Portrait Photography How To

The thoughtful use of depth-of-field (DOF) techniques is a key component of every image you capture. And this holds true for landscapes with maximum sharpness throughout the frame, portraits with soft backgrounds, and clean street scenes with a minimum of clutter. Do it right and you have a successful image but make a mistake and the photo will suffer.

Last month we featured a beginners guide to boudoir photography without flash—using nothing more that window light and a simple backdrop or plain white wall. Instructor Yuliya Panchenko is back with another tutorial today for creating a totally different look that really grabs attention.

There are two primary reasons that some photographers avoid supplemental light when shooting outdoors. One is that they simply prefer the look of natural light imagery—and in most cases we tend to agree. On the other hand, there are those who refuse to use even the most basic speedlight because they don’t understand how it works.

Share your best images with the world by posting in the Shutterbug Photo of the Day gallery. Here’s the quick and easy procedure along with some tips to help you navigate to the right place, and even some advice about composition and subject matter.

Many photographers would like to shoot boudoir photos of their spouse or significant other, but don't own a studio with expensive lighting gear. And even if they borrowed all the "required" accoutrements, they wouldn't know where to start.

In a never-ending search for the "perfect light," many photographers ignore the beauty and simplicity of shooting in open shade. Not only does this method provide soft, even illumination, but this straightforward technique avoids the encumbrance of costly and ungainly lighting gear and accessories.

Sooner or later all photographers confront a frustrating disparity between how the colors of an image appeared through the viewfinder or on a camera's rear LCD in the field, and what they look like on the computer screen. Unfortunately, when this happens it's typically the computer representation that tends to be inferior.