Want to learn how to get your portrait subjects to give you the poses and expressions you're going for? Photographer Miguel Quiles made this helpful 11-minute video in which he shares one of his best tricks: getting subjects to play a character.
If you're looking to expand your skill set in shooting portraits with umbrellas, check out this 8-minute video by photographer Miguel Quiles. In it, he introduces different types of umbrellas and then shares 5 different ways he uses them to create stunning portraits.
I’ve been photographing weddings for 10 years now, so I’ve seen and dealt with nearly every lighting scenario possible, from a dark church with no windows, to a wedding ceremony at high noon with not a cloud in sight. But one thing most photographers don’t know is how to photograph in dappled light!
If you shoot a portrait and your subject is blushing or has red patches on their skin for whatever reason, removing the coloration is quick and easy in Photoshop. This 1-minute Photoshop tutorial by PiXimperfect shows how it's done.
Finding new ways to create isn't always easy, so you have to keep your eyes open for inspiration. One day while making my way down the rabbit hole of YouTube, I stumbled across a video. These guys had created 3 colored shadows off this pencil while keeping a perfectly white background. What in the world was this sorcery? Turns out it wasn't sorcery, it was science.
On January 17 of this year, I suddenly found myself in a terrifying, all-too-real nightmare. I was standing on the edge of a frozen lake near my home on Mount Desert Island, Maine. In front of me were snowmobile tracks that disappeared into the blackness of the frigid night. I knew that my 13-year-old daughter, Jolie, was a passenger on that snowmobile; and I had just received word from local firefighters that the tracks ended in open water.
For a long time, I have been building sets or props for my images, which in time developed into making and selling furniture as a hobby business. I thought it about time I made videos detailing the process of those builds and the “high budget” results that can be achieved with little financial outlay and a little DIY.
When it comes to online educational content, there aren’t many photographers out there willing to share their mistakes when trying to create a photo. I think it’s fair to say that there are easily far more who only share their best work online and for good reason; as educators, you want to create an image of a photographer who makes little to no mistakes at all.
Everyone has been taught from birth how to get a kid to smile. You just tell them to say "cheese" and they respond with a nice big natural smile, right? Well, anyone that's actually tried this can testify to how well it works (if you didn't catch my sarcasm... it doesn't). You end up with a photo of a kid with clenched teeth, a scrunched nose, and raised eyebrows.
Suzanne Jongmans creates Renaissance-style portraits that have an unusual twist: look a little more closely and you'll notice that each of her costumes was made using used packing materials such as styrofoam and bubble wrap.
For most kids, deciding what to wear for Halloween is an exciting time to make a yearly memory. This is no different for my own daughter. However, this year, she received her costume from a neighbor as a hand-me-down. The joy on her face was priceless! Now that she had her costume, it was my job as her father and photographer to make her look epic.
Want to shoot an "impossible" f/0.2 portrait? Here's a 3.5-minute video in which photographer Tony Northrup demonstrates the Brenizer Method, which effectively turns a telephoto lens into an ultra-fast wide-angle lens.
After years of shooting portraits with Canon cameras, photographer Sean Tucker recently switched over to Sony gear. After many people warned him that his portraits would suffer from Sony's "terrible" skin tones, Tucker decided to put the cameras to the test himself in the 20-minute video above.
I have no idea where I first heard this, but it’s extremely true: “the main difference between painting and photography is that the painters need to work hard to put things into their images, whereas photographers have to work hard to take things out of their images.”
Taking portraits in bright sunlight has been a bit of a no-no for a long time, but the truth is that you can actually get stunning results if you use a fill flash. The results look awesome and give a high-end feel to any outdoor portrait, and the best thing is that it's really not too difficult. You just need to understand how to use a fill flash.
How you light your subject is one of the key decisions you'll need to make when shooting portraits. The Koldunov Brothers published this 9-minute tutorial showing the impact the height of a light source makes and some typical mistakes photographers make in placing and angling lights.
Here's a 5-minute video showing a portrait lens shootout I recently did at 85mm f/1.4, 105mm f/1.4, 135mm f/1.8, and 200mm f/2.8. If you are looking for a portrait lens, you can't go wrong with any of these focal lengths. Each focal length serves a specific purpose and will give you a slightly different look/perspective.
It started as a regular booking inquiry from a client. They wanted to book me for an engagement shoot a month before their wedding. The destination was decided (the Port of Jaffa), and the time was set (an hour before sunset).
