Shooting portraits in direct sunlight: 3 tips

Many portrait photographers shy away from direct sunlight. The common wisdom is that you can’t capture beautiful portraits in harsh light but that’s simply not true. Any lighting source can be used to create either beautiful or unflattering portraits. It’s not the light; it’s what you do with it. Sometimes, I don’t get a choice about when or where a shoot takes place. If a midday shoot is the only time my client can do, then I risk losing the …

Studio-Style Rim Light With Two Windows

You don’t need flash to create a studio-style portrait like this one; you only need a little lighting know-how… One of the highlights of our year is spending a few weeks on a luxury cruise ship… working, of course. We’re taken onboard as the lead photographers, with a remit of capturing beautiful images of their clientele in the stunning surroundings of the ship (with no cheesy printed backgrounds in sight). On one particular cruise, we were looked after by a …

Image Critique 6

Four more of your images under the loupe, OK, well in Lightroom anyway.  Today we’re going to be talking about cropping, interaction, making images timeless, sensor dust spots and (and why wouldn’t we be?) bathing in milk.  As always, beautiful images to inspire and engage. If you would like your images critiqued, please use the Image Critique menu option above to submit a file (or more than one of you wish). Your image will then appear in one of the …

Video: Three studio portrait ideas for working with dark skin

Add shape and depth to portraits of dark-skinned subjects by manipulating the highlights on their face and body. Whereas shadows create definition in portraits of pale-skinned subjects, for dark-skinned subjects the opposite applies. Instead, you create shape and depth by focusing on the highlights. This approach to lighting dark skin applies whether you are a studio or natural light photographer, so make sure you watch this video to understand the concept. JOIN NOW to view this and hundreds of articles, …

Outdoor Newborn Portrait

If it’s hot outside, here’s a newborn portrait that you can replicate. Everything is a potential source of inspiration: this one was inspired by a 1980s poster. It’s a rare day that photographers in the UK can shoot a nude newborn outdoors – the weather just isn’t warm enough most of the time. If you’re lucky enough to time a newborn shoot with that one balmy summer day we get, or if you live in more exotic climes, here’s a …

Image Critique 2

Welcome to the second of our image critiques. We’re still finding our feet with these so please give us any feedback (good and bad) as we decide how we want these to look and feel. If you’re one of our members and would like your images critiqued, please use the ‘image critique’ menu option above to submit a file (or more than one of you wish.) Your image will then appear in one of the future episodes! JOIN NOW to …