Portrait photography can run the gamut in type and style—everything from the traditional “head and shoulders” shot to lifestyle and environmental, candid and street, glamour, boudoir, maternity sessions and much more. View some of the eye-catching portraits and photos of the week that caught our attention from our show brand WPPI’s The Annual Live Judging event and Honors of Excellence Awards ceremony in Las Vegas on August 18, and read the backstories on how they were created.

Ryuma Yorita of Before the Rain Photography, based in Tokyo, scoped out the Four Seasons Hotel in Kyoto where his couple was getting married the day before to make sure that when it came time for portraits, he knew exactly where to take them for maximum impact. The area shown below, however, was not one he pictured being able to make happen for them compositionally. His perseverance paid off, however, as Yorita placed first in the “Couple Together: Wedding Day” category of WPPI’s The Annual 16 x 20 Print, Album and Filmmaking competition this year with this image.

“A large shining wall was used to present the groom in silhouette, and a colleague used a softbox to shine a beautiful light on the bride,” says Yorita of the image’s creation, adding that said colleague also crouched out of sight. “I paid attention to the standing position of the bride and groom to balance the composition. That seemed to be the only way to shoot at this place.”

Yorita admits that this photo almost didn’t happen at all; he barely slept at all in the days leading up to the wedding, so when the big day came around, suffice it to say he was ready to wrap things up once the party was winding down. “I was able to take this photo because my colleague encouraged me to take one at the end,” he says. “So this first prize is not just for me, but half for Miyoshi-san, who I shot with.”

If you’re familiar with WPPI’s The Annual competition, you know that at first glance this image looks like it could belong in several categories. Perhaps Boudoir? Fine-Art Nude? Landscape? The abstraction here is what’s so immediately successful for Joseph Victor Stefanchik, a photographer and educator based in the Florida Panhandle. He won first place in the Maternity category for this image.

Tilt your head to the side and suddenly the model’s pregnant belly is visible, that sand dune on the right side of the image is actually her knee, and the dark line that etches so organically through the middle is the back side of her body. Take a beat to admire it longer and you see that she’s practically glowing. Only a well-versed photographer and printmaker could achieve this effect.

Andre Brown, an Atlanta-based photographer who was designated a 30 Rising Star of Wedding Photography in 2020, photographed this wedding group at the Sheraton Charlotte in North Carolina, and for it, he won third place in the “Bridal Party/Family and Friends” category.

You’d think that the biggest challenge with photographing this was posing, Brown says, but that’s not the case. “I can typically visualize how I want people positioned and posed as I’m setting up the shot,” he explains. “Figuring out how to manage the light in such a quick amount of time is the problem. When using directional light with so many people, someone is bound to cast shadows on the person next to them. Generally, I manage that in a couple different ways, but for this particular photo, I chose to use my main light camera right and use a fill from camera left to lift the shadows so that they are manageable in post. The trick is to make it just enough to lift the shadows but not make the image look flat-lit.”

Ivan Duran, a wedding and portrait photographer based in Berkley, California, won second place in the Portrait Division’s “Individual” category for this image. I was particularly drawn to Duran’s creative use of framing in this image and how he uses the organic human form to create visual appeal that encourages your eye to move along the frame. We often see photographers, especially younger ones, struggle with tonality on black-and-white images, but Duran commands the full tonal range here, going from the blackest of black to whitest white and every tone of gray in between. The angle of lighting hits every flattering point on the model, drawing equal attention to her body and wardrobe as it does to her facial expression, hair and makeup.

Mauro Cantelmi, an Australia-based photographer and Grand Master of WPPI, says he driven past this interesting architectural structure on his way to work for two years before deciding to pull the trigger and do a shoot in front of it. “I couldn’t piece it together, nearly having a car accident staring at it every time I drove past,” Cantelmi says.

He knew it had to be an overcast day—with the graphic nature of the building, harsh light would have washed too much of its boldness—which is tricky to get in Melbourne, “a city with four seasons in one day,” Cantelmi jokes. “Then came along my bride and groom, who where both architects and wanted that represented in the shoot.”

The idea for the photo, which won third place in the “Wedding Creative” category, came to Cantelmi right away. First, he figured he’d use frames in order to blend the bride and groom into the structure; then, he considered the thought of actually blending them into the building somehow, “almost science fiction-like,” the photographer says. “The groom I found a little harder to incorporate until I realized the completed image was starting to look like a Tetris game.” Cantelmi exaggerated this idea further by moving him up and over, filling more of the red frame.

In the end, the photo represents a lot of what the bride and groom do for a living. “Using a zoom lens was important because I needed to flatten the image as much as possible so every element of the image stands out,” Cantelmi explains. “The rest was taken care of by the architect who designed this amazing building.”

Dig into our Photo of the Day archives for even more compelling imagery.