Portrait Photography How To

Believe it or not, but you don’t need a ton of gear or a ton of time to shoot a professional-quality photo portrait. Indeed, if you want to take your amateur-looking portraits to the next level, all you need is a few basic tips.

Portrait photography Manny Ortiz has three great tips, which he demonstrates in the below video while photographing his wife Diana. His idea to share the tips came about when Diana saw a portrait on Instagram that she wanted Ortiz to try to replicate.

Instead of spending a lot of time going into the studio to reproduce the photo, Ortiz realized he could just shoot it at home and it would look as good.

“The thing about this photo is it looks like an easy photo to create: one light, one backdrop,” he says. “I was like why go to a studio, let’s just shoot it here in our bedroom. We’ve got a white wall here, we’ve got some tools. I’ve got one light, that’s all I needed.”

Here the three tips he used to shoot the portrait, which ended up being his own concept, rather than an attempt to recreate the photo from Instagram.

#1 Create Separation Between Subject & Background

#2 Use Rembrandt Lighting

#3 Make Skin Glow

Watch the video where Ortiz explains and demonstrates the tips below and then go check out his awesome YouTube channel.

You should also watch our own video from yesterday where Shutterbug's Scott Kelby gives you a quick tip on how to make your outdoor portraits pop.