beauty

Caesar Lima 'Unusual Beauty'

‘Unusual Beauty’ Photo Series Celebrates Rare Skin Conditions

Photographer Caesar Lima has pointed his lens toward people with rare skin conditions, including congenital melanocytic nevi (CMN) and vitiligo. Lima's "Unusual Beauty" project skillfully shows how people can embrace and celebrate the beauty that results from an unusual appearance.

Three Easy Portrait Lighting Setups for Small Spaces

One of the hardest things I experienced as a beginner was not knowing how to create a simple lighting setup. I’d always imagined elaborate lighting setups of three to six lights or more, and it’s why I began to shy away from working in a studio.

This Inspiring Portrait Series Captures the Beauty and Wisdom of Women Over 50

Following the 2017 Women's March and the rise of the #metoo movement that saw so many women speaking truth to power, award-winning street, portrait, and fine art photographer Pedro Oliveira was inspired to start a project that would shine a light on some "equally fierce women." That's how Beyond the 60th Sense was born.

A Contrapposto Pose Makes Women Look More Attractive, Study Finds

Contrapposto, Italian for "counterpoise", is a type of pose used since ancient times in which a person stands with most of his or her weight on one foot so the shoulders and arms twist away from the same plane as the hips and legs. It seems artists of old were onto something, as a new study has found that contrapposto posing makes people look more attractive.

Why People Don’t Like Portraits of Themselves

Portrait photos are often disliked by the subject themselves. From the early formative years of grade school on into the advanced years of adulthood, the feeling of dislike of your own picture is universal. Yet it is not for vanity sake, nor is it to spare the shock of another from seeing self-assumed horrors. Assuming you are neither a narcissist nor a person with flawless perfection, you may simply be like the rest of the human race: there is real science behind the reason why you may not like your own photograph.

Neuroaesthetics: Where Science Meets the Art of Photography

Art is something we all enjoy in one way or another. We assume it is a subjective subject, but there may be an objective angle that we can observe art from. Perhaps art isn’t subjective at all? Neuroaesthetics is a scientific approach to art in the way it is both produced and consumed, and this gives us a basis for figuring out what makes art… art!

How to Shoot the ‘Natural Glow Look’: A Beauty Lighting Setup

For the last few beauty shoots I've done, I was asked to emulate the "Natural Glow Look". This is a pretty common look in photography today! We see it in campaigns of big makeup companies such as L'oreal, Estee Lauder, Revlon, and L'OREAL, ESTEE LAUDER, REVLON, & Neutrogena, just to name a few.

These Photos Show Why Everyone Wants to Go to Iceland

Iceland is booming. More than 2 million tourists visit Iceland every year. This comes as no surprise. As I am regularly guiding tours in Iceland, I have visited the country quite a few times over the years and the beauty of the country is simply out of this world. The moment you step out of Reykjavik is the moment you enter some a fantasy movie with beautiful scenery on every corner.

Uncut: Here is a Portrait of the Real Me

I've been wanting to take this photo for a while. Years, actually. The reason it's taken me so long is it terrified me. The idea of taking a photo showing the real me, the unretouched me, was an idea that filled me with dread and empowered me at the same time, equal measures of the opposing emotions.

Shooting a Dramatic Portrait Using a Beauty Dish

This 12-minute tutorial from photographer Joel Grimes demonstrates two methods for creating dramatic portraits using a minimal amount of gear. Both techniques use a beauty dish; the first with a single light source and the second with the addition of 2 edge lights.

I Photographed the Wonders of North America on a 15,000 Mile Trip

Back in September 2016, I decided to fulfill my dream of traveling and photographing North America. Without any set itinerary, I hit the road and ended up driving and flying more than 24,000km (~15,000mi), experiencing some of the most amazing scenery and adventures.

Here’s the Golden Ratio in Ansel Adams’ Photos

Artists have long used the golden ratio as a guide for creating aesthetically pleasing art, as it's believed that the human brain is hardwired to find the proportions inherently beautiful. Take a look at the work of legendary photographer Ansel Adams, and you may find the golden ratio tracing out many of their notable features.

How to Create Three Very Different Looks with a Beauty Dish

Getting into fashion or beauty photography doesn't have to involve getting lots of expensive gear right away. As New York City-based photographer Jeff Rojas shows you in this short tutorial, you can capture three totally different looks with a very small footprint and just a couple of lights.

Understanding Basic Aesthetics in Photography

Recently I got a message from a person who said that they liked my pictures, but unfortunately they don’t have a "photographic eye." This inspired me to write the following article about basic aesthetics and their relationship to photography.

Photos of Cherry Blossoms Turning Ponds Pink in Japan

When spring rolls around in Japan, cherry blossoms (known as "sakura") cause an explosion of bright pink colors in the natural landscapes. Photographer Danilo Dungo took his camera to various parks and captured gorgeous photos of the blossoms flooding the waters.

Beautiful Bugs Emerge from Mouths in Macro/Beauty Hybrid Photos

It's not Photoshop. That's a real bug (not alive... thankfully), and that's a real model. It's part of photographer Marc Lamey's series "The Beauty is Inside": a series that combines beauty and macro photography into a strange hybrid photo series that's somehow captivating.

I Captured the Beauty of the Netherlands in 20 Photos

Over the years I’ve done a lot of travelling, but I always came back to my home country, the Netherlands. Being completely flat, having no mountains, no rocks, no skyscrapers, no good weather (usually), no super dark skies at night because of light pollution, I always feel a bit down when I come back from "spectacular" countries.

But that always goes away quickly. There’s a lot to appreciate in the Netherlands. Things that may be normal for us locals have incredible beauty for outsiders. This is the case in each and every country. This is my home in 20 photos, all taken within 1 year.

1.5 Hours of Face Retouching in a 7 Minute Timelapse

To show the extensive work that can go into retouching a beauty portrait, editing guru Pratik Naik of Solstice Retouch created this 7-minute timelapse video showing how he spend 1.5 hours cleaning up a photo by photographer Jonas Jensen.

Instagram Star Quits, Reveals How Photos Are Edited, Contrived, and Paid For

Update: O'Neil has apparently deleted all of her social media content, including the video and photos that were originally in this post.

18-year-old model and Instagram star Essena O'Neil has the world talking after posting the 17-minute video above on why she's quitting Instagram and social media (warning: there's some explicit language). She says that posting photos to her hundreds of thousands of followers consumed her and made her miserable, and that the luxurious life she showed online was all "edited and contrived."

23 Portraits of Women Who Live in North Korea

For over two years now, Romanian photographer Mihaela Noroc has been traveling around the world with a camera in hand and shooting portraits of women in their environment for a project titled "The Atlas of Beauty," which we featured back in February.

The latest country Noroc traveled to in her journey was the hermit kingdom of North Korea.

Picture Perfect Square Miles, Found in Google Earth

The Jefferson Grid is a new Instagram account that's attracting quite a bit of attention. Each photo posted is a satellite photo of some place in the United States that was discovered using Google Earth. Each photo also shows the area of exactly one square mile.