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What is Portrait Photography? this is the Complete guide to help you.

Want to make your portraits have professional approaches to your photography, let's go through the different types of portrait photography.

Portraits photography is one of the popular photography genres. It's about capturing people and personalities not just clicking someone's passport-size photograph, It's crucial to get a professional and high-quality result.


Portrait photography is the art of capturing the unique identity, personality, and essence of a subject through the use of photography techniques such as composition, lighting, and posing. It encompasses a variety of styles and approaches tailored to the subject and desired aesthetic.


Awareness of different types of portrait photography is essential to crafting your portraiture skill. Below are the nine types of portrait photography.



Traditional Portraits

When people think of portraits they think of traditional portraits most of the time. Such types of portraits are photographing a person's head and shoulder shots. These kinds of portraits are mainly shot in a studio on a formal background.


Lifestyle Portraits

A lifestyle portrait is the opposite of a regular portrait style. A regular portrait has control over the subject whereas in lifestyle style has very minimal. Lifestyle portrait photography captures real-life moments in a natural environment, It is more like a candid.


Environmental Portraits

Environmental Portraits focus on capturing the subjects in a meaningful environment, for example, their home or workplace, and typically highlight the subject's lifestyle and environment. Point to know to shoot environment portrait.

  • It gives context to the subject

  • It gives a point of interest to shoot

  • Helps your subject relax

  • It gives the viewers a real insight into the personality and lifestyle of your subject.

Fine Arts Portraits
Photo by 3Motional Studio

The vision of the photographer is fine art photography, fine art photography is artistic photography. Creativity and forethought are what makes your photography stand-alone out of all the genres.

In fine art portraits, the art is you want to create an idea, it is very much more important than showing the subject's personality. Your fine art portrait should be unique with the concept of the shoot.


Surreal Portraits
Photo by Merlin

Surrealism Photography makes your photographs into a waking dream or fantastical, resembling scenarios by the photographer's creative vision and concept. The Image should be a dreamlike result it can be possible by creating usual and unexpected lighting.

Surreal Portrait is a mix of surrealism and portraiture. Your audience should be thought of with a whole new perspective of the shot you have clicked. The surreal portrait should be about a story beyond the photograph.


Glamour Portraits
Photo by inna mykytas

Glamour portraits are always thought has beauty portraits it's not the same, however, the majority of focus in glamour portraits involves makeup looks and wardrobe, and elaborate planning.

A glamour portrait needs to be a sensual vibe, the focus point should always be on the subject's beauty. the location to shoot the glamour portraits can be either indoor or outdoor. It depends on the way you want to articulate the shot.


Conceptual Portraits
Photo by Ron Lach

Conceptual photography is, by definition, a type of fine art. For this reason, the two are often confused or used interchangeably. However, fine art is a broader category than conceptual photography; not all fine art is conceptual, though all conceptual photos are fine art.

Conceptual pictures may also resemble fine art portraits. The difference is that a conceptual portrait represents a specific idea, such as fear or curiosity, while a fine art portrait may have no specific meaning.


Street Portraits
Photo by Aishant Aneja

The factors that make street portraits interesting and challenging are key points that may help you achieve a good result on the streets.

  • Candid

  • Timing

  • Exposure Triangle

  • Color and Tones

  • Composition

  • Connection

It is possible to achieve good street portraits with more time to practice. It is not about approaching strangers to click the pictures, learning to have confidence, and building a connection.


Family, Couple & Group Portraits

Capturing the group of people connected such as parents and children.

Shooting family portraits is not that simple, you need to put in a lot of effort because of the family or inexperienced models. You need to guide them in the pose, expression, etc.

Capturing the natural moments make it more cheerful, you should have control.


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