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. Discover the eye-catching portraits and photos that stopped us in our tracks this week, highlighted here for the way the photographers captured love and intimacy, illumination and reflection.

Emmerlee Sherman is a wedding, portrait and underwater photographer based in Minneapolis. Her shoots take place in a pool at her house and drops a black backdrop into the pool so each image can stand out against the dark background.

As for as the concept of each image, Sherman says she has a room full of dresses, fabrics, skirts, tops, mermaid tails and other props to play with. “I have a questionnaire that I send to clients to talk about their favorite colors and we pull looks from there. I shoot most of my images in the shallow end of the pool. The hardest thing about photographing your subject underwater is to manage to have them look effortless without their face looking like they are holding their breath.”

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Sherman says that one of the things she loves most about underwater portraits is the reflections at the top of the water. “To get those I shoot pretty close to the surface so the camera is just under the water to get the mirror image as well as the main image. Those top images are unpredictable and one of the fun things about shooting underwater.”

Melanie Nashan, a wedding photographer based in Montana, says that after couple Elizabeth and Garrett were married, they drove their Razor to the top of Hatfield mountain in Belgrade, Montana, where Garrett had proposed and where Nashan had taken some of their engagement photos. “The Shoson monument behind them has been standing for there for over 100 years,” says Nashan. 

“I love this image for several reasons,” Nashan continues. “Elizabeth is wearing the couture dress that her grandmother had made in France for her wedding; her mother also wore the dress at her own wedding almost 40 years before. The train on the dress, which is substantial, never hit the ground but it was like Elizabeth never noticed that the wind was blowing. She and Garrett were so caught up in the moment of being in love and getting married that they created this bubble around them that was filled with their love.”  

Nashan says she doesn’t know of another woman who could be so unaffected by the elements or who would be so comfortable with a couture dress getting dirty from the ground or having the seams of the dress being torn apart from the wind. “The grace that she carried herself with was truly astounding.   
Elizabeth and Garrett are very dear to me. I had gotten to be very familiar with them over the previous two years while shooting them working cows on the bride’s family ranch. They are the epitome of who cowboys and cowgirls are.”

Rosa Garrido, based in Huelva, Spain, says that what makes her fall in love with this image is the the naturalness of the moment and the subtlety of the bride.

Garrido says her closeness to her couples make them relax enough to show their true selves. “I love photographing getting ready shots. The precise moment, the intimacy, the generosity of the brides on their big day… All this means that on the day of the wedding, the brides are free to pose for me with this naturalness and to show their photos as timeless works of art.”

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Katie Kavanagh of Katie Kav Photography says that couple Katy and Grace, who were married in Dublin City Centre, opted for a first look, to calm their nerves and get their portraits done early so they could enjoy their drinks reception in full. The candid shot beautifully conveys their love and connection.

“The mural they’re in front of is a modern day icon in Dublin and is a popular photo op location,” says Kavanagh. “In 2018, Ireland was voting on whether or not to Repeal the 8th Amendment. Irish Artist ‘Maser’ painted a full heart with the words ‘Repeal’ in the centre of it in support of the campaign to Repeal the 8th. However, the building it’s on, The Project Arts Centre, is a registered charity and was found to be in breach of the Charities Act 2009, so the ‘Repeal’ message had to be painted over.”

“This was a very low-light wedding reception, and I wanted to stay true to the aesthetics of the event,” says Erin Chrisman of Chrisman Studios in Charleston, South Carolina (which she runs with her husband Ben). “I noticed how the sparkles in bride Sarah’s dress were being illuminated by the reception lighting as she twirled around the floor and I wanted to capture that.”

For this first dance shot, Erin says that instead of overpowering the couple with direct flash or bounce flash, she used an off-camera flash, powered low to balance with the dim romantic lighting of the ballroom. “It was just enough to light their faces and help light up the sparkles on the dress. I can’t take credit for the lighting pattern on the floor—that was part of the reception design—but the low flash power definitely allowed those patterns to show up better in the photo.”

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More often than not, adds Erin, the first dance happens right after the couple is announced into the reception so there is little to no time to plan. “Sometimes I’m just sticking a light somewhere and hoping it all comes together! The easiest thing to figure out first is background. Decide if you want the guests in the background, or the band, or some interesting architectural or lighting element (like a pretty chandelier, for example). Start there, then figure out where your light will need to be (sometimes we’re wrong, and we’ll move it mid-dance if we have time). After that, it’s just hoping you can nail the moments as they happen!”

It’s also important to cover all your bases with first dances, says Erin. “Since there are two of us, me and Ben, we try to have one of us work on a wide-angle, more artistic shot, and the other get the tighter, emotional moments. The person working on the artistic shot is most likely taking the risk of whether the idea will work out or not, so it’s important that the other photographer is getting the ‘safer’ shots that the couple will love no matter what.”

Dig into our Photo of the Day archives for even more compelling and eye-catching portraits and creative imagery that features love and intimacy, and illumination and reflection.