Portrait Photography How To

One of the easiest but most expensive ways to get your portrait subject to stand out from a background is to use a fast lens, with a maximum aperture of F/1.4, F/1.2 or even wider. Those types of lenses though are pricey and sometimes don’t do the trick, especially if you’re shooting portraits with a crowded scene of people behind them.

In the below video from travel photographer Pierre T. Lambert, he shows you a neat portrait trick that will make your subject stand out in a crowd, and you don’t necessarily need a fast and expensive lens to do it. In the video he shoots a portrait of photographer Colin Ridgway in the crowded Oculus building in downtown Manhattan.

“When you’re really trying to have your subject stand out, the problem is there are a bunch of people around you, so it’s kind of difficult to make it work. But, what if you could have everyone blurry except your subject?” Lambert asks.

“When you want to have everyone blurry except your subject, obviously you’re going to have to go for long exposure, so here the goal is to have Colin in a cool position where he’s shooting and he’s going to stay static while I’m going to take a long exposure.”

Watch the video tutorial below where Lambert shows you exactly how he does it, perfecting this long exposure portrait technique through trial and error until he gets a super cool portrait of Ridgway with the crowd blurred behind him. And be sure to stay through to the second half of the clip where Lambert demonstrates some of the Lightroom editing techniques he uses to get his portrait subject sharp and the colors and light to pop.

After you’re done, go check out Lambert’s awesome YouTube channel for tons more photography tutorial content.