A 59-lesson event-photography course, shipped as a native iOS app

The problem#

I've spent years shooting real events, and most of what makes that work isn't written down anywhere. It lived in my head, in my notes and in years of teaching — which meant it could only ever scale one way: me, in the room, again.

Every workshop and every answered question went out once and disappeared. The knowledge was proven — 3,000+ events of it — but there was no product. Nothing a beginner could open late at night, on their own, and actually finish.

The goal was simple to say and hard to do: take the teaching and package it into a native iOS product — a beginner's guide to capturing real events with confidence — and ship it for real.

How does it work?#

The app is a course in your pocket. Open it and you land on the course map; from there it's lesson navigation, lesson playback and cheat sheets — the same structure I'd use teaching in person, rebuilt for a phone screen. The chain, in one line: open the app → course map → lesson → cheat sheet → back to the event.

courses

4 courses + Extras — the spine of the product, from foundations to the skills you actually use at an event.

lessons

59 lessons, each built around one idea you can act on at your next gig.

playback

Video delivered natively with AVKit over HLS — 23+ hours of lesson material that streams inside the app.

cheat-sheets

127 cheat sheets for the moments there's no time to watch anything.

unlock

Free to start; the full library is a one-time upgrade through StoreKit — no subscription.

What did I build?#

1. The product and its information architecture. Courses, lessons, cheat sheets and progress — the map of what to learn first, and what to reach for when you're standing at an event with a camera in your hand.
2. The app itself. Native iOS in SwiftUI, with AVKit/HLS video playback and a StoreKit purchase flow for the one-time upgrade.
3. The content library. 59 lessons across 4 courses + Extras, 127 cheat sheets and 23+ hours of teaching — written to be usable mid-event, not just watched on the couch.
4. The release. Through App Store review to a live listing — the part most side projects never reach.
5. The product site. ep101.app carries the pitch: 59 practical lessons, 23+ hours of content, 3,000+ events of experience behind it.

AI agents accelerated production. The teaching, the product decisions and the release stayed mine.

I turned 17+ years of event-photography experience into a shipped iOS learning product.

Before and after#

Technical depth#

• SwiftUI
• AVKit
• HLS
• StoreKit
• App Store

Native, not wrapped. SwiftUI for the interface; AVKit over HLS so the video library streams instead of shipping as downloads; StoreKit for the one-time unlock. The content pipeline behind it follows the same principle I build everything on: decide the structure once, produce against it, and ship.

One body of teaching, several surfaces. The same material also lives on the Event Photography 101 YouTube channel and as a field guide; the app is the structured version.

Production readiness#

An app on the App Store is production: it passed review, it's listed, and it keeps working when I'm not watching it.

1. Shipped through review. The listing is live — Event Photography 101 on the App Store.
2. Content delivered, not bundled. Lessons are served for playback rather than sold as files, so 23+ hours of video stays manageable on a phone.
3. Economics that don't churn. Free to start, one-time upgrade, no subscription — stated plainly on the product site.

The result#

A beginner's guide to capturing real events with confidence — the promise on the product line, delivered as a working app. 59 lessons, 4 courses + Extras, 127 cheat sheets and 23+ hours of content, live on the App Store with ep101.app behind it.

30-second walkthrough#

Why this matters to an employer#

FAQ#