Make your subjects look their best with our professional portrait photography tips, covering lighting setups, location scouting and tips for working with models.
Using strobes outside is one way to create drama in your photographs. By adding artificial light to your scene, you can include a background that utilizes ambient light without sacrificing the quality of light on your subject. But sometimes it’s difficult to determine how exactly to light your subject to get specific results. Joe McNally […]
Departing from the standard “torso-up” headshot portrait, an environmental portrait portrays a subject in a location that lends insight into who the subject is and what he or she is about. Although the headshot portrait is certainly appropriate in some contexts, it is generally agreed that the best portraits are the ones that tell stories. […]
30,000 wooden stakes, 2,000 tonnes of soil, and 2,000 tonnes of sand. That’s what it took for Cuban-American artist Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada and his team of local Belfastian volunteers, businesses, and contractors to create WISH, an aerial portrait of an anonymous girl depicted in a photograph taken by Rodríguez-Gerada. Created for the 2013 Ulster Bank Belfast […]
There are a few techniques that help with taking portraits, and I’m going to share some of those tips with you today. Lighting, composition, camera settings and your lens are the right places to start when you begin to take pictures of people. Without good lighting and a good portrait lens, your portrait photography can […]
Shooting portraits with hard light is something photographers are generally taught to flee from—“Always use softboxes in studio sessions, and only shoot natural light portraits in the morning and evening, or your photographs will look washed out and amateur,” they say. But while shooting portraits with a hard light source can be tricky, it can […]
In the spirit of keeping it simple, one-strobe setups are many portrait photographers’ default when it comes to studio lighting. The best thing about these arrangements is how much they can teach us about the behavior of light; because there is only one source, every little change is a reflection of that light alone. It’s […]
Corey Rich is known for taking on big challenges when it comes to portraiture. He photographs high performance athletes under all sorts of extreme conditions. Whether he’s on a steep mountain slope or in a studio, he knows what it takes to create portraits that his subjects love. In this episode of his tutorial series, […]
Light painting is a well-loved technique in the photography community, but fashion photographer Clay Cook didn’t paint with LED lights in his recent fashion editorial photoshoot for NFocus Magazine, Louisville. He painted with fire. Using burning sparklers and steel wool, Cook created stunning, fiery backgrounds and foregrounds around his subjects. In this video, Cook demonstrates […]
In previous articles, we began our study of lighting patterns for portrait photography with broad lighting, short lighting, and split lighting. Now let’s move on to loop lighting. In portrait photography, this lighting pattern tends to be one of the most popular. It’s easy to set up and is flattering to most faces. Remember that […]
Although sunny days are great for getting out of the house and enjoying the outdoors, they’re not always the best days for shooting. The high contrast can ruin potentially good shots. However, shooting in the sun can get you some great images if you know how to deal with it. In this video, photographer Joe […]
