Portrait photographer Miguel Quiles is back with another useful video for aspiring portrait photographers. This time, he's put together a video outlining the five most common portrait photography mistakes that he's seen over the years, and how he suggests that beginners avoid or fix them.
When a light source is large relative to a subject, that light is considered “soft.” Soft light casts a shadow with a less defined, soft edge. Skin and other kinds of texture will be minimized. When a light source is small relative to a subject, that light is considered hard. Since the light comes from a smaller area relative to the subject, the shadow cast by hard light will have defined edges and the appearance of skin texture will be maximized.
Greta Thunberg exploded into the public consciousness last month after the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist gave an impassioned and scathing speech to world leaders at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York. Earlier this month, wet plate photographer Shane Balkowitsch got 20 minutes with Thunberg at Standing Rock and used the time to make 2 wet plate portraits of her.
While traveling the world to teach her photography workshops, photographer Sujata Setia has been working on a long-running photo series in which she asks elderly couples who have been married for decades to pose for engagement-style photos for them to keep.
Calgary-based portrait photographer and YouTuber Irene Rudnyk recently put together a photo shoot that's getting some well-deserved attention. Using just the shed in her backyard and the natural light pouring in, she was able to capture some gorgeous fashion portraits that imitate a popular in-studio lighting setup.
Shooting in a studio has its advantages. But although being warm, dry and convenient are greatly appreciated, shooting between the same four walls can get a little boring if you’re constantly using them as backgrounds for your shots.
My name is Jay P. Morgan from The Slanted Lens, and in this 6.5-minute video and article, I'll illustrate the balance of strobes with ambient light. Whether it’s inside or outside, you’re going to have to learn the formula to balance strobes with ambient light. It’s not that hard, so let’s go back to 1930 and learn the formula!
Photographer Julia Trotti made this 7-minute video that shows how your choice of focal length affects your results in portrait photography.
Dubai-based artist Maitha Demithan creates unusual-looking portraits of people with a surreal feel and with every subject's eyes closed or looking away from the "camera." The reason is because the "photos" were all captured using an ordinary flatbed scanner.
If you've ever found yourself at the edges of a group photo captured with a wide-angle lens, you may have noticed some strange stretching, squishing, and/or skewing that distort your face. Researchers have now created software that can automatically fix these wide-angle face distortions without affecting other parts of the photo.
British photographer Brock Elbank has a series of portraits titled How Do You C Me Now? that features people with Congenital Melanocytic Naevus, an extremely rare birthmark that can cover up to 80% of the body.
As a portrait photographer, it can often be difficult to keep thing interesting in the studio. Adding a unique element to your images can help them stand out while also allowing you to have little fun. The unique element that I added for my most recent shoot was just a simple piece of plexiglass. Here are three ways you can use a sheet of plexiglass and some simple household supplies to unleash your inner creative.
Shooting professional-quality portraits with artificial lighting doesn't have to weigh heavily on your bank account. Here's a 22-minute video in which photographer Sean Tucker shares how to shoot great portraits using a single speedlight and a cheap modifier.
In the history of photography, the equipment and processes in portraiture were often calibrated with lighter skin in mind. Buzzfeed's As/Is made this video in which it did a photo shoot with dark skin models and had them share about times in which their skin tone was poorly reflected on camera.
That title is a mouthful, but I didn’t know how to better describe the style. Over the years, I’ve been refining and perfecting my newborn photo technique to get the specific light and airy high-key look I want. While every home I visit is different, and some are more challenging than others, these strategies have given me the best and most consistent results.
Australian fashion, portrait, and lifestyle photographer Julia Trotti made this helpful 11.5-minute video that provides tips and tricks for photographing men who don't have any experience with posing and modeling.
A little while ago I was teaching one of my lighting workshops and one of the attendees was looking to implement some of the set-ups I was sharing into his workflow. Seems simple enough right? Well, it turns out this photographer was a Formula 1 trackside shooter that needed to get portraits of drivers and crew.
The diverse culture of Myanmar is part of the country’s unique identity. I was honored to visit different tribes that amazed me by the variety of their traditions, beliefs, and practices. What I witnessed in Myanmar exceeded my expectations even though I had done my research before I traveled.
Lighting two people can be difficult to do, so I’m going to use 5 portrait lighting positions to breakdown how to best light a couple.
So you have just picked up your first light or you have had one light for a while now, and you are wondering what more you can create with just that one light. Well, you can create loads.
