Six Minutes of Tips to Improve Your Portrait Photography

Portrait photography is a tricky genre that takes the combination of good technique, creativity, and the ability to work with people simultaneously. If you have been struggling with it a bit, this helpful video tutorial contains six minutes of rapid-fire tips and techniques to help you improve your work.

Coming to you from Manny Ortiz, this great video tutorial discusses a wide range of tips and techniques that will help you improve your portrait photography. One thing that a lot of photographers seem to master last is posing. Things like settings and lighting are relatively objective and easily codified, but posing can be a bit more nebulous and tough to get down. While keeping things organic to a certain degree is generally desirable to avoid making your subject look stilted or awkward, it can help to have a few set poses and looks memorized. This will take some of the pressure off you in the moment and will help guarantee that you come home with some keepers before you work on more freeform posing. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Ortiz. 

If you would like to learn more about portrait photography, be sure to check out "Perfecting the Headshot With Peter Hurley!"

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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4 Comments

Manny Ortiz one-hand dangling $10k of equipment over a pool. Badass.

Insurance is the way to go. My deductible would be around $150 if I´d drop my equipment in a pool or destroy it in any other way so it´s not really an issue.

thanks, Manny!

FStoppers be like, “Hey readers, here’s some tips from one photographer, and if you want to learn more, buy this tutorial from a totally different guy on a totally different topic” ;)