Portrait Photography

Last week, I sat down to do four portrait retouching courses from Chris Orwig. This enormous bundle of informative and accessible tutorials is packed with easily digested information. My confidence when it comes to editing portraits is now significantly higher.

When you think of portraits, you probably do not think of long exposures. But incorporating long exposures can be a fantastic way to give your portraits a very unique look that stands out from the crowd. This great video will show you how to create an eye-catching engagement portrait the incorporates motion from a long exposure for a striking look.

When you think of lighting, you might think of splitting things between either natural light or artificial lights, but strobes can be a great way to balance out an exposure with varying levels of ambient light. This excellent video will show you how you can use a strobe or even just its modeling light to create great golden hour or nighttime portraits.

Retouching a portrait in Photoshop often takes the use of a wide variety of techniques, all of which you must have a good grasp of to create a professional image. This fantastic video will show you how to use frequency separation, dodging and burning, color grading, and more to retouch a portrait in Photoshop.

Elle Mexico is determined to continue working throughout COVID-19 by finding creative and safe ways to do so. For their latest issue and cover story, a photographer took to using a drone to capture the editorial from above, while respecting social distancing guidelines.

A lot of beauty images use fairly complicated lighting setups, but you might be surprised by the great results you can get from just a single light. This fantastic video will show you the process behind lighting, shooting, and editing a single-light beauty setup.

We’re all said to have a doppelganger — someone who looks just like us. And that has never been apparent more so than in this photo series. One photographer tasked himself with taking portraits of people from all around the world who look not only related, but near-identical to each other.

A photographer has put together this behind-the-scenes video to show how we created a realistic “punch portrait.” Mike Smith has managed to pull off an image of himself seemingly being punched, except there’s one catch – no direct contact was made at all.

One of the greatest tools you have at your disposal for creating mood within a portrait is controlling the contrast through your lighting setups. This excellent video will show you how you can use lighting to control the contrast in portraits and create more dynamic photos.

If you are currently stuck at home and looking for something to shoot, now is a perfect time experiment with different creative ideas to keep your technical skills sharp and to continue to develop your style. This fantastic video will show you how you can set up, shoot, and edit an eye-catching mixed light portrait. 

You might be surprised by the sort of unique images you can create just by using common objects in a creative manner and adding a bit of unusual technique. This fantastic video tutorial will show you how a photographer combined shutter dragging with a bit of creative prop usage to shoot this fascinating portrait. 

One of the best tests of a photographer's lighting skill is their ability to use natural light and strobes together in an organic and convincing manner. This fantastic video tutorial will walk you through the method of using gelled strobes and natural light together to create this portrait along with the editing process in Capture One and Photoshop.

Inspiration can be hard to source at the moment, I'm sure I'm not alone on that. Fortunately, one photographer is printing creativity en masse and giving it away for free.

Life as we know it has suddenly changed, and most of our businesses have ground to a near stop. Many of us were left scrambling to figure out how to keep some sort of work coming in. But when you primarily photograph people, yet your state has issued stay-at-home orders, you really have to explore ways to carry on.

Mary Bel is a single mom of 2 teenage kids, works full time, and finds a small glimpse of love, through self-portraiture.

Justin and Kirby share some great tips on how to pose normal people. What do you do when your subject isn't an experienced model? Give them lots of encouragement, and show them the poses you have in mind. 

Jessica Kobeissi and Kayleigh June share some quick and actionable portrait tips that don't need any special equipment — what's not to love! 

If you are thinking about shooting nude models, there are a few extra things you want to consider beyond other photoshoots. Here are a few tips to help you get started.

Environmental portraits are a fantastic chance to show off your creativity and to tell a compelling story about your subject. This fantastic video will give you lots of helpful tips to improve your environmental portraits. 

Beauty photography can be a great chance to balance careful, precise lighting and to work on really perfecting precise retouching. This fantastic video will show you the process behind lighting, shooting, and editing this fantastic editorial beauty photo. 

When stuck at home, a portrait shooter turns the lens back on themselves.

A successful portrait takes the confluence of multiple factors, including lighting, composition, location choice, posing, expression, and more. This excellent video will show you how location scouting, composition, and posing came together to create two portraits and give you some helpful tips for your own work. 

You don't need a model to practice your portraiture; you'll do just fine yourself! Here are some more ideas on creative and unusual self-portraits for you to try.

Stuck at home and running out of photo ideas and new episodes of “Tiger King?” Why not accept a fun new social media challenge to try your hand at celebrity portraiture.

Recreating classic portraits can be both a fun creative exercise and a great way to sharpen your technical skills. This awesome video will take you behind the scenes of recreating a classic Audrey Hepburn portrait and adding a modern twist. 

