Portrait Photography How To

Budding portrait photographers are constantly in search of new ways to shoot creative images without a heavy investment in expensive studio equipment. This quick tutorial is designed to help you do that with basic lighting gear and a few simple tricks.

Prince Meyson is an accomplished Nigerian portrait pro, with a portfolio of beautiful images created with minimal gear. In the video below, he demonstrates how you can capture professional looking portraits at home with a shimmery homemade backdrop and easy-to-master camera and lighting techniques.

Meyson’s approach involves using telephoto lenses, 85mm or longer, with fast maximum apertures enabling him to minimize depth of field. He discusses the importance of camera-to-subject distance, and the distance between a subject and the background, and how those parameters are dependent upon the focal length of your lens.

As you’ll see, Meyson’s “custom backdrop” is nothing more than a sheet of crinkled gift-wrap paper, and he illuminates his simple setup with three basic lights. He also explains his camera settings and the lenses he used. There are a bunch of nice shots straight out of the camera, as well as one that was edited in Photoshop.

You can find more interesting tips on Meyson’s YouTube channel. And be sure to look at another tutorial we posted recently, explaining how to shoot stunning portraits at home with a single light.