Shutterbug Staff

Professional portrait photographer and Shutterbug contributor Jessica Sterling knows a lot about photographing people. She also knows that a photo shoot can quickly go awry if you say the wrong thing.

We share a lot of photography tips videos by travel photographer Pierre T. Lambert but today’s tutorial is a bit different from the rest. First of all, it has a very provocative title: “Why Your Photo Suck – And Mine Too.”

If you’ve ever tried to take to take a photo at night without a tripod you know the results can be very blurry or very noisy or, in most cases, both. But sometimes it’s difficult to use a tripod when, for instance, you’re photographing a street scene in a well-known location where there might be lots of people, aka tourists.

Here’s a great Lightroom tutorial to help fix an everyday photography problem. You’ve shot, what you think, are some great portraits only to realize the lighting is too harsh and has cast unflattering shadows on your subject.