Photographers directing virtual photoshoots through video calls has become the new trend, since lockdown laws were enforced throughout the world. However, one photographer has gone a step further and has managed to produce what may just be the first ever wet plate portrait taken over a live stream, through video call app Zoom.

Photographers who do not specialize in portraiture or other genres involving working with people may not own dedicated professional lighting equipment suitable for the task. But almost every photographer owns a speedlight, and you might be surprised by how versatile they can be for lighting portraits. This great video tutorial will show you how to take effective portraits using a single speedlight.

Posing can be a difficult skill for a lot of photographers to master, and of course, it can twice as tricky when you add in a second person. If posing couples is something you need to work on, this fantastic video will give you tons of helpful advice for posing couples for engagements photos.

There’s something magical about watching a Polaroid coming to life in your hands. The little piece of instant film is a moment of captured time that is always a joy to have, but there is something about the scope of Ken Yu’s Polaroid Project that makes it truly special.

A lot of more advanced portrait styles require the use of multiple lights to fully craft the images, but you might be surprised by how much you can still accomplish with just a single light. This great video tutorial will show you how to light and shoot this eye-catching black and white portrait using only a single strobe.

With all the lockdowns across the world due to the coronavirus pandemic, quite a few photographers have been left without subjects to shoot. If you want to keep shooting, you might have considered turning to self-portraits but be at a loss for how to pose yourself. If you are struggling with that, this fantastic video tutorial features professional models giving a range of helpful tips for posing in self-portraits. 

New York is the city that never sleeps. It’s a city that’s famous for it’s bustling streets and the weird and wonderful community that populate it. It’s a hub of activity, or at least it was until lockdown.

Who says that during the self distancing period you cannot meet and photograph others from the comfort of your own home? Who says you need your camera at all?

A photographer has taken striking portraits of his wife, a nurse, to illustrate the importance of why we must stay home during these unprecedented times. The pictures serve as a visual reminder of the front line workers facing a daily battle against the current pandemic.

If there's one subject you're always going to have access to, it's you. Here are three great ideas that can work as templates or inspiration for some self-portraits to try.

Beauty images are a wonderful chance for you to find your personal style through your choices of lighting, posing, and editing. This excellent video tutorial will show you how a photographer used two lights and gels to create a unique beauty image.

If you have an ear for music or you're tuned into pop culture, you're likely aware that Kenny Rogers passed away last week. Did you know that he was also an avid photographer? Did you know that Rogers was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum?

This photographer specializes in photographing red squirrels, and has spent over 6 years doing so, even running squirrel workshops and publishing 8 squirrel books. Here are some of the best shots he’s captured which illustrate the intriguing personality of the animal.

Strict laws around social distancing has meant an abrupt halt to most photographers’ shooting schedules. One creative wedding photographer, however, is finding a resourceful way to continue taking portraits while documenting lockdown: he’s using his drone to take pictures of his neighbors and their families.

Truth, at best, is always an unstable concept, especially when combined with the medium of photography. This fascinating short video from Jamie Windsor takes one of the most famous portraits ever taken, reveals its deception, and explores the implications.

While many photographers are using the lockdown to brush up on their skills or work on personal projects, this Condé Nast photographer found a creative alternative to producing full-fledged photoshoots with models. 

With most of us on lockdown to some degree, the number of video calls for work and pleasure have increased exponentially. So, you might as well work out how to make yourself look halfway passable, rather than the cave-dwelling ogre you might without forethought.

While stuck at home, self portraits are a great way to practice photography and editing. So watch this video by a grand master of those two thing, Brooke Shaden, for some insight and a glance at her workflow.

They say there's nothing new under the sun, and perhaps they're right. But with a little innovation, you can certainly create some less old.

Sitting at home starting to bring you down ? Michael Sasser has brought you 8 tips to maximize your downtime during quarantine. Most of which are items you might have been putting off for some time. 

A long time ago, I got to visit a friend down in the south of England. We drank (quite a lot of beer), we ate (lots of chocolate brownies), and we set up to shoot a moody portrait.

It's always best to get it right in camera, but sometimes, there are cases where subtle things may go unnoticed but become visible later during the retouching process. Having the right set of tools is crucial. 

Sarah Lyndsay is brand new to the YouTube scene, but an experienced photographer already and known for her epic landscape self-portraits. In her first video, she shares five tips on how she makes her photos.

We often see videos that pit amateur photographers against professionals, but the twist of this one is showing what a photographer in eighth grade can accomplish when shooting against a professional. It is quite impressive!