Photo of the Day


Eye-Catching Portraits and Photos of the Week

May 7, 2021

By Jacqueline Tobin

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, glamourboudoirmaternity sessions and much more. This week, we focus in on some of the eye-catching portraits and photos viewed during portfolio reviews held at the recent virtual Palm Springs Portfolio Festival XVI (PSPF). Read the backstories on the how the images were created and why. 

Cassandra Young of CYoung Photography says this image is from a personal passion project—TH13TEEN Girls—that she felt moved to make as she watched the development of her own daughters.

An image of a girl from TH13TEEN Girls by CYoung Photography.
© CYoung Photography


“There’s a tipping point in a young girl’s life when she begins the transition into womanhood,” says Young. “At around 13 they begin menstruating, and this ushers in the development of both body and personality. They’re changing from little girls that mirror the expected persona of girlhood to now asserting their individuality; finding their own voices to speak their own truths. Even with such strong ideas and convictions these girls are often not truly seen or heard. This series of portraits—larger than life and confrontational—gives weight and importance to this beautiful, and often awkward breath between girlhood and womanhood.”

The wonderful thing about this series, adds Young, is that it gives these girls the spotlight to really be seen as they are. “It’s important to me that these images be shot with incredible detail and no retouching so that the viewer can really see them.  It’s an ongoing series that I hope to expand—as they grow older I’ll revisit them and capture them as they grow into themselves.”

Inti St. Clair, a commercial lifestyle photographer in Austin, Texas, specializes in kids, family, healthcare, corporate, portrait and travel photography. For this image, from personal work, she took an experimental approach.

eye-catching portrait by Inti St. Clair of a subject in reflection with herself.
© Inti St. Clair

“I’m always seeking new and creative ways to create portraits, and I really love the symmetry of the image as well as the subject’s calm, natural expression,” says St. Clair.

Christina Hasslinger photographed her son, Craig, when he was 11 months old in January 2021.

“As a stay-at-home mom, I am lucky in the sense that not only am I able to build a deep connection with my most common subjects, my family, but I’m able to be attuned to the natural lighting conditions in my home and how they shift throughout the day,” says Hasslinger. Most of my photographs in my series, Portraits As a Family, are taken in natural lighting conditions, and are more spontaneous and candid because my young children are not capable of posing (yet).”

An indoor baby portrait by Christina Hasslinger.
© Christina Hasslinger

For this indoor portrait, Hasslinger says she wanted to use a faster shutter speed to capture her son’s fleeting expression in the mirror. “For me, his expression looking at his own image is what I love most about this shot. I find his reaction to his mirrored image relatable, and whether he did in fact recognize himself in the reflection is perhaps best left as an unanswered question. Who’s to say we always like what we see in ourselves?”

Nicolas Bates took this image, from his personal project, 223′ Below Sea Level, on Bombay Beach, Salton Sea, California.

“Once a popular beach-going destination in the 1950s, Bombay Beach is now all but deserted. What remains is high salinity in the water, art installations and the denizens who inhabit Bombay Beach year round,” he says.

Erik Jr. in his truck, by Nicolas Bates.
© Nicolas Bates

“I was at first drawn to Bombay Beach, its history and present state, but became even more intrigued by the people who inhabit it year round.” Like Erik Jr., shown here.

Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet, of PoupayPhoto, took this image in NYC’s
Washington Square Park during the BLM Protest during the summer of 2020.

Eye-catching portraits and photos: a man in hair clips, by PoupayPhoto.
© Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet/PoupayPhoto

“I love details so I try to get as close as I can,” explains the street photographer. “In this photo, I took the first shot from far away then I kept shooting until I got closer to him. I was really drawn in by those colorful little hair clips.”

She adds: “In New York City, you can find weird people doing weird things everywhere. For me when you stay at one place long enough, you become immune to the weirdness around you. You don’t find them surprising anymore.”

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