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 our eye-catching photos of the week that stopped us in our tracks and read the backstories on the how they were created. 

Serbia-based photographer Peđa Vučković captured this hectic Austrian-Serbian wedding back in 2018. “Here people are not used to bridesmaids and all that goes with it,” Vučković explains, “and on top of that, half of them only spoke German and I only speak English, French and Serbian. But the whole fuss was a lot of fun.”

The only issue that he had to contend with was the lights. All of them were on, and “of course, different light bulbs in every socket,” he says, “and the side and top wall were windows. So, it took me at least three shots to make it right.”

Karis Lau captured this engagement session in Princeton, New Jersey, where the couple was to get married. The day was overcast, which Lau was thrilled to discover. “I knew I would get super rich, deep colors of spring,” she says, “greens on trees, grass and all the spring blooms. When I saw Hillary and Will’s soft pastel tone outfits, I wanted to create ‘avant-garde romanticism.'”  

The location, a park called Jasna Polana, reminded Lau of a European château or garden. She knew she wanted to use the pond bookended by sculptures when she spotted it. “I told Hillary and Will to stand along the edge of the grass,” Lau explains. “I got low on the ground so that I could get their reflection on the water. I asked them to do few different poses, and walk along the water to capture Hillary’s skirt swish, her hair bounce in the air.”

Lau had a look at the photos later to send her couple sneak peeks. For the photos she had taken by the pond, she decided to combine some of them to play with reflections, leading lines and symmetry. “I am a big fan of M.C. Escher, a Dutch graphic artist,” she says. “His art plays with architecture, perspective, impossible spaces, symmetrical drawings—creating surrealism. So I edited in Lightroom first, then imported the top four images from the set to Photoshop to merge and create my own impossible space.” 

Back in November, Sonja and Ivan of Paspartu Photography were capturing a sunrise couple’s session on a chilly, foggy morning in Belgrade. “We were all freezing,” Ivan says, “and he tried to keep her warm with his coat.”

They captured some frames of her snuggling into him, but they felt like they needed to add a little intensity to the intimacy. They called out her name.

“She looked towards the camera, and the look was just what we wanted to achieve,” Ivan says. “Her beautiful red hair was a perfect contrast to the grey city hues.”

Slovenian photographers Tina and Anže had photographed weddings at Zidanica Opara before, so they knew they’d be able to take advantage of some interesting ambient light at night.

“We placed our couple on the corner of the building, each under the single light,” Tina says. “We have an expression that says a woman supports three corners of a house, but in our case, they both support one as a new beginning in their life.”

By day, LeeAnn B Stephan photographs products for a big jewelry manufacturer, so for this wedding, portrait and family photographer, composing frames with items “feels very natural to me nowadays,” she says, “to look for a still-life scene when I’m photographing anything.”

Here, she photographed a frequent collaborator at her studio where the windows created these “splices of light” that “made for a perfect spotlight to strategically place the pomegranate and then situate Cayla around it,” Stephan says.

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