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’s images are a mix of compelling wedding and portrait photos that have interesting lighting and compelling back stories.

This image, taken by Felix Kunze at the 118th Explorers Club Annual Dinner in NYC, is of Astronaut and President of the Explorers Club, Richard Garriott, with his wife Laetitia Garriott de Cayeux and their children.

“Richard and his family have been a staple of my Explorers Club Annual Dinner shoot that I’ve shot it for 6 years now,” Kunze explains. “The series I’ve photographed on his family is a fascinating study of their dynamism and vigor.” 

[Read: How I Light: The Gradual Development of Felix Kunze’s Soft and Polished Portraiture]

Kunze adds that the family’s display of futurism here went perfectly with the dinner’s theme, The Future of Exploration. “The Explorers Club is home to the most prominent explorers on the planet. They’ve been to the highest peaks, the deepest depths and of course to space. Richard is no exception, he is an astronaut who has been to the International Space Station.”

Kunze used 2 ELB 500 lights plus one ELB 1200 inside two Elinchrom and one Chimera modifiers. The setup is from the ‘Groups’ section of my Portrait Masters class ’The Lighting Series’,” says Kunze. “My backdrop was a set of custom Oliphant Studios backdrops.”

Scott McIntyre spent the last month in Costa Rica basically surfing and making photos of the amazing sunsets. “Sunsets in Costa Rica are like nothing I have ever seen before, on most evenings the beach is full of people just enjoying life and taking in the sunset with friends.”

This photo is of the photographer’s son Ben coming out the water after an evening session. “This image will be forever priceless to me. It embodies the experience we shared in Costa Rica—surfing and enjoying such an amazing place.”

[Read: 15 Must-Capture Photo Ops at an Indian Weddings]

Hannah Millard of photo brand Camera Hannah says that the morning of this wedding, couple Bish and Mimi’s photographer was unable to attend at the last minute.

“The couple got in touch with a few local photographers, but none were available,” Millard explains. “One photographer shared a call-out on their instagram stories and a celebrant I know reposted the situation on her own stories. I live around 45 minutes from Sheffield, so not super local and I was still in my pajamas. I hesitated for a moment, since at the start of my busiest ever wedding season a Saturday off is a luxury and working with a couple you don’t know who have booked a photographer whose work you have never seen feels risky. I didn’t want to let anyone down. But time was running out for them to find a replacement so I got in touch.”

Within an hour and a half, Millard arrived at the venue (dressed, of course!) with moments to spare before Mimi’s Hindu pre-wedding rituals began. “I’ve never walked into a wedding knowing so little about what to expect and there wasn’t time to find out about the day’s timeline or what formal photos they wanted,” she says. “I didn’t even know how they met. I felt so nervous at first, but I had to remind myself that the only really important thing I needed to know was to take care in capturing what happened. I was just settling down properly into the moment as I captured this photo of Mimi as the ceremony was just beginning, surrounded by gifts lovingly offered by their families. While I love the composition, the colors, the textures and the shapes on the tiles of the wall behind her…my favorite thing about this photo is that it feels like a moment to just breathe, settle the butterflies and take in what’s happening.” 

Paula Boggust of Friedland Studio, Inc. took this shot in Honolulu, Hawaii, for a holiday card.

“I love the colors and personalities in this image,” says Boggust, who loves to apply her personal stamp on an image by infusing a kitschy twist. Her “classic/kitsch fusion” approach in her images, she says, is inspired by childhood memories with her greatest influence, her mother Nancy.

Dane Tucker of The Salty Shutter in Sydney, Australia, says he had been trying to nail the “cheers” shot for years in his wedding and portrait photos when he finally figured out a bit of a system. Though, he admits a whole bunch of things had to fall into place first for this one to come together.

“So much of a wedding day comes down to leadership and doing whatever you can to make sure you have the best chance to get the shot,” says Tucker. “Knowing the speeches were coming up, I set up a couple of chairs for the bride and groom right at the front of the tables (the speakers were on a stage just behind me) to make sure they could be framed well and the speakers could look straight at the couple. That way, the composition would work well with a bunch of their guests in the background, and the two of them could easily interact and laugh with one another during the speeches. Nothing irks me more than when the couple have to sit with one of their backs to the other to make sure they can see who is speaking!”

Dane adds that the couple had their reception in “an absolutely incredible but bloody pitch black underground jazz bar in the city.” In the past he would have bounced some flash, but in the last couple of years he says he has come to hate the stereotypical look of flash at receptions. “I had been experimenting with chucking up some LED video lights on stands around the place prior to this and really loving the results. Even if it’s not soft, I find you can at least get some direction and shape from them which makes things look a bit more cinematic. So, I threw a little LED up on a stand, probably 4 to 5 meters [13-16 feet] off to camera left and maybe 1 meter [3.2 feet] in front of them, balanced it with the ambient as much as I could and off we were. I actually did end up using a bit of on camera flash set to -3 and angled off to camera right, just to provide a tiny bit of fill light onto the shadow side of their faces.”

Tucker adds that if he had his time again, he might have tried to up the brightness of the LED so he could have increased his aperture to get more of the guests in focus. “But,” he sighs, “you do what you can with the light you have and in this case, she was real dark.”

Dig into our Photo of the Day archives for even more compelling, eye-catching photo lighting and other elements you won’t want to miss out on!  Send us your wedding and portrait photos, editorial, documentary and commercial image submissions: jacqueline.tobin@emeraldx.com