Portrait Photography How To

San Francisco, 1965. The times, they were a-changin’. If you were young, it was a time to get high, have sex, and listen to mind-blowing music that your parents might, at best, not understand and, at worst, consider obscene. If you were older (and therefore not to be trusted) it was a time to take cover; everything you believed in seemed to be under attack.

The tour bus bringing B.B. King to Indianola, Mississippi, for his Homecoming Festival concert was very late, which meant that Ron Modra would have the opportunity for performance photos, but not the portrait session he wanted.

As the revealing video below shows, portraits can be shaped by the photographer’s point of view rather than just by the subject being documented. Created by The Lab in conjunction with Canon Australia, the clip features six photographers, one portrait subject and an unexpected twist. The twist consisted of the (mis)information each photographer was initially provided regarding the person being photographed.

Michael Grecco is an award-winning, internationally renowned director and photographer of celebrity portraits, advertising and editorial commissions, private collections, and fine art. As one of the most respected visual storytellers in the world, his conceptual vision and signature dramatic lighting create distinctive images that are evocative, sophisticated, and comedic.

Imagine this. Take photos of many of the top names in the music industry over the last 30 or so years, from Keith Richards to Radiohead, Gregg Allman to Tom Waits. Shoot for Spin, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, and Esquire, to name a few. Make said images into a coffee-table book. And to top it off, have some obscure talent like Bruce Springsteen write the elegant foreword for the book. Is it just me or does this sound like a pretty good life?

Noted photographer and online educator Elena Shumilova has a great new video offering four expert tips on how to take the best photos of children. You can watch the child photography how-to video, which was produced by SmugMug, at the bottom of this post.

The reality is you can make portraits using any lens but most photographers will tell you the ideal portrait lens has a focal length in the range of 85-135mm. The first dedicated portrait lens was the 150mm f/3.3 Petzval developed in 1840, which had a 30-degree angle of view and was considerably faster than lenses of the period. It was so legendary that Lomography recently produced a new version for Canon EF- and Nikon F-mount cameras that costs $599.