I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today, and I want to talk about 4 things I truly hate about portrait photography in 2019.
If you have a fast and expensive lens, it may feel like a waste to shoot portraits stopped down to f/8, f/11, or f/16. But in this 20-minute video, photographer Miguel Quiles explains why he often opts to shoot stopped down instead of wide open for increased depth of field and finer details and textures.
Your actor headshots, combined with your actor showreel, are the foundations of your actor profile. They are without a doubt a key marketing tool for your acting career. It’s important to prepare yourself in order to get the most out of your session.
I am an experienced corporate/commercial photographer, and I've written this article to help guide my clients into how to prepare for a headshot or portrait session. Most people don't like having their photograph taken, they find it awkward or can't stop thinking about one of their perceived weaknesses.
How far would you go to set up the scene of your dreams for the perfect wedding day photo shoot? Photographer Priscila Valentina was recently hired by a guy named Samuel whose grand romantic gesture was to spend a morning pushing a piano through the streets of Paris and up to the Eiffel Tower.
Bhutan is a small landlocked country in the Eastern Himalayas of South Asia located between Tibet and India. Photographer Andrew Studer of Portland, Oregon, traveled to the country in 2017 and 2018 and spent weeks shooting photos of the places and people he encountered. His project is titled, "Faces of Bhutan."
Photographer Miguel Quiles made this 7-minute video tutorial on a trick you can use to shoot eye-catching portraits. It's all about paying attention to and manipulating the catchlights in your subject's eyes.
Portraiture has never been a genre that resonated with me as a creator, which is odd because there are many examples of portraiture that I enjoy, and I’d absolutely love to be able to create meaningful portraits of people in the same way that I feel I’m able to create meaningful images in other genres.
Want to up your portrait game? Here's a video by B&H in which Naew York City-based portrait photographer Peter Hurley shares 5 headshot tips in about 3 minutes.
I am a fan of light (honestly what photographer isn’t?). Hard light; reflected light; dappled light; low-key light; colored light -- I love it all. Light makes or breaks not only my images but my mood. I’d venture to say that light is sandwiched between “belonging” and “safety” on my hierarchical pyramid of needs.
Dina Alfasi is a mother in Israel who commutes to her architectural engineering job at a hospital. Whether she's walking or riding a bus, train, or airplane, Alfasi is always ready with her iPhone to capture life's beautiful little moments.
New York photographer Justin Borucki has been documenting his city with a pop-up tintype studio out of the back of his car. While shooting a portrait for a client recently, Borucki unexpectedly captured a beautiful leaf-like pattern across the photo due to the frigid wind chill causing ice crystals to form.
Here’s a simple breakdown of 7 different lighting techniques you can implement next time you shoot portraits with studio lighting. For these examples, we used continuous lights to better illustrate it, but you can strobes as well, of course.
For my latest project, titled RAW, I shot a series of UV portraits revealing the true appearance beyond the visible. Composed of twenty photographs divided into ten diptychs, the series illustrates the raw and natural character of the human being, revealed by the technique of ultraviolet photography.
Photographer Tommy Corey spent months thru-hiking the 2,653-mile Pacific Crest Trail that spans California, Oregon, and Washington. Along the way, he photographed his fellow long-distance hikers as though they were high-fashion models. The project is called Hiker Trash Vogue, and Corey's beautiful 7-minute video above tells the story of how it came to be.
In this video and article, we will teach you 5 inexpensive lens hacks in under 5 minutes using the Canon EOS R and a Canon 50mm f/1.8 II.
If you don't have access to a full cyclorama wall or large studio, you're in luck. In this 2-minute video, I'll teach you how to create a pure white background and light the subject using a single light source.
I like to be very aware of my influencers and the effect they have on my work. When I find that I particularly like an image from another photographer, I will give it a lot of thought before I try and apply any of my analysis to my own images.
It’s not often I get to shoot very simple, clean white light shots, but in a recent shoot the model asked if she could get some updated ‘Polaroids’. For those of you not familiar with the term when used in reference to a model shoot, it’s actually not the now-obsolete and ludicrously expensive single-shot film, but a request for very basic portraits of the model for their agency.
Sometimes, you’re forced to work with what you’ve got, even if that means just the flashlight on your phone. In this 10-minute video, you’ll learn 5 ways to light portraits using just a phone flashlight.