Recent Portraits Articles

Learn How to Create These Stunning Valentine Beauty Shots

It can be a lot of fun to deviate from the standard shoot and explore your creative side a bit. If you are looking to invigorate your photos a bit, this excellent video will show you two different looks based on a Valentine's Day theme and how they were shot.

5 Reasons You Might Be Making Couples Look Awkward in Portraits

Posing can be a tricky thing for a lot of photographer, and it can twice as tough when you are doing it with a couple. If you find you have trouble posing couples in a natural way, this great video will show you five reasons why your couples portraits might be a bit awkward.

Tell Us Who Won the Newest Fstoppers Photo Shootout!

In our last photography shootout, Lee Morris defeated Pye Jirsa and I to regain the crown of "world's best photographer." Yesterday we teamed up again to have another battle and we need your help deciding who took the most beautiful or interesting image.

Improve Your Portraits with These Simple Posing Tips

Posing for the camera my not come easily to everyone. If you understand the basics of posing but still find yourself looking for a way to improve the shots, here are a few tips you can use.

How to Take Great Portraits in Mediocre Locations

We do not always have the luxury of shooting in stunning locations, which can make it difficult to take great portraits. Nonetheless, you can still take compelling portraits even in drab locations with a little bit of know-how. This excellent video will walk you through the process as a photographer shoots in such a location.

How to Create Dynamic Black and White Images Using Photoshop

Have you ever seen an incredible and compelling black and white image and wondered how you can create the same impact in your photos? In this quick Photoshop tutorial, learn how you can take your black and white photos to the next level by following this simple series of steps.

6 Easy Tricks to Create Great Portraits Anywhere

Being a master of your craft sometimes means taking exciting and memorable portraits in not-so-interesting locations and circumstances. Here are six simple tricks to help make your portraits more creative while removing distracting elements and creating more engagement.

Helpful Tips for Posing and Photographing Men

Posing can be one of the trickiest aspects of photography for many people and takes a lot of work to truly master and feel confident at. If posing is something you personally struggle with, this helpful video will give you lots of tips and examples specifically for working with men.

How to Edit Faster With the 'Dark Mode' Technique

Is there a faster and easier way to create dramatic images in Lightroom that still sticks with your style? Here’s a quick tutorial and a different way of taking one of your images and using the power of Adobe’s software to create a stunning portrait.

5 Helpful Tips for Retouching Portraits in Luminar 4

Skylum's Luminar 4 is quite the fascinating application, particularly with its artificial intelligence features that are meant to save you lots of time in post-processing work while still delivering quality results. If you are interested in using Luminar 4 to retouch portraits, this great video will give you five tips to ensure you get the best possible results.

6 Helpful Tips for Better Wide-Angle Portraits

Traditionally, portrait lenses fall somewhere around 85-135mm, perhaps a little wider at times. But that does not mean you should totally discount ultra-wide angle lenses; in fact, in certain situations, they can be just the right piece of gear to help you create something more unique than the standard shot. Nonetheless, they require some special considerations. This great video will give you six tips to ensure you can get the best wide angle portraits possible.

Unlimited Backgrounds Using Just Your TV

Finding backgrounds for indoor portraiture can be a pain after a while. You can get mileage out of proper backdrops and different lighting setups, but there's an option for punchy portraits with for all intents and purposes, unlimited variations.

5 Different Looks You Can Create Using V-Flats in Studio

V-flats are some of the most flexible and useful accessories a studio photographer can have. This great video will show you five different portrait lighting setups you can create using v-flats in studio.

Avoid These Five Things While Posing Hands in Portraits

A good photo can be ruined by the bad placement of a hand in the shot. This part of the body can be overlooked while shooting, but can have a drastic effect on your outcome. If you are unsure of how to pose hands, this video will help.

How I Hashtag My Photography for Social Media

If you've found yourself wondering how you can go about using hashtags on Instagram for tagging your work, here's how I go about it. Spoiler alert: I don't overthink it, and I keep it as simple as possible.

Five Helpful Tips for Better Portraits

Portraits take the confluence of technical aptitude, creativity, and the ability to work with people to be successful, and the lack of any one can derail the entire endeavor. This great video will give you five tips to improve your portraits, ranging from composition to interacting with the subject.

Using a 35mm Lens for Environmental Portraits

While you can use almost any lens to make an environmental portrait, there are a combination of features that make the 35mm a great choice for this style of portraiture.

Photographer Ken Heyman Dies at 89

Ken Heyman, a photographer that’s worked with cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead, shot commissions for Life magazine, and collaborated with President Lyndon B. Johnson, died on December 10th in Manhattan at 89 years old. He died at his home of a heart ailment, as reported by his daughter, Jennifer McCarthy.

How Do Introverts Navigate the Difficulties of Posing Clients?

Introverts find joy and comfort in being alone, not because of a dislike of other people, but because they are happiest when they're in their own space. So, how can a truly introverted person switch to a full-on social situation where clients need to be directed or posed in a confident manner?