It’s photographer Jay P. Morgan here. Here's a new 11-minute video in which I compare the pros and cons of strobes vs. continuous light and conduct some indoor and outdoor lighting tests between the two for you to decide which one to use when you are shooting.
Don't have the time or money to travel to picturesque portrait locations? There's like spots for nice portraits in your own backyard. Photographers Tajreen Hedayet and Chloe V. of Tajreen&Co made this short, sweet, and informative 2-minute video on 4 portrait locations you can find in any neighborhood.
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.
How do you use high-speed sync? When would you use it? How do you set it up? These questions will all be answered by the end of this 5.5-minute video and the article below.
There are people who understand you well enough to challenge you but in that if-you’re-not-pushing-boundaries-you’re-not-doing-it-right kind of way -- people you ultimately trust to have your back and your best interests at heart. Kate Chase, my friend, former rep and now producer, is one of those people.
Want to shoot powerful portraits? One of the keys to doing so is focusing on your subject's eyes. This 2.5-minute video by Light Club is an inspiring look into this critical facet of portraiture.
Photographer Miguel Quiles recently got his hands on one of the few Sony FE 400mm f/2.8 GM OSS lenses currently in existence (the $12,000 lens won't hit store shelves until late September). In the 6-minute video above, Quiles shares about his tests in using the super-telephoto lens for portraits.
American artist Margaret Keane is famous for creating "big-eyed waifs" and drawing her subjects with big eyes. Canadian photographer Kelly Robitaille creates surreal portraits in the same vein through her "Whimsy Waifs" series.
Back in February, I created several self-portraits using only lights from around my house. I wanted an exercise in something outside of my current comfort zone and to challenge myself to get back to my photography roots.
When we think of tribes, the first thing that comes to our mind is, “what did those tribesmen and women believe in?” “What were their customs and beliefs?” That’s what I asked about the Konyak tribe that was nestled in Nagaland, India, in regard to the famous headhunters.
Here's a 9-minute introduction to the three-point lighting setup! If you haven’t seen our video about portrait lighting, we go over five portrait lighting positions and what type of emotion you can get from those positions. So this is a follow up to that lesson and I recommend you watch it before diving into this one!
Wedding photographer and Nikon Ambassador Brett Florens recently gave this 9-minute workshop demo on how you can shoot better portraits in harsh sunlight.
After seeing photographer Skyler Burt's experiments with lighting food photos using a cheap work light, photographer Jessica Kobeissi recently purchased that same $20 light from Home Depot for an experimental portrait shoot.
Here's something you may not have known about the 1800s wet plate collodion photography process: it can make certain tattoos disappear in photos. It's a curious phenomenon that photographer Michael Bradley used for his portrait project Puaki.
Here's a handy trick that may be useful for beginning photographers: did you know that you can bend your reflector to change the quality of the light on your subject?
Photographer Niels Kemp recently asked wedding photographer and Nikon ambassador Brett Florens for his best piece of advice for beginning photographers. His answer was the simple portrait posing trick in the 2.5-minute video above.
Irving Penn is either the best or second best portrait photographer of all time. Depending on the day, he’s either ahead of or behind Richard Avedon. At least that’s what I think.
In October 2017, I visited a good friend in Seattle, Washington, who runs an international animal rescue organization. Animals can have a positive impact on people’s lives. Unfortunately, I also saw and learned how much animals suffer abuse around the world. During my visit, I saw that many homeless people kept animals with them, and it gave me an idea to document their connection and dependence on each other.
I picked up a camera in 2008, and I laid my mother to rest in 2010. Guess what I never got around to? That’s right: I never created a real portrait of her before we said goodbye.
Portrait photographers generally pick focal lengths somewhere between 80mm and 135mm, which produces a flattened perspective distortion when the subject fills up the frame. Photographer Keydrin Franklin of 924photography recently decided to try his hand with shooting portraits with a 500mm super-telephoto lens.
At the 2018 High Water Music Festival in North Charleston, South Carolina, back in April, photographer Sully Sullivan of LawtonMiles wanted to take his portraits with the performing musicians to another level, so he decided to build a flooded house set submerged in water.
Through his most famous character’s lips, Arthur Conan Doyle once lamented “There is nothing new under the sun.” But he was wrong. Because I recently saw a photograph that was so utterly unique and awe-inspiring that it instantly froze the Lucky Charms-laden spoon that had been traveling toward my waiting craw. I’d just seen my first milk bath portrait, and never again would I be the same.