Creative Portrait Photography Technique

Using a little creative portrait photography technique means thinking outside of the box. You can take traditional "safe" portrait poses of your subject first. Then get a little creative. Here are just a few ideas to get your creativity going.

Try different or unusual lighting

Photography by dnsvsv

This is a beautiful, soft portrait portrait created by one single light source, way off to the side. Combined with the dark background, it's an mysterious but elegant black and white photograph.

Find textured backgrounds

Backgrounds can make or break a photograph. Look for backgrounds that either have very little detail and distractions or that have patterns or texture that go with your subject.

With this baby portrait, the background was a sheer white gauze, placed on top of a white sheet. I stood up high on a chair to get a more distant perspective and played peak-a-boo with my subject. More on Baby Poses

My light source was a large umbrella-soft-box on the left and a large white reflector board on the right.

Use Reflections

My senior was dressed in black, so only the flesh tones reflected on the floor, creating an interesting dynamic of composition.

Smooth surfaces like water, windows, mirrors and polished floors can all be used to get this effect.

I get the chance to do a lot of Beach Photography and I like to use the reflection technique when the water is just right.

Sometimes having the picture tell a story instead of being a standard pose makes it a unique shot. I directed my beach family of five to walk slowly away from me.

I often shoot quite a few frames with my subject walking toward me as well as away from me. The other important thing to watch for is the height of your subjects.

In the beach portrait sample above, the photography pose I used is called the "M" pose. It works well with family portrait photography when you have 2 adults and three children. If you draw an imaginary line starting from left to right, from one head to another, you have written a capital M. Having one or both of the adults on an end would make it an unbalanced composition would be a posing mistake.

Photography Portrait Tips. In addition to these portrait techniques, here is another photography article with portrait tips. This one, giving tips on posing an individual's portrait, has photo examples to make each point.

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