Recent Portraits Articles

Andrea Bruce Documents an Iraqi Family's Journey West

Publications allowing individual photographers access to their Instagram accounts is an increasingly common practice, and helps to foster a more intimate look at a photographer’s process. For example, Time Magazine allowed several photographers access to its Instagram account after Hurricane Sandy, enabling the magazine to update its almost 600k followers in real time.

'Killing the Rock' - Escaping Civil War Through Creativity

The best photographs and films don’t just bring beautiful visuals to the table. They also place story right at the center of their very make up. “Killing The Rock” (KTR) is a five minute demonstration of this, and reminds us of how commitment to our craft combined with small collaborative like-minded souls can tell stories that go deeper and reach further than we ever could going at it alone.

Creative Portrait Techniques Using Beauty Dishes and Gels

A beauty dish offers ways to elevate portrait photography through dramatic and defined illumination. Mastering this modifier unlocks fresh creative options, particularly if you've typically relied on softer lighting.

Santa's Photographers Get a Jump on Spreading Happiness and Joy to Hospitalized Children

The Christmas holiday brings to mind images of children in their home, opening the gifts Santa left the night before. One pictures the entire family in their pajamas sitting around the living room as wrapping paper flies and the children’s faces light up with surprise. However, for too many children, this image is replaced with the hard, cold reality of celebrating Christmas in a hospital. But The Heart Project along with Santa are out to change those images for a few lucky children.

How To Shoot Fashion Photography In A Pool

Even if you have never shot pictures underwater before, I bet it has crossed your mind. I know I've tried it a few times and failed miserably. Luckily there are talented guys out there like Cal Mero who are masters at shooting below the surface. Check out his latest BTSV which is packed full of priceless underwater shooting tips. Do you want more info on shooting underwater? Check out DivePhotoGuide.com

Cal Mero Underwater Fashion Photographer from DivePhotoGuide.com on Vimeo.

A Chinese New Year In the Desert

We've featured the work of David Nguyen in the past and this time he has taken his whole production to new level. In his most recent photoshoot, Whispers in the Wind, David takes his creative team out to a desert and creates some really inspiring composite beauty images. The theme is sort of a Chinese New Year, and David has included wild elephants, tigers, rabbits, and birds into the final shots. I love it when artists take a concept to the max and really push their own creative aspirations. If you have not checked out David's portfolio, you are really missing out. Now if only we could get some BTS on how he made these composites!
5 Helpful Tips for Posing Couples

Posing is something a lot of photographers struggle with, particularly since it is not something you can just learn objective values for like you can with camera settings. If that is something you are struggling with a bit, check out this fantastic video tutorial that will show you five tips for posing couples.

Leica Summicron-SL 50mm f/2 Versus Sigma 50mm f/2

The 50mm is a staple prime and lives in many photographers' camera bags, but the question is whether there is a vast difference in quality between them. In this video, a Leica and a Sigma are compared to gauge the differences.
Kam Khan Shoots Clothing Fighting In "VS."

Kam Khan is most well known for his incredible self portraits but he decided to mix things up with his newest shoot. In the video below, Khan shows us how he brings clothing to life with some strobes and photoshop work. The video is by no means a big production but the concept is a pretty unique idea. Check out his full blog writeup here. <
Jonathan Ryan Shoots Underwater Bridals

Lee and I are wrapping up our trip to WPPI in Las Vegas which is basically the largest wedding convention in the US. So today after meeting with tons of wedding professionals we thought it might be fun to showcase an underwater bridal shoot. Jonathan Ryan is a wedding photographer in Canterbury, England and in this video he is using a few strobes, a Nikon D3, and our favorite Ewa-Marine underwater housing to take some unique bridals underwater. It's pretty interesting to see how Jonathan syncs his strobes underwater since radio transmitters are pretty much useless around water.
David Hobby Deconstructs A Portrait

We get a lot of emails from readers pointing us to interesting photoshoots and many times the videos themselves offer very little insight into the mind of the photographer. Unfortunately this video has no such commentary from David Hobby but the good news is he has a complete article outlining how he shot this portrait of cellist Caleb Jones. Watch David as he uses his Orbis Ring Flash and Umbrella to get his signature look. He also does a great job making Caleb feel at home in front of the camera. Props to Erik Couse for using his iPhone 3Gs to capture something creative!

Behind the Scenes - Caleb Jones Photo Shoot from Erik Couse on Vimeo.

Behind the Scenes: Check Out This Golden and Blue Hour Portrait Shoot

Finding the best light to bathe our subjects can be one of the most challenging parts of planning a photoshoot. We strive for those beautiful golden hour photos and sometimes completely dismiss other parts of the day. Harsh sunlight can be difficult and cloudy can be flat, but what about blue hour?

