portraits

My wife and I have always loved photographing large, dramatic gowns. Anything big and flowy has always been fun to photograph, especially outside. We've always loved the contrast of the beautiful gown against the natural backgrounds we have nearby.

I recently returned home from my trip to Egypt, and with my wife due any day now, I had some time to squander on lens hunting. A local craigslist post revealed that one of the camera shops in town was having a yard sale to clear out all of their old stuff in preparation for moving to a new location. I wasn’t about to pass up on a camera shop yard sale!

A trio of scientists from MIT's Media Lab decided to get creative for Halloween ... and just maybe scare the pants off of you. So if you're wondering how Kermit turned into undead Kermit, meet the aptly-named 'Nightmare Machine.'

New York City-based photographer Mike McGregor has a new photo series titled Modern Explorers. The portraits show Pokemon Go players hunting for Pokemon out in the wild.

What if some of the most famous faces in the music industry were decades younger? For his latest project, fashion photographer Viktorija Pashuta shot portraits of 11 children looking like 11 music icons.

Over in Helsinki, Finland, there's a photo studio called Cahute, named after an old French word meaning "little hut." What's unusual about this studio is that it shoots portraits exclusively on 8x10 direct positive paper, processing the shots with caffenol (a process that traditionally uses coffee and Vitamin C).

French criminologist (and high school dropout) Alphonse Bertillon was a pioneer in the field of anthropometry – the use of human measurements – to identify criminals. As a part of this practice, Bertillon standardized the modern mugshot in 1888 with the now familiar frontal and profile portrait, the latter of which was selected because Bertillon believed the ears to be a highly identifiable characteristic.

Popping a gel in front of your rim light is a quick, easy way to change the feel of your portraits.

Arizona Border Recon is a volunteer group of armed civilians that patrols the border between the United States and Mexico, keeping watch for traffickers, terrorists, and illegal immigrants and bringing those caught to the attention of the US government's Border Patrol. Photographers Neil Kremer and Cory Johnson of Kremer Johnson visited the group and shot a series of portraits of its members.

Typically, the term “gobo” is reserved for the lens filters and patterns that are affixed to theater lights. The terms “flag” or “cucloris/cookie” are actually more accurate for what we’re going to be using in this post, which is an object placed between the light and the subject, but not attached to it.

Los Angeles-based photographer Laura Izumikawa Choi is winning hearts across the Web with her portraits of her 4-month-old daughter Joey Marie Choi. While Joey naps, Laura carries out cosplay photo shoots using creative costumes and props.

As portrait projects go, Dylan Hamm's series Naked Faces is strange... and creative. He shot two passport-style headshots of 43 different strangers—one with, and one without any clothes on. Can you tell which is which, just by looking at the micro-expressions on his subjects' faces?

Photographer Karl Taylor made this 7-minute walkthrough video after people asked about his lighting setup for a commercial studio portrait he shot and posted to Facebook.

ESPN W recently hired editorial and commercial photographer Gina LeVay (@ginalevay) to capture environmental portraits of first-time Olympians. The assignment took Levay to six countries around the world over a two month period, and resulted in a stunning set of images.

Photographer Peter Andrew Lusztyk recently shot a series of portraits of some of the biggest celebrities on Earth. But look a little closer and you'll notice that there's something "off" about each one, and that's due to the fact that each headshot actually shows a realistic wax figure.

It's your job as the photographer to make your subjects look their best, and one of the first steps to making this happen consistently is knowing how to find a person's "good side" for portraits. It is possible, and photographer Joe Edelman explains how in this short video.

For his personal project "Gold Rush," Los Angeles-based photographer Qingjian Meng combines two different eras. The subjects look like they're from the 19th century, except each of the 8 people is using some piece of technology from the 21st century.

If you've in the market for a tiny, fun, manual focus bokeh monster to carry around with you, photographer Nitsan Simantov would like to introduce you to his "favorite lens ever": The Voigtlander Nokton 35mm f/1.4 MC.

My name is Dana Neibert, and I'm an advertising photographer based in Coronado, California. I recently shot a series of portraits of Flo from Progressive Insurance. Here's a look at the project.

What does Santa do in the 'off-season' between January and December? Does he go swimming? Work in his wood shop? Play the keyboard? Photographer Mary Beth Koeth set out to find out, and the answers are yes, yes, and yes.

To those who may hire a portrait photographer:

As I write this, a guy outside my window is painting the exterior of my house. I had a hard time choosing a color, and I hope I chose well. I’d hate to screw that up.

Philly-based portrait photographer Chris Loupos has a personal project that's tentatively titled "Young at Heart." It's a series of images showing elderly people acting like little kids.

I covered Tim Duncan during countless games, including their three NBA Finals titles in 1999, 2003, and 2005. I probably took thousands of photos of him, but on the occasion of his quiet retirement, I picked a few out just for this article.

My name is Carlos Chavez, and a couple of years ago I completed a "100 Strangers Project." I never expected this project to become as important to me as it is.

San Diego-based photographer John Mireles is working on an ambitious photo project titled Neighbors. His goal is to shoot portraits of Americans in all 50 states, from various backgrounds and in every corner of the country.

In a recent article, I spoke about the best ways to perfectly light your background with colored gels. We covered the best things to keep in mind if strong and vibrant colors across your backdrop are your objective. It turns out that gelling your background is actually relatively simple -- it's keeping those strong vibrant colors that's actually the tricky part.

High speed sync is a big deal when you're capturing portraits on-location. As photographer Manuel Ortiz shows in this informative video, it can mean the difference between a captivating shot and something full of background distraction.

Setting up your first portrait studio and wondering what color backdrop to get? If you can only choose one color, you might want to think about getting a gray one. In the 6-minute video above, photographer Joe Edelman explains why he thinks gray is the best color.

In an April 2016 interview, Mark Zuckerberg told Buzzfeed News, “I wouldn’t be surprised if you fast-forward five years and most of the content that people see on Facebook and are sharing on a day-to-day basis is video.”