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.

Portrait lighting can be an art form in and of itself. But in the quick tutorial below you’ll learn how to create dramatic portraits using nothing more than two basic off-camera speedlights and some simple adjustments.

Photoshop offers a vast array of features, some more effective and easier to apply that others. Today's quick tutorial from the globally popular PiXimperfect YouTube channel discusses two tools that are frequently ignored because some users dismiss them as useless or even destructive. Applied properly, however, they are very powerful and effective.

Tony Northrup is an image-editing expert who says, “The most common portrait mistake we see is underexposing because of backlighting.” If this problem sounds familiar, fear not, because Northrup provides a simple solution in the 5-minute video below.

All cameras feature a selection of Drive Modes, whether your weapon of choice is a DSLR, mirrorless model, or a full-featured compact. Choosing the appropriate setting for the task at hand will simplify a shoot and increase your odds of success.

Good photographers are said to have a good “eye” that distinguishes them from other photographers. There’s no better way to understand this than to see how several very good photographers photograph the same subject. A case in point is a new exhibition of photographs of Marilyn Monroe titled “Inoubliable Marilyn” (“Unforgettable Marilyn”) at Paris’s La Galerie de l’Instant (December 12, 2014-February 25, 2015).

It seems like every time we post a tutorial about the use of external flash we receive a bunch of comments from photographers who insist on shooting with available light—despite the fact that this approach doesn't always deliver the best possible results in certain situations.