Portrait Photography How To

Many of us are far more accomplished at capturing a photograph than we are at processing images in Photoshop, Lightroom or other image-editing program. As a result, experienced photographers often lack the editing skills needed to take their results to the next level.

All photos by Nick Kelsh

A veteran of nine photography books, Nick Kelsh offers photo guidance to the masses in a very appealing, reader-friendly manner, has provided beautiful nature images for a new edition of Rachel Carson's classic The Sense of Wonder, and has traveled far and wide to shoot compelling photographs for the A Day in the Life book series. His images...

Many photographers love the look of outdoor portraits shot under natural light. But sometimes either the setting or ambient light levels don’t cooperate and off-camera flash delivers the best results.

For this assignment, we were looking for your best wedding, portrait, and boudoir images and while Shutterbug readers submitted many good wedding and boudoir shots, it was the portraits that really stood out. Overall, we were looking for interesting angles on these popular photography genres and we got them. We didn’t want those standard “grip and grin” group shots from your Aunt Sally’s wedding reception and we weren’t seeking cheesy boudoir images that look like they should be on the cover of a romance novel from the 1960s.

“Earlier this year, I was invited by JIB TV in Tokyo and Olympus, Japan to help document the recovery taking place after the terrible earthquake and tsunami that hit the northeast part of the country in March 2011. I agreed to do it even though I knew it would be a traumatic experience.

Many photographers shoot exclusively with available light because they’re intimidated by what they fear are the complexities of using supplemental light sources. And while complicated studio setups can require specialized expertise, shooting with simple speedlights or small studio strobes is actually quite simple.

Here’s a loosey-goosey studio lighting tutorial from Photo-Me-Ike where he tests out the new Orlit Rovelight 610 TTL system to see if it’s a viable alternative to the popular and relatively inexpensive Flashpoint (aka Godox) system.