Recent Portraits Articles

Photography Fun: Shooting Portraits With an Absurd $12,000 Lens

Some things in life you do because you have to or because they're the logical or practical thing to do at the time. Some things you do in life because you can. Shooting portraits with this lens definitely falls into the latter category.

Create an Easy Photoshop Action for Teeth Whitening

Whether you're a portrait, wedding, or event photographer, you undoubtedly encounter this issue: nobody has perfect teeth. But there is a perfect way to streamline the fix: create a Photoshop action.

Taking a Portrait With the Tamron 100-400mm Lens

I recently got my hands on the new Tamron 100-400mm zoom lens and wanted to try a unique portrait idea. Unfortunately, this photo idea involved wind, tides, fast moving kiteboarders, and the ocean. What could go wrong, right?

Top 10 WeeklyFstop Photos: Portrait

Taking a successful portrait may seem easy to someone who has never tried it. Transforming something from the simple concept of a camera pointed at a person (or a puffin) into a story-telling captivating photo involves skill.

Here Are 10 Location Ideas for Your Next Photoshoot

Sometimes, it's more fun and interesting to stop shooting every portrait at f/1.4 and instead find locations that complement or juxtapose with your subject to create more compelling photos. This helpful video will give you 10 location ideas that should be accessible for just about everyone.

Five Helpful Tips for Better Photos When Posing Dancers and Performers

Every model is trained is posing, but dancers take it a step in a different direction with their ability to contort, control, and push their bodies in spectacular ways. This great video will show you five tips for getting better photos when you're working with dancers.

Learning From Steve McCurry's Iconic 'Afghan Girl' Photograph

One of the defining photographers of our time, and recently one of the most controversial, is without a doubt Steve McCurry. His strong use of color and ability to tell a story visually have won him places in some of the world's most celebrated magazines, galleries, and photographic collections, and his image "Afghan Girl" is among his most well-known works.

How to Shoot Portraits Using the Brenizer Method

Photographers and people love bokeh. There are several discussions on how to achieve creamy bokeh backgrounds in your shot and even recommended lenses to achieve this look. Many will tell you to get an 85mm lens or lenses with a longer focal length, but what do you do when you want to incorporate more environment into the shot?

Shooting Portraits With a Smoke Machine

Smoke is a great way to add atmosphere to your studio shots, but smoke can be a problem too if not planned properly as it fills up the studio and obstructs visibility. In this video, Gavin Hoey shares some nice tips on making your next smoke filled shoot go smooth and better.

Four Tips for Better Low Light Portraits

Capturing portraits at night or during low-light situations without strobes or speedlights can be tricky. You don't want to capture blurry or out of focus shots, so what can you do to help reduce taking bad photos?

The Real Story Behind Rudy Giuliani's Time Magazine Photoshoot

For many photographers, taking portraits of celebrities, athletes, and government officials seems like the pinnacle of a successful business. Sometimes, however, those jobs require an insane amount of work, risk, and safety precautions to pull off the shot. In today's Story Time With Monte Isom, we look at how Gregory Heisler captured Time's Man of the Year cover with NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani.

How to Capture Beautiful Images in Harsh Sunlight

Are you prepared to handle a session where the natural lighting conditions are difficult and there is no shade to turn to? Here are three techniques you can use to get beautiful photos in harsh conditions.

Five Different Looks Using a Single Black Hat

How far can you get with a single prop inside a small studio set up? The possibilities are limitless and it starts with your imagination. Getting the most from a single prop is both challenging and exciting. It is a great way to improve your portrait photography. In this case, Gavin Hoey uses a basic black sun hat as the prop and brings out five different looks.

Five Posing Ideas for Couples Shoots

Do you always resort to the same poses time and time again during your couples shoots? Need new poses for your arsenal? Check out these five ideas for your next couples session.

The Best Portrait Lens

What's your favorite portrait lens? In this video, Manny Ortiz picks his among a 35mm, 55mm, 85mm, and 70-200mm.

Photographer Turns Bullied Kids Into Superheros

One of the great things about photography is that it can empower people to feel more secure or confident in themselves, which is exactly what this awesome project does. Check out how one photographer is helping bullied kids regain their confidence.

Three Helpful Tips for Finding Great Portrait Locations Near You

Finding good portrait locations can be a bit of a challenge, particularly if you don't live in a sprawling metropolis with numerous options waiting to be explored. This helpful video will give you three tips to have a better chance of finding great portrait locations.

A Complete Guide to Successful Corporate Headshot Photography

If your specialty is portraiture, odds are that at some point, you'll be asked to do a corporate headshot session. These can be much different than a normal headshot session, however, so it's important to learn the unique requirements and considerations. This helpful will show you everything you need to know.