Shooting Natural Light Video Portraits

For several years now, many of us have used Instagram as our primary outlet for sharing and viewing images. However, Instagram has made it clear that the platform is shifting its focus to video. If you haven’t been practicing capturing portraits on video, now might be a good time to start learning how to do so.

How To Mix Lights on Location

Being a photographer means being able to adapt to any given lighting situation to create images that are remarkable. In this video, Sophia Carey shares some of her insights with a behind-the-scenes look at a night portrait shoot on film.

Tadao Cern Gets a Portrait of Famous Artist Vincent Van Gogh

Of course, if you ever learned anything about art history, you know Vincent van Gogh has long been dead. That didn't stop the creative mind that brought you the Blow Job series from posting the backwards claim on his blog that someone had turned his old portrait photograph into a painting. Aside from Tadao Cern putting some good humor into his work, it's stunning to see the photo-shopped transition from painting to photograph.

Are You Ready to Capture the Other Moment?

There is an old saying that "you only find what you are looking for." It's critical for any artist, including we photographers, to know what it is that we are working to create. To have a vision and stay true to it so that it will become a reality. When you go out with the intent of creating images you know what you want, right? You choose the location, the time of day, maybe the lighting, certainly the subject, and of course what gear that you need to bring it all together. We tend to be control freaks to make sure that we get what we want.

Seniors Ignite Series - Tips For Building A Senior Rep Program

Last month we interviewed Jen Basford of Seniors Ignite and 3 girls photography about reasons why you should have a senior rep program. The full article can be found here. This month we are getting into specifics of what is takes to build a successful senior rep/model program and insight on how Jen built a program that sees continued success.

One Easy Way You Can Film BTS of Your Photo/Video Shoots

Look, I think we've all been there, none of us want to have to bring extra stands, tripods/monopods, or even extra cameras just to get behind-the-scenes images (BTS for short from here on out) or video for our websites or social media, even though we'd all love to have that content. After some trial and error, I think I've landed on a fun and flexible solution by using a 360 action camera but there are some things to know before you get started so let’s get into it.

Jeremy Cowart Explains Photography To Chase Jarvis

After starting off as a graphic designer, Jeremy Cowart stepped onto the photography scene with a sink or swim mentality. I love the series Chase Jarvis is doing over at Creative Live with real photographers, and this one with Jeremy is top notch. Chase definitely subscribes to our mentality of sharing knowledge freely, and I think you can learn a lot from this video whether you are a professional photographer or just someone who enjoys it as a hobby. I almost did not post this because the audio at the beginning is really rough on the speakers so be forewarned. Also while you are watching this video, head over to Jeremy's website to see a wide variety of images within his portfolio.
Photos Raise Awareness on World Homeless Day

Homelessness is something most of us encounter on a daily or weekly basis, but few of us have ever had to personally experience the hardship of being homeless. Many of us probably probably don't realize that today, October 10th, is World Homeless Day; a day started in 2010 which is observed by every major continent and dozens of countries. Its goal is to draw attention to homeless people’s needs locally, and provide opportunities for the community to get involved in responding to homelessness.

Behind the Scenes: 'Sing Like No One Is Watching' Photo Series

We all have our favorite songs that we sing when are going through bad times or want to pump ourselves up. In this hilarious photo series, a photographer captures his friends singing their favorite songs and imagining that the camera is not there. See which song each person was singing!

Photographic History: Documenting an Empire, by the Abdullah Frères

Graphics are international, with photographic ideas and images spreading like wildfire. They speak a universal language, are pan-cultural, yet have their own local meanings and understandings. This sounds like the world of Instagram, 500px, YouTube, and Flickr, but it’s actually 1858, and the Abdullah Frères are setting up their photographic studio in Constantinople.

How Our Community Made Senior Photos Happen During COVID

Our local high school had an idea to get senior photos taken for the young adults that have been working their whole life to achieve something, only to have it turn into an afterthought overshadowed by a serious global pandemic.

5 Helpful Tips for Better Black and White Portraits

A black and white portrait can be one of the most powerful ways to represent a person, but it takes more than just desaturating a color image to make an effective final photo. If you would like to learn how to do that, check out this fantastic video tutorial that will give you five tips sure to help you create better black and white portraits.

Space Shuttle Program Turns 30, Takes An Epic Picture

This month NASA's space shuttle program turned 30. To commemorate the occasion they decided to take a single image that included every single employee standing together in the shape of a shuttle.