Portrait Photography How To

When it comes to photography, there’s color and then there’s COLOR! In other words, sometimes you want to take a subtle approach while other times the goal is to create eye-popping images—either by choosing vivid subjects, using certain camera settings and shooting techniques, employing a bit of editing wizardry, or a combination of the above.

Late last year, photographer Irene Rudnyk gave us her top ten tips and tricks to shoot stunning portrait photos and now she's back with part two of the tutorial with ten MORE pieces of helpful portrait advice.

If you’re wondering how to give portraits a unique look, this quick tutorial is for you. And the good news is you don’t need a studio or fancy lighting equipment, because this technique uses Photoshop to simulate sunlight.

Some photographers turn up their noses at the notion of using on-camera flash for portrait photography. But the technique is super easy to accomplish, and done right it can yield surprisingly beautiful results.

One way to really mess up an otherwise nice portrait is to get the lighting wrong and end up with shiny hot spots on a model’s face. But if you make that mistake, never fear, because one of our favorite image-editing experts comes to the rescue with a Lightroom quick fix below.

The idea here was...well, there were a few ideas. First, I wanted to do photography that was bright, cheerful, colorful—and different. With times being a bit harsh and stressful for many, I was looking for something light-hearted and, frankly, far from reality. Dreamy and summer-like came to mind. 

One of the banes of outdoor portraiture is that you’re always at the mercy of prevailing lighting and weather conditions. Equally challenging is the fact that, whether you’re shooting images for a client or photographing a model for your portfolio, you don’t always get to choose the time and location of a session.