When color grading your work, don't overlook the importance of targeting the skin tones in your workflow. Perfecting the skin color can drastically help your images, but how would you color grade skin?

When working with models, posing is an important element in the shot. If you are not comfortable with posing your models, or maybe they are not as experienced, there's a lot of information to help you learn from when working with female models. When working with male models, not every approach will work the same and there are not as many resources out there.

A British photographer has unveiled her new series, "Birth Undisturbed." Initially aspiring to recreate her own home birthing experiences, Natalie Lennard’s images depict stories of women both real and imagined, as she aims to “bring the rawness of primal birth into the art world.”

Do you crave the look of a high-end, hand-painted portrait backdrop for your studio, but don't want to shell out the bucks for such a luxury? Why not grab your favorite roll of seamless paper and fake it ‘til you make it?

Flashguns and strobe lights aren't just for capturing perfectly exposed subjects, they can be valuable as creative assets too.

Have you ever had an inkling to give self portraits a go? This can be a great way to improve your photography and boost your confidence, but how do you get started? Here's a few tips when it comes to shooting self portraiture!

The end of another month, and another batch of great images you all produced! If you haven't yet, make sure you join our Fstoppers Facebook Group, which has grown to over 4,700 members strong. Looking to improve? This is the place to do it. But enough about that, let's look at the images that made the most noise in the month of July.

Once you have mastered the basic properties of light by working with a single source, you can begin to explore your creativity with more advanced lighting setups. This fantastic video tutorial will show you an advanced four-light headshot setup for creating an eye-catching image and everything you need to know to replicate it in your own work.

Portrait photography is one of the most popular genres out there, and though it can be quite challenging, it can also be very rewarding. If you are just starting your portrait photography journey and feeling a bit overwhelmed, check out this fantastic video tutorial that shares everything you need to get started, ranging from technical skills to developing a creative mindset and starting a business.

Portrait photography can be a real challenge given all the factors you need to balance simultaneously, and the two that often give photographers some of the greatest difficulties are posing and composition. If those are factors you tend to struggle with, check out this helpful video tutorial that follows a photographer on a shoot while offering a range of useful tips to improve your work.

While learning artificial lighting can feel a bit daunting, it makes you a far more versatile photographer and frees you up to explore many creative avenues that would not be possible otherwise. You do not need to start with expensive equipment, though; a speedlight and small modifier are a portable and affordable way to learn. This excellent video tutorial will show you everything you need to know to photograph a portrait using a speedlight.

One of the best things about shooting film is that there are so many cameras to choose from! Of course, your wallet may disagree with me. The number of formats, combined with the different brands, form factors, lenses, and options make shooting with film almost impossible to get bored with. If you're at all familiar with my articles on Fstoppers, you know that I tend to focus on film and bringing it to a new audience. To that end, I've created a new video series profiling various film gear, some of it well known, some not so much! In my quest to learn about and use different systems, I hope you'll learn along with me. First up, a medium format rangefinder style camera from Fujifilm: the GF670.

One of the first lighting techniques I learned in graduate school was Paramount lighting. It's an easy way to come up with consistently solid portraits of almost anyone. Here's a quick tutorial from Adorama and fashion photographer Lindsey Adler on how to get that just right.

Shooting low key portraits is fun. It does not require any fancy equipment, only the right understanding of light and the execution of the idea in mind. In this video from Adorama TV, Gavin Hoey explains his school of thought on shooting low key portraits in a small studio setup.

A retouch of the eyes is on every portrait photographer's image editing to-do list. This important alteration is also one of the easiest adjustments to spot when unintentionally overdone. See how this Lightroom-specific technique will help bring out that shine in your subjects eyes, without pushing things too far.

In various forms of photography, being able to composite several photos into one final image is an important skill set. In the world of portraiture, composites are often used to create group shots in which the lighting situation is difficult or not every subject of the photo is available at one given time. Here I’ll show my process for blending several shots of people into a final image.

Photographing a couple from up close can drastically change the way your image feels. Getting up close with a wide angle lens creates a sense of action and aliveness that draws the viewer in.

In this simple lighting tutorial, I discuss three different ways to fashion and portrait images with a single beauty dish.

When you're successful you get tons of requests, but sometimes there's that one that captures your interest and intrigues you. That's what happened recently to Benjamin Von Wong. A woman by the name of Nicole emailed Benjamin's agent asking what she thought was an impossible favor, to be featured in one of Ben's magical and dream-like sessions, on very short notice.

Portraiture is a challenging genre that requires sharp skills with the camera, in lighting, post-processing, and your ability to work with and pose a subject. If you have been feeling a little unsure of your work lately and need something to get you back on track, check out this great video tutorial that will give you five helpful tips to improve your portraits.

Anthony Duron and Mark Rainwater were one of the first same-sex couples married in Indiana on June 27th, 2014 after a federal judge overturned the state's ban on gay marriage. Unfortunately, a federal appeals court put a hold on the ruling and they have been waiting in a sort of limbo ever since. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently deciding whether to hear the issue of gay marriage from several states, so many couples like Anthony and Mark have been waiting anxiously for vindication over the last three months. I was honored with the opportunity to take portraits of these two gentlemen and I learned a lot about love and life along the way.

A couple weeks ago, we asked the community to submit their natural light portraits to be critiqued. We had an overwhelming number of over 300 images submitted for feedback and thus will be breaking up this critique into two episodes of 20 images each. For the first episode, we had the honor of having Dani Diamond, a fantastic natural light photographer in New York, help us critique a range of 20 images. Check out the selection of pictures below and add your thoughts to the comments!

With every passing year, we see many professional photographers go out of business and twice as many aspiring professionals try to pick up their mantle. If you want to stay in business, it's as easy as investing in your clients.

Weather can dictate a lot of elements of a shoot, and in some cases, it can ruin it altogether. That doesn't always have to be true though, and you can even use the elements to your advantage.

In this article and the accompanying video, I will show you how to create four unique portrait looks using one light and v-flats.