Make your subjects look their best with our professional portrait photography tips, covering lighting setups, location scouting and tips for working with models.
Photography tutorials drill certain rules into our heads. But rules are made to be broken, right? Here, we learn how to take the traditional rules of using certain lenses only for certain things, and throw them out the window: Mango Street shows us that you’re not constrained to only using 50mm or 85mm lenses for portraiture or wide […]
Have you ever wanted to do a spooky shoot in your home studio, but weren’t quite sure how to go about it? What better way to prepare for Halloween than to learn how to turn your home studio into a sinister forest with a little bit of lighting magic and some smoke to really create […]
Some enviable people are born with photogenic genes and movie-star smiles, but for the rest of us, here are a few tips on how portrait subjects can smile naturally for those dreaded family photo sessions (or any other time!). Some photographers still direct their subjects to say “cheese” which could be producing undesirable results, definitely […]
A good lens can bring the out the best of the moment and the model. If you’ve been wondering which lens to buy for portrait photography, this video by Mark Wallace is probably what you’ve been waiting for: Though the decision making process is difficult, you can break it down in a scientific way to […]
Often, when you shoot subjects on a pure white background, the background doesn’t turn out truly white. This can work well if that’s the look you’re going for, but what if you really want your background white? According to advertising photographer Joe Edelman, it’s a simple fix: Though some photographers shy away from shooting subjects on […]
Finding good portrait backgrounds can be challenging. If you live in a small town or a crowded neighborhood, you might actually feel limited in your options. But it doesn’t have to be that way. If you show a bit of enterprising attitude, you can find some pretty interesting backgrounds around your home or right in […]
If you studied photography in school, you no doubt learned the classic three-point lighting method for portraits. But if you’re self-taught, this enormously useful technique may not yet be in your repertoire. If you fall in the latter category, never fear. Music photographer PJ Pantelis has created this simple, step-by-step tutorial to have you lighting […]
Creating unique portrait shots doesn’t require fancy gear or even a lot of technical know-how. Photographer Gavin Hoey demonstrates how even the humblest of props can transform a mundane shot into an original work of art: For those interested in shooting creative portraiture on a small budget, it’s always a relief to find that that […]
Low light photography as a whole proves to be a challenge, but getting a decent portrait once the sun goes down can be especially difficult. An off camera flash can remedy many of the issues that arise most frequently, but it isn’t always the most intuitive tool. Photographer Francisco Hernandez breaks down some of the techniques he’s […]
In today’s portrait photography photo tip we are going to wrap up our discussion of the three light set with a quick review and an example of how to build a set—with no lights! Just because you don’t have any studio lights, doesn’t mean you can’t shoot quality images. Here is a quick review… Most […]
