreativeLive's own course listing, Mankins is a working commercial lifestyle photographer and director whose Wildist brand has built a career on planning, directing, and editing — the exact production pipeline a freelancer needs to replicate for paying clients.

Best for: photographers and content creators looking to move from casual shooting to commercial or freelance work. Skip it if: you need camera-settings-level technical training — CreativeLive describes the focus as mindset and creative process, not gear specs. Runs ~$75 — check the current price before buying.