portraits

How to Make a DIY Beauty Dish for Less Than $7

Beauty dishes are great pieces of equipment to have in your lighting arsenal, but they come at a price. You can spend hundreds of dollars on a dish, yet using a cheap shoot-through umbrella can easily produce the same effect, as this 10-minute tutorial by Joe Edelman shows.

This is How Much Photo Editing Can Impact Portraits

I’ve been doing professional portrait and fashion photography for over 3 years now, but from the very beginning I have always considered myself an “aspiring photographer,” because you never stop improving and looking for new challenges.

Photographer Travels the Globe to Capture ‘The World in Faces’

Alexander Khimushin is a Queensland, Australia-based photographer who has been on the road for 9 years. During that span, he visited 84 countries. 10 months out of a year he's on the road shooting photos in remote places. He's currently working on a series titled "The World in Faces."

How to Give Portraits a Dreamy Glow in Photoshop

Hollywood photos and still frames often look fairly dreamy with a bit of a glow to the subject in the image. In this tutorial by the guys at Photoshop Cafe, you can learn a number of ways to do this to your own portraits.

Tintype Portraits at the Jazz Age Lawn Party in New York City

Once a year for the past 12 years, people descend upon Governor's Island in New York City to experience the sights and sounds of the 1920s through the Jazz Age Lawn Party. And for the past 4 years, the Penumbra Tintype Studio has been on hand shooting tintype portraits of the attendees.

These Portraits Were Shot with a Water Drop as a Lens

Dutch photographer Robin de Puy recently shot a series of beautiful portraits with unusual camera "equipment." Instead of using a typical lens made of metal (or plastic) and glass, she shot the photos using a single drop of water as her lens.

Shoot Better Golden Hour Portraits by Harnessing the Sun

The golden hour is popular amongst landscape photographers, but it is definitely worth utilising this for outdoor portraiture. By positioning the sun behind or in front of the subject, the lighting is changed dramatically. It's just like having a giant light on in the studio, but it is golden and delicious in the evening.

This One Thing Will Make Your Photos Better: Storytelling

Here's an inspiring video by Mango Street about one of the most important things you can learn to do as a photographer, which is storytelling. In addition to organically capturing moments as they happen, you can also conceptualize and execute an idea that inspires you, and Rachel and Daniel show how it's done in the 5.5-minute video above.

Portraits of Portland’s Homeless: Eyes as the Window to the Soul

I had just moved to the pretty, but constantly rainy, Portland, Oregon, and the weather was getting to me! After going through a hard period of homesickness and mild depression, following a friend’s advice, I got my very first DSLR camera. I liked the idea of registering anything I wanted, and by anything I mean everything: landscape, objects, wild life (as wild as downtown Portland can get!), you name it…

Pro Tip: Don’t Pose Your Models, Direct Them

Commercial photographer Derek Heisler has some key advice for the novice portrait photographers in the audience: don't pose your models. This might seem counterintuitive at first, but Heisler explains why 'directing' your models instead of posing them, will make a huge difference in your photography.

‘Make It’ is a New Weekly Video Talk Show by Adobe for Creatives

The Creative Cloud team at Adobe has launched a new weekly interview series title “Make It”. The show runs at around 10 minutes, and features members of the Adobe team interviewing guest creatives, including photographers. The first episode featuring a photographer is embedded above, with Lindsay Adler in the hot seat.

The Boys Who Grew Breasts: Portraits of the Effects of Risperdal

Johnson & Johnson has been fined over $3 billion for marketing the antipsychotic drug Risperdal to children. Over 18,000 boys and young men are now suing the company over a side effect of the drug called gynecomastia, which causes adolescent boys to develop female breasts. Photographer Richard Johnson recently completed a photo project to tell the boys' stories: it's titled Risperdal Boys.

How to Shoot Cosplay Portraits at Comic Con with Just One Light

Back in December my brother asked me if I would be interested in going to Comic Con in Indianapolis, IN, and I immediately said "absolutely!" He was excited to see what comic books he could find or possibly a GI Joe collectible; me, I knew I was going there to photograph people in their costumes.

My Dad’s Chair

My parents bought this chair and a matching couch not long after they were married in 1951. This was my dad’s chair. If you were sitting in it when he walked into the room he gave you the friendly thumb twist, which simply meant: get up.

Photos of Dogs from Directly Below

Photographer Andrius Burba is back again with another set of his trademark "Underlook" photos, which show what various animals look like when viewed from directly below. After tackling cats, rabbits, and horses, Burba's latest series focuses on dogs.

How to Shoot Portraits Outside Your Culture and Comfort Zone

Photographer Sean Tucker's latest project is about a lot more than portrait photography. It's about respecting, honoring, and yes, capturing a culture far outside his own experience and comfort zone. Fortunately for us, he brought us along on this journey.