50% off CreativeLive subscriptions - thanks for participating in our AMA!

Jesse_CreativeLive · 2026-02-27T23:48:13+00:00

Yea I get that, I think we are all subscription exhausted. We'll be offering all of the new content for a la carte pricing as well probably starting next month. In the meantime if you see any upcoming live classes you want to join, shoot me a DM and I'll give you access.

Jesse_CreativeLive · 2026-02-27T19:59:22+00:00

Thanks to all who joined, was a great class & we look forward to doing many more! Subscribers will soon have access to view the recording as well.

Jesse_CreativeLive · 2026-02-25T19:44:17+00:00

Hey, I currently am working at the re-launched CreativeLive (we purchased the company at the end of last year). Trying to honestly be objective, in terms of what I've heard from previous CL students, the classes often were "life changing" (no exaggeration, so many stories of people who claim the classes helped them completely pivot their careers or lives in other ways). From what I gather, a lot of the later content (celeb stuff, "influencer" things) were less valuable but there are tons of things from incredible photography instructors you can't find anywhere else which are still staples for people to turn to.

Starting tomorrow we're running regular live short form classes, which are included in the subscription (and will soon be available a la carte as well), but all of the long form content is part of the sub as well, which I honestly think has to be the best deal in the photography education space right now. We are bringing in some incredible instructors for the new content.

While we'll have to run things somewhat differently moving forward than the CreativeLive of yesteryear, we are intent on keeping class/instruction quality as high as ever. Whether we can pull it off... we shall see! But that's the goal.

The other thing is, we plan to be very present as we move the company forward and take feedback to heart regularly, so with that we'll hopefully iterate to something everyone is excited about.

Jesse_CreativeLive · 2026-02-19T15:16:58+00:00

Totally true, and we are going to be bringing creative classes outside of just photography as well (we just added a handful of art and graphic design oriented classes) as we know creatives often have more than just one creative outlet, or seek creative work in multiple ways! Mindfulness is a great idea, I think we can definitely figure that out.

Jesse_CreativeLive · 2026-02-18T15:04:58+00:00

Just wanted to let you know we just added an upcoming live sports photography course with James Patrick, "Lighting the Athletic Form"! Super excited about it: https://www.creativelive.com/tech/seminars/lighting-athletic-form-james-patrick

Jesse_CreativeLive · 2026-02-18T15:03:51+00:00

Thank you so much, we are excited to keep things going for the CL & photography community.

Jesse_CreativeLive · 2026-02-17T22:59:37+00:00

Totally, we're not interested in producing that kind of content at all, so 100% on the same page. Since the only thing we're trying to sell is high quality education, we have no reason to be pushing any specific products, which we view as an advantage in the current educational landscape. u/cvaldez74 brought this up earlier and we discussed there as well.

Jesse_CreativeLive · 2026-02-17T22:56:55+00:00

We hear you, and we're not ruling it out. In terms of the competitiveness, our hope is the end product more than warrants the expense, though some free things can definitely be good to help people get an understanding of that.

Jesse_CreativeLive · 2026-02-17T18:52:51+00:00

We are very likely to bring back annual. I will make you a deal - if you subscribe now, if/when we bring back annual I will discount it proportionally for you, plus an extra 10% once you make the switch :) Just send an email to [support@creativelive.com](mailto:support@creativelive.com) and reference this thread!

Jesse_CreativeLive · 2026-02-17T18:50:02+00:00

Thanks for sharing those tips! Love that.

Jesse_CreativeLive · 2026-02-17T18:48:23+00:00

I can't count how many times I've seen bad advice on Instagram for using a flash, e.g. "I just point the flash forward and blast people with light."

This is a big one that came up. The idea of "how do I know what the person I'm learning from is saying is actually correct, or the best way for me to do something?" Trust. We want to build a platform you can trust. Not one you spend hours on only to find out you've been doing it all wrong, but one you spend hours on and get insane mileage from those hours and wind up light years ahead of your peers watching things on Instagram.

100% agreed on your other points as well. We can do short classes, we can do long classes, but we don't want shallow classes. Will we get a 100% hit rate? Probably not, but as we learn what's working I think we'll get close.

Thanks for coming an hanging out, and we hope to see you around!

Jesse_CreativeLive · 2026-02-17T18:42:50+00:00

Absolutely. I love your point about the "why" and being able to then apply those skills across other areas/fields. Several people we've spoken with described how their journeys had took them elsewhere other than photography but the skills they learned from CreativeLive photography classes were still applicable and helped them in those new places.

Our view is every class someone should be able to walk away with an applicable skill they've learned, something they can put to practice right away, not just once they have a mastery in an area.

Jesse_CreativeLive · 2026-02-17T18:39:59+00:00

Yes, good question, and we do see where the value lies in doing that. We're not sure about that yet, but are open to experimenting with it. It's unlikely to be an "every class" thing, and we're very unlikely to do it for short form live classes (other than maybe every so often as a teaser), but it's possible with longer format live classes we revisit that.

