Recent Portraits Articles

How to Deal With Harsh Sunlight in Portrait Photography

The beauty of working with flash is that you can walk into any lighting situation and shape it to your creative vision and needs, and that frees you from relying on the sun to cooperate and to dictate your shoot's timing and location. Perhaps no scenario is more challenging than harsh midday light. This helpful video tutorial will show you how to use off-camera flash to work with that harsh light to create compelling portraits.

The Focus Later Camera Shows Up On A Fashion Shoot

Remember the Lytro Camera that made it's viral rounds a few weeks ago? The camera that lets you focus after you take the photo has finally showed its head. Photographer Eric Chen has apparently been given a prototype of the miracle camera to test and put through the ringer. Shockingly enough, Eric did not use the camera at all for macro or multi-layered compositions that would best suit the Lytro. Instead he went into the streets of New York to shot fashion shots of super model Coco Rocha with little more than a reflector for lighting. I'll have to admit I wasn't too impressed with the image quality from this camera even with Eric giving his best efforts. What do you guys think; is this "focus after you take a photo" technology from Lytro ever going to live up to its promise? Either way, be sure to check out Eric's portfolio and and hit the full post to see the final Lytro images with variable focus points.
A Simple and Effective Two-Light Location Portrait Setup

When you are working in a studio, you can enjoy all the equipment you own without having to worry about how to carry it all along with you. When you work on location, however, you need to balance the complexity of your creative setups with how easily you can transport all your equipment. This helpful video tutorial will show you an effective two-light setup for on-location portraits that will yield compelling images.

How to Pose Males in Portrait Photography

It doesn't matter how perfect your settings both in and out of the camera are, if your subject is posed poorly, the shot will be all but ruined. Here is a guide to some techniques on posing males for your next portrait shoot.

Golden Hour Photography: A Guide to Mastering the Magic Light

Golden hour, the time just after sunrise or before sunset, offers a unique and enchanting light that photographers love. This magical hour presents an opportunity to create images with a warm, soft, and dreamy quality that can't be replicated at any other time of the day. This helpful video tutorial offers 10 tips sure to improve your portraits.

Double Exposure: What Happens When Exposing The Same Film (Or CF) Twice

Double Exposure is something most of us who ever had a film camera experienced at least once. By accident. It happened when the film got stuck, or when we used a used film again by mistake. With the digital age coming in and replacing film, in-camera double exposures became a very rare kind of photography, but in recent years, many DSLRs added the option to create a double exposure in camera, and this old style came back to life. Check out these great examples of Double Exposure found on Flickr.

'Sleep in Transit' Interview With Portrait Photographer Willis Bretz

People create photo series for a number of different reasons. Sometimes you come up with an idea and pursue it while others just fall into your lap unexpectedly. For portrait photographer Willis Bretz the Washington D.C. metrorail system is where his series was brought to life or rather awakened from other commuters' slumber. We sit down and talk about his series entitled, 'Sleep in Transit'.

Saving A Bad Retouch | Recovering Texture and Tone From an Overdone Retouch

Knowing when to stop is the hardest lesson to learn for those new to retouching. In this tutorial we will look at how to recover lost texture and over smoothed skin tones, even when your file has been flattened. In this image the texture has been over retouched resulting in a significant loss in the skin texture. The transitions between skin tones have also been slightly overdone. Frequency Separation is a term we see in retouching all the time its also a technique I'm working on using less and less and bring in as a last resort. By using frequency separation here we can borrow texture and...

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.

Adding Fake Snow to Your Winter Themed Portraits

Shooting the different seasons of the year is great, especially now that winter has officially started. You can shoot the same locations with a completely different mood and look. What happens when you want to shoot snow, but there isn’t any? Perhaps it’s too cold for the wardrobe styling and the subject. You can always fake it, right?

Five Steps to Photography Greatness

A chilly September morning. The crispness in the air added weight to the solemn moment. My composition was all figured out. I patiently waited for the final elements to come into place.

How to Shoot Classic Portraits in Incredibly Tight Spaces

Portrait photographers don’t always have the luxury of working in a nice large studio with loads of room to shuffle strobes and modifiers. If you’ve ever wondered how to get classic, timeless results when shooting in cramped, often improvised spaces, check out this short video.

Swimsuit Modeling Photography Tips, Joey Wright BTS Episode 3

Swimwear Photography with Joey Wright Behind The Scenes continues today with Episode 3. In last week's episode we started filmed the first lesson of the entire tutorial but in this episode we cover 3 full days of filming.

Step by Step Guide To Wet Plate Photography

Guest writer Josh LeClair is a commercial photographer based out of Marquette, MI. After seeing the stunning work done by Ian Ruhter with wet plate photography, he decided to try it for himself. LeClair does it on on a much smaller scale using a holga camera.

