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

Andrea Verenini, a wedding and fashion photographer whose work is influenced by painter Caravaggio’s “mastery of chiaroscuro,” photographed this intimate luxury wedding at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England.

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“We were in the interior of the 15th century Divinity School on a very bright sunny day at midday when the light was at its harshest,” Verenini explains. “At that time of the day in sunny conditions, the windows of the Bodleian create really harsh geometries of shadow the contrast between those and the light is extreme, making it very difficult to shoot. I knew I had to get more creative with my use of shadow and light for this shoot and incorporate this feature in my photographs.”

For this specific shot, the bride sat alone on the dark wooden balcony looking out of one of the medieval windows and what struck Verenini most was the speckles of light and shadows which where hitting her face.

“I played with the angles of the adjacent opened window to reflect additional speckled light also on her dress and flowers and took this shot,” he says. “In the otherwise very monochromatic and subdued palette of tones, the bride’s deep red lips really stood out to me, so I decided to framed the picture on camera to highlight that feature as a pop of color leading the viewer into the frame. In my work, I like to fuse the two ideas together and blur the lines between memory and fantasy through use of available light, framing, composition and my editing style, and I think this particular image brings all these ideas together.”

Carly Romeo of Carly Romeo & Co loves everything about this image taken in Charlottesville, Virginia, and so do we—how natural the couple is together, the sunshine warming their faces and the autumn leaves.

“I love to make my couples feel absolutely comfortable and seen and alive,” says Romeo. “Being close to them feels like the most natural thing in the world, honestly.”

Adds Romeo: “I think I told them to kiss slowly—and of course I put them in the general area where I wanted to shoot them.” Romeo says there were surprisingly few good places to shoot even though the venue was lovely, and there were some DIY elements of the wedding that were being set up all around them throughout the day so she had to be strategic about where they were standing.

[Read: How Photographers Can Improve Working With LGBTQ+ Community]

Once I find the right spot—and it doesn’t have to be picturesque or epic scenery, just good light and a not-too-busy background—I just let the couple go for it,” she explains. “Ask them questions to make them laugh, have them compliment each other or whisper sweet nothings—whatever fits their vibe. And then they just look this perfect on their own, and I just click the shutter!”

Katie Kavanagh of Katie Kav Photography says that couple Andrew and Rebecca had always planned a small wedding so in a way Ireland’s Level 5 restrictions of only 6 guests suited them perfectly.

“After their intimate ceremony, we walked from Dublin’s City Hall to The Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin City Centre and stopped along the way for takeaway pints and photos in places that meant something to them,” Kavanagh explains. “I had spotted this artwork on a friends instagram page and thought it would be a good photo of the times we’re in but also a bit tongue in cheek about marriage not always being as rosy as a wedding day. After getting a straight on shot of them in front of the mural I crouched down and waited for a bike to pass. It took a while but patience paid off and I managed to get this one shot of them through the bicycle spokes.”

Zach Sutton recently did a piece on the Lensrentals blog demonstrating five ways to shoot portraits on a white backdrop; we excerpted three of them here.

Sutton says that with a white backdrop, you have an immense amount of tonal ranges that you can use to get the desired effect for your portrait session. For this image, he used a white wall as a bounce light source.

“By all means, this is not a new idea, and bounces and flags have been readily available in the photo industry for years,” he explains. “But too often, people see a white wall (or seamless, or cyc), and think that their subject has to have their back to it for it to work effectively. But using the wall as a bounce gives you an opportunity to soften your light source, without needing to bring a bunch of extra equipment out.”

Eugene Tan HZ of Bottled Groove Photography in Singapore says this location was chosen by the bride, near where she lives. “There was an art installation at one of the void decks (huge spaces under our housing blocks). We wanted to do a quirky group shot, so I had the bridal party head outwards, behind the installation and to have their heads popping in. All the couple had to do was to get seated comfortably in front.”

The photographer says the lighting wasn’t an issue because behind where he was standing, natural light was filling in from the open walkway. “The only concern I had then was that the dark, navy tone from the art installation might reflect/darken the couple’s faces. That potential issue was solved when I had them face each other.”

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