Five Tips for Finding the Perfect Portrait Angle

Are you looking to take your portrait work to the next level? If so, check out these five effective tips to help ensure you walk away with the perfect angle on your next photo shoot.

The Royal Wedding: The First Official Images

The first official photographs of the most talked about wedding of the year has now flooded the Internet. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex shared three of the images this morning and are simply stunning. They were released by Kensington Palace. The wedding was classic and stunning right down to the archway of flowers made of the favorite flowers of the late Princess Diana, Harry's mother.

You Don’t Need a Professional Model

It’s often thought that if you want to get into portraiture or fashion photography, you need to know models and get permission from their agencies to be part of your idea and shoot. In this video from Mango Street, they show how to shoot friends and how to get great shots doing so.

Seven Helpful Tips for Posing Subjects and Taking Better Photos

Posing can be one of the trickiest things to really get right in photography, as it has a lot of nuances that all need to be correct to really make an image work. This video will give you some useful tips for improving your posing and creating better photos.

Five Helpful Tips for Child Portraits

Photographing people, especially when they are not models, can come with some challenges. Not many have the experience of being in front of the camera. Throw some kids into the mix, and it can become a lot more difficult with a different set of obstacles during your session. What can you do?

How to Get Your Friends to Pose Like Models

If you are just starting out in photography and looking to build your portfolio, models may not be jumping at the chance to shoot with you to help you build your portfolio, so you may ask friends to help you out and be your models. Whether you're working with friends or as a portrait photographer shooting non-models every day, getting your subjects to be comfortable in front of a camera and to nail some killer poses isn’t going to happen naturally for most.

How to Pose Someone Who’s Never Modeled

Working with professional models, those who know exactly what moves to make and how to position their bodies, can be a rewarding experience. However, it's one that most of us don’t have the pleasure of on a regular basis. In this video, you’ll learn some great tips for making your everyday client look and feel like a pro.

How I Shot These Dramatic Bharatanatyam Dancer Portraits

I always wanted to shoot the portraits of a classic Bharatanatyam dancer, but by adding a modern touch to the 2000-year-old traditional dance form. Here is how we created dramatic dancer portraits with a little technique and lots of imagination.

How I Shot This With Color Gels

Color gels are a lot of fun to work with and when done well can add a certain oomph to your photo. It can also be intimidating and hard to get just right. And when I say just right, even that itself is very subjective. Some people prefer it to be subtle while others want the color to dominate in the image. There are also photographers who only use it for color balancing.

Know How to Pose and Be a Better Photographer

In this video, Sorelle Amore gives tips on posing for photos by posing herself. She shows on camera what the various ways are to create angles, lines, and curves that are more appealing and flattering than just standing there.

Creating Corporate Portraits for the Busy Professional

Today’s corporate hard-hitters are busy people who don’t always have time for an entire photo session when they look to you for business portraits. For this reason, you must be prepared to accomplish a variety of looks in a time-efficient manner. This video from Jay P. Morgan of The Slanted Lens focuses on the importance of making short work of corporate portraits.

Five Ways to Improve Your Posing

When it comes to taking images of couples, one of the biggest struggles photographers deal with is posing. Since posing can make or break and good image, these five tips can take your posing to next level.

The Number One Killer of Creativity

There is nothing quite as heartbreaking as the actual moment when your creativity is quashed. There are lots of culprits that can lead up to that moment, but I find that it's often traceable to a single action (or inaction) by another party.

Getting Museum Art Right at Your Fingertips

It is well known that if your client can hold the photograph, whether in an album or print, they are more likely to purchase it. They can feel it in a much more intimate way than just being on a computer screen. This idea was the very reason one photographer decided to step away from the traditional museum curation and create a pocket version that can be in the hands of art lovers everywhere.

Tips for Photographing Portraits on a Busy College Campus

I recently made a trip to the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona to photograph college graduation portraits. It was my first time on the ASU campus and my first time shooting college graduation photos. Here’s what I learned.

Photography's Most Important Element: Emotion

I think we can all agree that in order to be successful, a photograph needs to connect with its viewers on an emotional level. That emotion could be awe, desire, sadness, longing, or any number of the plethora of human emotions, but there needs to be an emotion.

Natural Light Versus Off-Camera Flash: Two Photographers Battle It Out

Natural light photography has swelled in popularity as sensors improve, but the persistent battle between off-camera flashes or strobes, and just using available light continues. This video shows Manny Ortiz going head-to-head with Jessica Kobeissi to highlight the differences.