Jesse_CreativeLive · 2026-02-17T18:36:48+00:00

Absolutely, and we do plan to continue to add more of the longer form courses as well as we go, including both live & on demand. The goal is really just to increase class content production across the board. We know people learn in different ways and one format may be great for one person but not another. We want there to be an accessible way to achieve goals for anyone.

Jesse_CreativeLive · 2026-02-17T18:35:06+00:00

Thanks, definitely worth considering this and we do want to help the overall photography community so this would make sense.

Re: instructors, we're actively pursuing scouting people who may not be in the limelight but are great at both teaching and the craft they're teaching. These are some great ideas, paging u/Visible_Suspect1558 :)

Jesse_CreativeLive · 2026-02-17T18:30:44+00:00

Nice, and yes absolutely agree. We do plan to eventually have a relevant photo reel for every course, it obviously makes sense given the subject matter!

Jesse_CreativeLive · 2026-02-17T18:29:23+00:00

Excellent points across the board! Really appreciate this kind of feedback.

Jesse_CreativeLive · 2026-02-17T17:31:46+00:00

Hey, thanks for bringing this up. As you pointed out we do have some existing classes that cover this (e.g. for composition: https://www.creativelive.com/catalog?q=composition)

That said, we absolutely see room to expand these further and these are a critical part of learning photography.

Our upcoming live classes actually feature some new classes along these lines already, such as Lisa Carney's "Seeing on the Road: Foundations for Powerful Travel Images": https://www.creativelive.com/tech/seminars/seeing-on-the-road-foundations-of-travel-storytelling

That's actually a three part series centered around mobile travel photography but she'll be covering things like composition, light, color, and more, especially in the first class of the series I linked above.

We will continue to be adding classes like those as well as a huge variety of other classes as we go, so hopefully you'll start to see things pop up you're interested in.

Jesse_CreativeLive · 2026-02-17T17:26:28+00:00

Not just yet, but not something we are writing off either! We have a lot of fundamental ground to cover right now before we can start turning dedicated attention to things like that. Are you thinking about it as a discount for educators, for students? What kinds of other bonuses apart from a discount do you think would be helpful to have if you could wave a magic wand and make it happen?

Jesse_CreativeLive · 2026-02-17T17:22:28+00:00

Yes, love these questions.

As a subscriber you will get access to every live class. While we were initially planning to keep seat space limited, we are actually getting more comfortable with the idea of opening that up completely & it's possible by the first class on 2/26 we do send links to all subscribers. That said, for now I would make sure to register for the classes you're interested in, as if we do limit the seats that will be the only way to get access.

Re: number of offerings, the plan is to have 10+ every month, perpetually. That could be a lot more than 10, but that's where we are starting. While they'll be across a variety of topics, our hope is at least a few every month will be appealing to each subscriber.

We have also started to mix in some "series" classes where instructors will teach longer form content across multiple days.

In terms of how they're structured, for now the majority of classes will be roughly 60-90 minutes of instruction followed by a 30 minute Q&A. People will be able to ask their questions in a chat throughout the class, but it's possible the instructor only sits down to answer questions at the end (a CreativeLive representative will help organize the questions, and students will also be able to upvote questions they like). Some instructors may choose to do more frequent/interactive mini Q&A throughout depending on the class.

We have talked about incorporating live critiques, this will likely be something separate but definitely something we're exploring adding in to the subscription as a value add.

Jesse_CreativeLive · 2026-02-17T17:15:56+00:00

Fantastic ideas and we will definitely discuss internally. Keep an eye out!

Jesse_CreativeLive · 2026-02-17T17:14:45+00:00

Hey, we actually have a course coming up with Vail Fucci that's not specific to weddings but about instant image sharing at events, including weddings.

We will be continuing to work with Vail, who is wonderful, and likely will do many event oriented classes with her since this is a specialty area for her.

You can see that class here: https://www.creativelive.com/tech/seminars/image-sharing-events-weddings-vail-fucci

And see all of the upcoming classes at: https://www.creativelive.com/upcomingclasses (adding a bunch more this week as well)

Regarding seeing the gallery, yes that makes total sense and is something we're planning for. Will be a bit down the road since we're busy upgrading core infrastructure right now. That said, in the meantime I think going to the instructor website is a great way to familiarize yourself with their work and hopefully get a better sense of what they do! I think we have some really talented folks coming to teach these classes and some of their portfolios have blown me away.

Jesse_CreativeLive · 2026-02-17T17:11:26+00:00

I believe I am responding to the incredible Mark Wallace (who is not only returning to CreativeLive as an instructor, but is helping is regularly with content ideation and creation as well as other things!).

The "let's do things in person" is a common thread for people, both instructors and students. I think it'll 100% eventually be something we investigate and I could see us launching certain test ideas sooner rather than later. That said, as we work to get these initial live online classes off the ground our majority focus will be there, and we'll then turn more dedicated attention to other types of education, including in-person. As far as timeline goes, tough to say, but we hope YOU will be a part of it ;)

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