Portrait Photography Guide

From posing fundamentals to headshots, family sessions, maternity, newborn, and boudoir — a complete guide to every major portrait photography genre. 48 in-depth lessons across five stages.

48 free lessons 5 portrait genres Posing to business

Portrait photography is one of the broadest and most rewarding genres in photography. Whether you're directing a nervous executive in front of a plain backdrop, chasing golden hour with a family of five, or creating a safe and empowering space for a boudoir client — the skills are different, but the goal is the same: make your subject feel seen. This guide covers everything from core posing technique to the business of building a portrait photography practice.

Stage 1

Portrait Fundamentals & Posing

Great portraits start before you press the shutter. Learn the posing principles, composition rules, and direction techniques that make your subjects look confident and your images feel intentional.

Posing Fundamentals

Learn the 5 couples poses that every photographer should know for perfect couples portraits!

Posing Women

Working with agency models is a highly coveted and sought after goal for many aspiring fashion and beauty photographers. While there are many models who know…

Posing Men

In just 60 seconds, we are going to show you how to give men a chiseled jawline in three simple steps.

Posing Couples

Kissing poses are often a go-to when taking couples portraits, especially when short on inspiration. They are often the 2nd or 3rd pose a photographer will u…

Posing Teens & Prom

Get your prom on and head into your next teen dance photo shoot armed with our best tips for posing and photographing teen couples and large groups.

Hand Placement & Posing

In portrait and wedding photography, capturing beautiful, authentic photos goes beyond just focusing on composition, lighting, and subject matter. One crucia…

Head Angles for Portraits

Head angles are a crucial element in portrait photography, as they have a significant impact on the overall composition and tone of the image. By adjusting t…

Fixing Sitting Pose Mistakes

You can have the best, most perfectly prepared subject with phenomenal hair, makeup and styling and have gorgeous light at your disposal, but bad or mediocre…

Portrait Cropping Guide

One of your most asked questions we get in our photography workshops is how to know where the appropriate place is to crop your portraits. In this video, my…

How to Smile Naturally in Photos

If you want to help your clients give you natural smiles for their photos, don’t have them say, ‘cheese.’ Try these tips instead.

Portrait Composition & Framing

Mastering portrait photography has surprisingly little to do with equipment. Outside of lighting, the single biggest factor separating a compelling portrait…

Lifestyle Photography Tips

There’s more to producing great lifestyle content than knowing how to work your camera. Here are some thing to keep in mind to keep your Instagram consistent…

Environmental Portrait Photography

Want to learn how to capture an environmental portrait? Learn how and get inspired by 20 photographers!

Stage 2

Headshots & Corporate Portraits

Headshots are one of the most consistent income streams in portrait photography. Master the lighting, posing, gear, and client experience that makes a business headshot stand out.

Headshot Lighting Setup

How many lights does it take to create a great, pro quality image? In my early career, my answer was “as many as I can get.” But over time, I learned that so…

How to Pose for a Headshot

A headshot seems easy enough to photograph. I mean, it’s just a portrait of the client’s face, right? Actually, creating the perfect headshot is an art form…

Master the Perfect Headshot Setup

Headshot photography seems a simple enough genre to quickly master at first glance, but there’s more to it than meets the untrained eye. Despite only having…

The Art of the Business Headshot

A successful company may be the sum of its employees, their work and its products, but the human face of a company will often be represented by a small numbe…

Aperture & Headshot Photography

In previous articles, we covered how focal length affects headshots, and now we want to jump into the topic of aperture to discuss how it affects headshot im…

Corporate Portrait Tips

In this post, we’ll go over some tips & tricks to help you get through a long day of corporate headshots.

Headshot Photography Gear

Headshot photography is a specialized genre that requires a specific set of skills, techniques, and equipment to produce stunning results. If you’re looking…

Headshot Background Ideas

When photographing professional headshots it can be daunting to decide what would be the perfect backdrop for the photo. While more corporate jobs require a…

Stage 3

Family Photography

Family sessions are joyful, chaotic, and deeply meaningful. Learn how to direct groups of all sizes, find the right locations and light, and build a family portrait business through mini sessions and referrals.