These Celebrity Light-Painting Portraits Were Photographed in a Single Take

Photographer Jason D Page was invited by Wango Tango festival 2019 to create a series of light painting portraits with some of the acts playing over the weekend, including Halsey, CNCO, and The Jonas Brothers. The photos were shot in a single take, with a team creating the surreal effects using light-painting brushes.

7 Tips for Casting the Right Model for Your Next Shoot

Working with models can be an exciting part of photography, as each model can lend a different look and unique perspective to your vision. Casting a model appropriately for each project is an important part of a photographer’s job, as it speaks to their ability to manage their ideas and make them a reality. Just as a casting director will carefully select the best actors for appropriate roles, the same is true for casting the right model for the right photoshoot. Below we will review some guidelines for making the most out of working with models, in order to produce the best photographs...

How Are Fill Lights Used for Portrait Photography?

You can absolutely create professional-level portraits using nothing but a single key light, but once you move into multi-light setups, you get a bit more creative and technical control over the final image. One of the first ways to do this is by adding a fill light, and this excellent video tutorial will show you what it is and how it can be used to create better portraits.

Luchador Fighter Portrait Series Behind The Scenes

Last year, I decided to pursue a fun portrait series of Luchador fighters from the Chikara Pro Wrestling League, located on the East Coast of the US. I've always been fascinated with this style of fighting and entertainment. These big colorful characters take the ring to pummel each other to the great delight of their dedicated fans. Some may call it "fake" or a performance, but I can tell you first hand that I saw blood drawn during a match on more than one occasion. These fighters are dedicated to their craft and I wanted nothing more than to capture them on camera.

How To Get a Natural Look With Flash

There are lots of people who like and prefer a natural light look over flash, but sometimes the conditions outside may not cooperate with you to produce great results. Sometimes you have to grab a flash, here's a few ways you can get a more natural look when you do.

Fstoppers Reviews the Sigma 50mm 1.4 Art for Sony E

Today I’ll be talking about the Sigma 50mm 1.4 Art lens for Sony E mount. As with my prior review of the 35mm version, I will be going over the topics that are relevant to me which are sharpness, focusing, bokeh, and usability.

A Quick Video Guide To Dealing With Moire

As a fashion and catalog photographer moire is an issue I am all too familiar with. These days, as more and more cameras opt to do without the low pass filter, you might find yourself dealing with moire in some unfortunate places. Adorama has put together a wonderful video that explains moire, how to avoid it before taking a shot, and how to deal with it after the shot has already been captured.

Philippe Kerlo Shoots Beauty Shots Through Plexiglass and Paint

Philippe Kerlo is a really creative beauty and fine art photographer based out of Paris France. Some people are dubbing his work as "extreme glamour" which might be a fitting title. I was recently turned onto his work by one of our readers when they sent us this video of him shooting beauty portraits through plexiglass covered with paint, acrylic, wax, and other colored materials. The results are really stunning and the idea is so simple I thought I had to share it with everyone. Be sure to check out Philippe's portfolio because his work has a lot of interesting angles like the photos shown in the full post.
Five Tips for Posing Couples

Their title may mislead you into think this is just another step one, two, three, posing tutorial but lifestyle and wedding photographers Rachel Gulotta and Daniel Inskeep along with Carlton Banks (a.k.a. Mango Street Lab) are quick to point out that it's directing, as opposed to posing, that gets results. If you follow the wisdom provided in these five simple insights you'll find your subjects falling into their own natural rhythms, resulting in more meaningful images with little to no need to tell subject "A" to put their hand here, and subject "B" there.

A Photographer's Perspective on Pinterest

"Do you think we could do these photos that I found on Pinterest?" If you are a wedding photographer, or even a family photographer, it is more than likely you have heard this phrase before. My friends, Troy and Aimee Grover, extremely talented photographers in Southern California, decided to write up a post for future brides that shares the photographer's perspective on Pinterest, along with tips for brides. It's a fantastic read. With their permission I wanted to share some of the key ideas with our readers here.

How to Shape Light Using a Parabolic Reflector

In this video, Karl Taylor and Urs Recher experiment with and demonstrate the uses of a Parabolic reflector. Using a model who is wearing white against a white background, they produce a number of portraits demonstrating how to shape the Para light to separate the model from the background. The versatility of this practice is quite astounding as the photographer is able to stand in front of the light and have it still perfectly illuminate the model and is a simple one light set up.

Three Lighting Setups Every Photographer Can Use

Being a good photographer often means knowing where to position your lights to create the desired effect. However, the placement of your lights is only part of the equation; sometimes, it's just as important to set the color of your lights as well. In today's video, I'll show you three different lighting setups that also use color to alter the final images.

Which Of These Images Is Best? Vote Now!

Update: The results are in. Patrick and I are once again competing to see who can photograph the same model best. It's up to you to decide.