Many variables are involved when photographing children: light, expression, composition, camera position, and more. You produce your final picture by mixing these “ingredients.” Don’t know where to start?

When most photographers hear the word “composition,” they think of landscape photographs. But we’ll show you that you can use these same guidelines when photographing kids.

Portrait photography is one of photography’s basic genres. Like the others, it has its specifics that are good to keep in mind so that you can get the very best photos.

When you’re outdoors with your friends or a model and you want to take a few portraits, nature is quite the ideal backdrop. It’s right there, with hardly any “do not enter” signs, and there’s so much of it around you that you can take even quite wide shots without including passersby.

Full-length shots give dramatically different impressions depending on your height. When you’re photographing someone from up high, they can end up distorted in your picture—for example with shortened legs. Let’s take an illustrated look together at the effects that height and distance can have on portraits.

Glass is a unique material that presents a major challenge for photographers. That’s because glass adds reflections to a photo, and these are usually unwanted. But there are also situations where reflections can be put to good use.

In 2013, the Oxford Dictionary declared “selfie” the word of the year. The selfie is in short the photographic phenomenon of our age. But people, and artists especially, have been doing self-portraits since long before the birth of that word, or even the birth of photography.

The eyes are the core of a portrait, and they’re an important means of expression in photography. So let’s take a look at how to make them stand out. We’ll retouch them using a brighten-and-darken technique. And we’ll do the same to let the lips and teeth stand out. The goal: to make our subject really, really shine.

St. Valentine’s Day isn’t just great for business. It’s great for photographers too. So grab the opportunity and take an original Valentine’s photo that’s sure to please lovers everywhere.

Work with a model depends on more than just posing. You also need to talk right and act right. Act natural, and you’ll get good results without actually having to instruct your model at all. Read on for some tips before you try out model photography for yourself.