Family Photography Tips

Family Photography is one of most common genres of photography for amateurs, professionals, and weekend warriors because of its universal demand. Virtually e…

Family Portrait Poses

Learn these 5 easy poses to help you on every family portrait session!

Candid Family Photos

Here are 6 easy tips to help you elevate your candid family photos. Create a relaxed and fun environment, so you can capture genuine smiles, laughter, and co…

Outdoor Family Portraits

Outdoor family portraits are a fantastic way to capture genuine, heartfelt moments that families will print for the walls of their homes, send with their hol…

Family Lifestyle vs. Traditional

Family photography is an art form that captures precious memories of the people we hold dear. With the advent of digital cameras and smartphones, taking phot…

Family Photos with Flash

Setting up one directional off-camera flash with a shoot-through umbrella may be your go-to lighting setup for family formals, but what other ways can you li…

Family Photos at Home

A family portrait session at home can be an exciting but also a daunting proposition, but with a bit of thought and preparation, you can learn to make the mo…

Photographing Large Groups

Whether it be for businesses, sports teams, weddings or family reunions, opportunities abound for photographing large groups. Successfully handling and photo…

Photography Mini Sessions

Mini Sessions are short family photography sessions scheduled in 20 to 30 minute time slots, with multiple sessions occurring in a single day. Most commonly…

Stage 4

Maternity & Newborn Photography

Two of the most emotionally rewarding portrait genres — and two of the most technically demanding. From posing a pregnant mother on the beach to keeping a newborn safe and comfortable in the studio.

Maternity Photography Ideas & Tips

Here are a few tips to help you get through your first maternity session.

Beach Maternity Photos

Your client is pregnant and wants a beautiful backdrop for her maternity photos. What better location than a stunning sunset at the beach to commemorate this…

Couple Maternity Shoot Ideas

Pregnancy is a beautiful journey that deserves to be celebrated and documented. Capturing the moments of this special time with a maternity photoshoot allows…

Maternity Posing Tutorial

We’re going to work through some of the nuances of maternity portraits in regards to lighting and posing.

Maternity Photography Pricing

Pricing is always a tricky topic in photography with no one-size-fits-all approach. However, follow these tips on maternity photography pricing to get a bett…

Newborn Photography Tips

Welcoming a newborn into the family is one of the most cherished moments in any parent’s life. As time flies, those precious moments of the little one’s firs…

Best Time for a Newborn Shoot

Newborn photography is a unique genre that requires a specific skill set outside of creativity and technical proficiency. In particular, one of the most impo…

Easy Newborn Poses

Here are 3 basic, easy newborn poses to try at your next newborn photo session.

Newborn Photo Ideas

Newborn photography has become a place for photographers to get creative and make memorable images for families to cherish for a lifetime to come. We wanted…

Newborn Photography Props

When it comes to producing great newborn photography images, creative newborn photography props and ideas can be the difference between an amateur photo and…

Baby Comfort During Shoots

Newborn photography can be one of the most specialized and difficult forms of photography because of the unpredictable nature of newborns. If you’re a natura…

Newborn Composite Tips

You can bet that most of the images we see online have benefitted in some way from editing. Whether it’s a bump in exposure or a heavily modified retouch, fe…

Newborn Photography Gear Guide

Newborn photography is a fun and rewarding field of photography that also does not require a lot of photographic gear. Generally, you just need a decent came…

Stage 5

Boudoir Photography

Boudoir is as much about client experience as it is about photography. Learn how to set the right tone, master moody light, and build a marketing approach that attracts confident clients.

Boudoir Photoshoot Tips

These five different posing ideas for boudoir photography will help you recognize the small details that make a huge difference.

Moody Boudoir Lighting

Learning to see light is essential, if not the most important thing, for a photographer.

Setting the Tone for a Boudoir Shoot

Boudoir Photography A good percentage of the women I shoot boudoir for have never met me in person before the shoot. We usually communicate via email and ove…

Boudoir Photography Marketing

One of the toughest challenges for any business is getting clients. For photographers the question of how to get clients, how to fill their calendar, and how…

Preparing Clients for a Boudoir Shoot

When planning a boudoir shoot, the photographer has to consider camera angles, lighting, and outfits. In this episode I will be talking about my 5 favorite i…

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