From wallet cards, to your phone.

Why I made these quick guides.

Get The Quick Guide, $9

Instant download. Display on your phone.

33+ years pro photographer

Teaching since 1996

Nikon instructor since 2015

Years later, former students were still pulling out those same cards to show me. That told me the format worked after all. I thought wrongly.

You are mid shoot, going for that soft, dreamy blur behind your subject, the kind that makes a portrait look like it came from a pro. Then your mind goes blank.

Which setting was it again? You do not want to fumble with the dial while your client is watching, or while your own kid is waiting for you to just take the picture.

I’m Jay. I’ve spent most of my career behind a camera and in front of a classroom.

Back then we used to hand out densely printed A4 sheets at my workshops, laid out in Adobe PageMaker. Almost nobody read them. So I started making small cards, about the size of a credit card, small enough to fit in a wallet, each one showing just the one setting someone needed to remember. I sold several batches for a while, then stopped when I thought it didn't make any difference.

These Quick Guides are that old wallet card idea, brought back for your phone. One glance, one setting, no digging through a manual while your subject is waiting on you.

From editorial to teaching
I started in editorial photography in the early 1990s, moving through fashion for a while, then shot celebrity portraits for movie posters. Most of my career after that was commercial work: hotels, food, and product photography. I’ve taught the basics of photography since 1996, first in the Philippines, and now in the UAE.

The work behind the teaching
I’ve worked with organizations like ICCA, Sanofi Aventis, Royal Oman Police, Mercedes Benz, Jeep, Turner & Townsend, the Department of Culture and Tourism in Abu Dhabi, and Masdar, places where getting your camera right isn’t optional. I was also a brand ambassador for Olympus DSLRs from 2007 to 2011, and I’ve been a Nikon School instructor since 2015. I’ve been teaching for over 30 years now, so I know how to break things down in a way that actually makes sense to a beginner.

Everything I know, now yours to use
Since moving to Abu Dhabi in 2011, I’ve kept working with clients while also helping beginners and hobbyists build real confidence with their cameras, the kind they can actually use in the moment, not just in theory. I’ve stepped away from commercial photography for good, so everything I picked up along the way goes into guides like this one instead. I still pick up a camera all the time, these days purely for the joy of it.