Creating Interesting Portrait in a Boring Location

It would be nice if we could all have access to beautiful shoot locations on a daily basis, but that simply is not possible for the majority of photographers. That does not mean you can't take interesting portraits in a boring location, however, and this great video will show you five examples of what you can accomplish.

How to Tame Ambient Light With Flash When Shooting Indoor Portraits

A common challenge for many portrait photographers is shooting people in a room with very strong ambient light. This tutorial and demonstration video gives a good solution to that, as well as to the challenges of shooting in front of a mirror.

Ashley Joanna Reveals the Secrets of Her Portrait Work

I'm not a portrait photographer, but it is one of the genres that I've been studying and practicing. This video by Chris Eyre-Walker reveals the insights of portrait photographer Ashley Joanna and illustrates the essence of portrait photography: the person in the portrait.

A Quick Tip for Finding Models to Work With

When traveling to new places, you may not have a solid network established to find talent to work with. Perhaps you are just starting and looking to local talent to work with. Where do you search to find potential models for your portfolio?

Fujifilm 56mm f/1.2 Versus Zeiss Batis 85mm f/1.8

For many photographers, a good 85mm lens camera is simply indispensable. For full frame cameras, there are plenty of options; however, for those that shoot with an APS-C camera, options are somewhat limited. Fujifilm is one of the companies that offers something brilliant in this range, and I wanted to test and compare it to a full frame "equivalent."

Gobos: An Affordable and Expressive Solution for Creating Interesting Backgrounds

A white backdrop is an incredibly versatile piece of equipment, and a must have for any studio photographer. But if you want to mix things up a bit, and you don't want to fork out for another background — like one of these beautiful hand-painted ones — or you just want to have some creative fun, making a gobo is a fantastically adaptable alternative.

Artist Captures Video Portrait of Daughter Once a Week for 20 Years

A Dutch artist has created a video documenting twenty years by taking a short video of his daughter once a week for twenty years. That adds up to 1040 different clips that combine to make an amazing piece that might leave you needing some tissue.

The Best Images from GuruShots "Amazing Men" Challenge

GuruShots is a website that hosts, "The World’s Greatest Photo Game,” in which it invites participants to submit their best photos to various challenges. They have receive thousands of entries and millions of votes and recently hosted the "Amazing Men" challenge. Check out the three winners of the challenge below as well as the 100 top rated images below.

What's It Like to Shoot a $30,000 100-Megapixel Camera?

In my ramblings as a photographer over the last decade and a half, I've shot with almost every brand of commercial digital camera out there. However, most of my experience has been in the realm of common crop-sensor and full-frame cameras. I've always seen the more exotic offerings in medium format digital as beyond my reach and therefore, not worth thinking about.

Capture One Offers Unique and Powerful Benefits For Portrait Photography

The landscape of the portrait photographer has certainly been in flux over the last decade, in which time we’ve seen photos of people go from unreal alabaster-like skin to something much more real, color grading become prominent, and image resolution grow, even though the consumption of images has moved largely to smaller screens.

Photographer Shoots Fashion Images on Top of the World's Deepest Lake

A photographer has released a captivating collection of images combining elements of both landscape and fashion, as she photographs models wearing extravagant dresses atop the deepest lake in the world, located in southern Siberia, Russia, which remains frozen for most of the year.

Photographer Captures Dogs Displaying Human Expressions

A photography duo has together worked on photographing more than 500 animals over the last two-and-a-half years in order to create a series that documents pets demonstrating human-like expressions.

Taking Wet Plate Portraits of Climate Change Activist Greta Thunberg

A photographer had a 20-minute photo session with 16-year-old Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg, during which he produced these wet-plate portraits. As her schedule was tight, the photographer took his portable darkroom setup to the field and shot the images during Thunberg’s appearance at Standing Rock.

20 Posing Ideas for Men Who Aren't Models

Professional models can take a lot of the burden off the photographer by bringing their posing expertise to the table. However, you will not always have the benefit of shooting with a professional model, and it is important to have the ability to pose normal people. This great video will show you lots of posing ideas for men who are not models.

Behind the Scenes on a Backyard Studio Shoot

Not everyone has the luxury of having tons of room in their home for a photoshoot or large enough windows for those natural light photographers. Without having to leave the comfort of your home, one option for some would be to take their studio setup outside, weather permitting, of course.

Hack Your Camera and Taser Your Subjects, Yes Really

Hacked cameras, tasers, and portrait photography are not elements you'd usually find together, and for very good reason too! This creative programmer is about to combine all these things for some hilarious photographic results.

Ask the Pros: Five Tips for Better Portrait Photography

Portrait photographers know how overwhelming it can feel to create work that depends on collaboration with a complete stranger. With this in mind, I asked five professional photographers in central Texas for their top portrait photography tips.