Three Helpful Tips for Better Portraits

Portrait photography is a popular, though often difficult genre in which to be successful. This helpful video will give you three tips to improve your portrait images. 

Coming to you from B&H Photo and Video, this great video features Lindsay Adler discussing three helpful tips to improve your portrait photography work. Of the tips, I think that being aware of distractions in your compositions is an important thing to keep in mind. When you're shooting portraits, it's easy to become very focused on your subject to the point of not noticing other things in the frame, which could include distractions that undermine the compositions. When I was first starting out, I frequently came home from portrait shoots and saw distracting elements that had entered the frame that I hadn't even realized were there when I was shooting. I made it a point to train myself to do a last-second check before clicking the shutter, and my compositions improved noticeably. Of course, the main focus of your attention should be your subject, but taking a second to monitor how the shooting environment is evolving around them can make a big difference. Check out the video above for more helpful tips! 

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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2 Comments

Good tips. You may consider mentioning to choose a clean background. All photos used as references in this video have very cluttered backgrounds, with many things which simply take the viewer's attention away from a portrait, and ruin a good portrait.

Such a pleasing video composition and color and such an eye-hurting stills post processing.