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 so on. View some of the eye-catching portraits and candid photo moments we’ve zeroed in on this week and read the backstories on the how they were created.

Some photographers might have staged this moment, but for photographer Carlos Ferreira, it was completely spontaneous.

He saw a limited guest attendance at the wedding ceremony between Iñigo and Iseé earlier in the day, with a bigger party of people waiting to meet up at the reception. Ferreira accompanied the couple to the bar where the guests were bussing to meet them, and next door was a grocery store. The groom decided to pop in for drink, and as he took a sip, looking right at Ferreira, the bride turned to the DJ to warn him that all the guests were on their way.

“That’s why her back is to the camera,” he says. “I was surprised with the beautiful result, this peculiar situation, a young couple just married in Paris taking pictures in front of a fruit stand. People on the street were looking really surprised.”

Waiting for the couple to arrive for their shoot, photographer Jennifer Lundgren of Sage E Imagery was shooting photos of a floral installation by Genevieve Wilson of Apricot Floral Design in Minneapolis, when she noticed the shapes in the images mimicked a person’s silhouette. So she had an idea: “When my couple arrived, I positioned my bride and groom in a way that mirrored the silhouette of the florals I photographed prior.”

Then came the editing. She made minor adjustments in Lightroom, and then despite being less familiar with Photoshop, imported the images to complete the double exposure there. “I actually prefer in-camera double exposures, when I do them,” she says, “but I’m trying to push the envelope and be more of the photographer I want to be.”

All the same, it was tricky to execute her vision. “I honestly brought the two photos into Photoshop about ten times before you see the image before you,” Lundgren admits, “either because they looked too sharp, the flowers weren’t brushed in softer—I chose to make the male sharper to play on his masculinity—and at one point I had expanded them into weird versions of themselves all because I didn’t hold down ‘Shift’ while moving and placing them where I needed them to be. Trial and error is real in Photoshop, but overall I’m happy with it.”

For her maternity shoot, photographer LaJoy Cox wanted to capture an expecting mother in a contemplative state amid all of life’s changes in the last year.

“She is captured alone for this shot because she has spent so many doctor’s appointments going through this process alone due to COVID-19, so I wanted to show just how pregnancy has been affected this year,” Cox explains. “The happiness of going to the appointments with your spouse, allowing people to touch your belly and make a huge fuss over you during baby showers and special events has all come to a screeching halt. The sunlight that hits her body is to show that she still has hope for the moments to come when she will be able to celebrate the birth of her new baby.”

Needless to say, emotions were flowing for this shoot, Cox says. She’s also a mother, and she knows how hard it can be to attend doctors appointments alone when you’re expecting your first child. “You want to share this experience with everyone you come into contact with, even strangers, so this was hard to watch these mothers go through so much this year and last year. I always try to create one image that shows the isolation of the time period. These women are brave.”

Elle Wildhagen (one half of the wedding photography duo Kindred) says this particular image feels special to her. The bride had contacted her two weeks before her wedding, a spontaneous gathering of close friends and family beneath a big redwood tree in Petaluma, CA.

“From the getting ready to the last bits of light that night, their families surrounded the couple with an overflow of attentive love,” Wildhagen recalls. “This image represents that to me: her mother, garbed in white, nestled tightly with the father, front and center, together witnessing the marriage of their daughter. It was a beautiful reminder of the legacy of strong love—the ways we model it to others, the ways it’s modeled to us and how, because of that, we get to witness that modeled love reflected back at us.”

Wildhagen went with a shallow depth-of-field in order to focus on the family as they watched the couple exchange vows. “Although the parents were seated fairly far from the couple, by using a 50mm lens from farther back, I was able to condense the space between the parents and the couple, creating a stronger juxtaposition between them.”

Addison Jones‘ old studio was in a dance hall that hadn’t been occupied since the 1950s. “I was the one who cleaned it up,” she says. “I loved that place, and it definitely had a story and vibe that you cannot match.” So when Bethyie met her at the studio for a shoot, bringing with her a couple of outfits but wearing a pink dress with a vintage feel, Jones says, “It was like an amazing time warp.”

Occasionally, she’ll print a photo she has taken and then layer it with paint. “I only paint with photos that are inspiring to me,” she says. “Usually, it’s a portrait that has a strong feeling. I am not sure how else to explain. It just needs to speak to me.”

Jones paints while editing photos, layering paint while photos are exporting, then letting it dry while she gives her photos in post a fresh pass of edits. Over time, she has accumulated so many paintings that she began selling them. “I am thankful to say they are going to some good homes,” she says.

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