We often talk quite a bit about the virtues of different portraits lenses, how various lighting techniques render your subject, and how different poses make for a flattering final image. But one thing that does not get discussed enough is how to make your subject comfortable in front of the camera. This fantastic video discusses the importance of doing so and several techniques that will help.

One of the trickiest things about being a portrait photographer is being able to come up with a variety of backgrounds in a small area in a short amount of time. Here are five tips to make it easier.

There are few people on the planet who know as much about headshots as Peter Hurley. In this helpful video tutorial, he discusses the sort of camera gear and settings you should consider for your headshot work.

We can talk fairly objectively about camera settings and post-processing techniques, but something that remains a bit more nebulous and difficult to learn is posing. This great video will show you a range of great poses for your next wedding or engagement shoot.

Picking up artificial lighting can be a bit daunting for a lot of photographers, but if you want to take complete technical control of your portraits and expand your creativity, it is something you have to master at one time or another. If you are new to artificial lighting and unsure of how to get started, check out this helpful video tutorial that will show you three steps sure to get you on your way to using flash comfortably.

Golden hour is the holy grail of times for photographers of almost all genres; whether you're taking a landscape in Iceland or a fitness portrait, early and late sun is the most flattering. However, it can also be the most challenging.

When it comes to working with models (whether it be aspiring or established), there is one trait that I value above all others. If you're thinking that I'm going to say cheek bones, freckles, or a specific hair color you're way, way off.

Few names are more synonymous with headshot photography than Peter Hurley. In this helpful video, he offers five fantastic tips on lighting for headshots that will improve your work in no time.

Many photographers love to shoot natural light portraits for a variety of reasons, and with them come their own sets of challenges. This awesome video will give lots of tips to shoot better and more creative natural light portraits.

We're lucky to live in an age when learning photography is easier than ever, but normally, educational content tends to focus on specific techniques or ideas. While that's generally fine, sometimes, it's helpful to see the entire creative process from start to finish to understand why different steps were taken and different decisions were made. This helpful video will show you just that.

Few photographic subjects are iconic than Marilyn Monroe, and even today, decades later, images of her capture viewers' eyes and photographers' imaginations. This awesome video tutorial will take you behind the scenes of a fine art nude portrait inspired by Marilyn Monroe and show you how it was lit, photographed, and edited.

Silhouette portraits are always fun to experiment with, and it’s easy to assume that we are limited to sunrise and sunset for capturing this type of image. With knowledge of camera exposure settings and a single off-camera flash, this style of portrait can be produced at any time of day or night.

Specialized lenses are tricky things. Since they are built for a set of specific purposes in mind, they really need to follow through on that small list of tasks lest they be discarded as an unnecessary expenditure. That is a lot of pressure to make an outstanding lens, so how did Sigma fare with their new 180mm f/2.8 macro? Is it a good addition to your lens collection?

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.

By far, one of the most common types of portraits you will be asked to shoot are those with a clean, white background. It is a simple, elegant, and versatile look that will never go out of style. If you struggle with artificial lighting, this excellent video tutorial will show you how you can easily shoot high-quality portraits with clean, white backgrounds.

Ready to finally learn how to easily set up three-point lighting for your portraits? Watch this.

Buying a macro lens is useful for a lot of photographers in a number of different genres, however, it's a difficult purchase to justify if you do not do much macro photography specifically. If it had some other purposes it would be a more palatable purchase, and if you take any portraits, it does have.

Controlling light is one of the most difficult challenges a photographer must master. Even if you have years of experience under your belt, it can still be difficult to decide which light modifier to use with your strobes or if you should even be using strobes at all. In this video and article, I'm going to share with you five of my favorite light modifiers and how they can produce drastically different results.

There are a couple of ways for models to get into an agency, including hiring a photographer to take photos of them and using those to show an agency their range. This requires the photographer to work quickly and efficiently to get as many different looks as possible in a compressed amount of time to save them money.

Perhaps a better question to ask is: “Why am I a photographer?” In recent months, I feel like I've completely lost touch with why I became a photographer. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love what I do, but sometimes I forget why. When I was first starting out as a photographer and all of my shoots were “just for fun,” it was easy to see why I enjoyed it. After all, there were no consequences if I screwed something up, and I looked at photography as more of an escape from reality than a job.

Andreas Poupoutsis is a fine art photographer based in New York City but originally from another small island on the other side of the world. His work is a little mysterious and even somewhat odd. His figures and faces often emerge from shadows, allowing for the objects to be (sometimes literally) painted with light. The work often speaks to a search for personal identity - something all artists struggle with; the faces in his images are often not integral to the image itself.

Portraiture is one of the most popular genres of photography for many reasons and photographs of people are often the ones that are looked at the most and for the longest. One style within portraiture that is a staple is the dramatic look. In this video, watch a start-to-finish edit of a portrait with the dramatic look as the end goal.

One of the most powerful, but often misused tools in Photoshop is the liquify filter. The liquify filter can help you restructure a subject’s shape, hair, or attire. In this introduction to using the liquify tool, I’ll cover ways to enhance your subject’s features so that they maintain natural body proportions.

A few weeks ago we offered to critique a handful of headshot photographs from the Fstoppers Community. I was able to sit down with professional headshot photographer Peter Hurley for his advice on how you guys can help improve your own headshot photos. Since there were so many submissions we were only able to get to about 18 images, but don't worry because next week Lee and David will tackle many of the images that did not make this episode of Critique the Community.

Recently I had an opportunity to try my hand at creating the new hotness in cyberspace, Flixel Photos Inc.’s Cinemagraph Pro for Mac, what they are calling a living photo creation software. Cinemagraph Pro allows users to easily create Cinemagraph images, a media form that combines elements of a moving video to a high quality still photograph or referred to as 'hybrid photography.'

If you've ever seen portraits with some wild reflections and funky lighting effects, it's entirely possible that it's not a multiple exposure or post-processed image. Using a cheap prism, you can duplicate some of these effects in camera.