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. This week, we focus in on some of the eye-catching portraits and photos that required the photographers behind them to take a risk or two. Read the backstories on the how the images were created and why. 

Rijeka, Croatia, was the site of the world’s first torpedo launch stations, built in the 1930s and now decaying. For a couple’s portrait session, “we went inside at our own risk,” says photographer Tomica Rasetina, “taking photos for half an hour. The whole time we were looking towards this edge and the end of the building, commenting on how great it would be to take a photo right in that place even though we were a bit scared and aware of the risk.”

They couldn’t stop thinking about that spot, so eventually, they went for it. “Afterwards, when looking at the photo we took, we were glad we decided on that move,” Rasetina says.

Photographer Daniela Villarreal, who’s based in Mexico, says it can be tricky to capture a couple’s essence without having their faces in the photograph, but she was inspired to do so at this wedding. “From the minute I saw the design of this event, I had the necessity of capturing every little thing,” Villarreal recalls. “The details here were mind-blowing. From the table setting to the DJ booth, everything was connected with the idea of the couple.”

Villarreal began the day with portraits, using the inspired environment around them, incorporating those elements, and then “at some point, they sat down at a random table to look and appreciate these little details,” she says. “I saw the bride looking at her engagement ring and got the idea of using the hands for different photographs, so I told them to just put their hands on the table, one on top of the other.”

The light was diffuse, and Villarreal held up a crystal near her lens to create the light flare effect in the corner.

Photographer Ale Rivera Celis found herself in Chapala for this wedding, right next to a big freshwater lake in Mexico. The couple, “fun and spontaneous,” Celis says, met at a bar in Madrid dancing. “That’s why I wanted to take a picture that captured that meeting point between that first time in Spain and their wedding day, and the best location was with no doubt the view to the lake.”

Celis says she was a scared the veil would fly off and land in the water, “so before they started dancing, I put it around her arm,” she says. “I used a 35mm lens to be able to cover the entire landscape, but make sure that the couple didn’t lose their prominence.”

Fort Wayne, Indiana-based photographer Caleb North finds senior photo sessions to be really fun. “I love getting to meet people where they are, what their favorite color is, what they like to listen to, watch….you name it,” he says. This was one of his last shoots in 2020.

“We got really lucky and had the most beautiful golden hour lighting,” North recalls. He was inspired by singer Harry Styles’s music video for his song “Golden” in this senior session—particularly with “the pants, the textures and the lighting hitting the building.” They went around capturing her in direct, playing with the shapes of shadows. “Sometimes it can get really tricky to get the perfect lighting on a subject’s face, so we had to do a lot of moving around and a few different poses, but this photo is one of my favorite senior portraits I’ve taken.”

Deborah Dantzoff, a Uruguayan photographer living in Chile, was photographing a dresses session for luxury brand Mika Herrera. She worked with a team to put the set together and spent weeks doing pre-production for the shoot. On the day of the shoot, Dantzoff noted that when the model changed dresses, the makeup artist would consistently swoop in and tend to the details, correcting and tweaking her look as needed. The photographer wanted to capture that “queen for a day” moment, so they took a second to give the model a flute of Champagne and really play it up. Dantzoff couldn’t help but send this shot to the client as well.

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