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. View some of the eye-catching portraits and photos that stopped us in our tracks this week for their dramatic lighting, silhouettes and quirky observations.

“Pregnancy is a time in many women’s lives when getting all glammed out is not always their first priority,” says Virginia Beach, Virginia, photographer Keith Cephus. “That’s why it was important to Ericka to showcase her sexy by getting her hair and makeup professionally done to look and feel her absolute best.”

Says Ericka: “I really wanted my photographer, as well as my makeup artist Candice Rauch, to capture how beautiful I felt during my entire pregnancy and to capture the essence of my body, strength and beauty.”

Once Cephus knew what Ericka’s needs were, he used two StellaPro Reflexes to light the background to create a high-key effect. “The spill light perfectly wrapped around her to create this stunning image,” he says. “What I love about this concept is that under normal conditions, I would have created a silhouette by subtracting light.  With this image, I did the reverse by bumping up the brightness/contrast in Photoshop. 

[Read: Maternity Photography: A Great Revenue Stream for Wedding Photographers]


Cate Scaglione says this photo is from a boudoir shoot for a bride-to-be, taken in Scaglione’s Red Bank, New Jersey-based Life As Fine Art studio. “Upon seeing this beautiful white wardrobe palette, I knew I wanted to create an image set that felt somewhat soft and muted, while using the dramatic contrast of light and dark,” Scaglione explains. “It’s sensual while still being delicate.” (The image was the first of three images by Scaglione entered in AIBP’s Best of Boudoir 2021″ overall. The AIBP judges, says Scaglione, were drawn to “the elegant styling of the set, which fit the bride well. The contrast of soft shadows and strong dreamy highlights along with the depth of field creates a dreamlike state and feel.” )

Working with window light, Scaglione moved the set around to create a wedding day moment—”this was a ‘sensual pause’ as she was getting prepared,” says the photographer. “At first, clients can often be nervous going into this experience (though that usually doesn’t last long). I never static-pose my boudoir clients. I make them move their bodies in very real ways so that every movement feels authentic to the storyline.”

[Read: Starting a Boudoir Photography Business That Stands Out with Shawn Black]

As a big confidence boosting technique, Scaglione has clients walk tall and face themselves in a mirror as they “catwalk” towards it from across the room. “It’s a tall, modelesque gait, and I instruct them to connect with themselves in the mirror when they feel that moment of beauty and power. This was that moment for her. I was positioned below at her knee height, using a 35mm to shoot upward, creating a leggy, regal stature.”

Scaglione adds that she loves using soft natural window light in her boudoir sessions. “I get that perfect combination of surreal, graceful, white side lighting that showcases the subject’s soft side of femininity. But then on the shadow side, it creates sensuality and mystery through contrast and shadow. I break a lot of rules at times, but this is a recipe my clients absolutely love.”

Fashion portrait photographer Lindsay Adler, who knows what it takes when it comes to dramatic lighting, says this image was captured during the third day of her fashion photography intensive workshop at “an incredible mansion” just outside of New York city. 

“This location was absolutely stunning, but terribly lit,” says Adler. “The room was dim, only lit by a couple tungsten lamps and sconces. I wanted to bring the room and details to life, but with a creative twist. This shot was illuminated with three different strobes—a main light (beauty dish + grid), fill light (umbrella with diffusion + blue gel) and gridded light on the background.”

Adler adds that “one of the biggest challenges I struggled with is that there were a lot of reflective surfaces in the space. The panels behind the subject, the candle sticks, the mantle place…all reflective! It took careful use of grids and angles to get it right.”

[Read: Lindsay Adler’s 10 Steps to Selling Photographs as NFTs]

Talk about dramatic lighting! Charlotte, North Carolina, wedding photographer Scott Stockton says this was a sunrise engagement shoot at Driftwood Beach on Jekyll Island in Georgia. 

“I love shooting at sunrise and sunset because you can get some really cool silhouette shots,” Stockton explains. “For this shot, the sky looked amazing and I wanted to take it all in so I went with a wide angle lens and shot this at 14mm. I love the way the sun warms up the beach tones and the sun rays flare out from behind the clouds.”

Photographed at Plas Nanteos Mansion near Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Wales, this image by UK photographers Hollie and Patrick Maateer of M and G photography is typical of their usual approach, an “observational one” where they record what they see unfolding around them.

Says Patrick: “In this instance, I noticed that some children were trying on fancy dresses. They were dressed up extravagantly in capes, headgear and long garlands of paper flowers that really stood out visually. The rest of the wedding ignored them just as they, in their turn, ignored the rest of the wedding as they wandered around the mansion doing their own thing.”

Patrick says this little girl walked onto the grass and stopped, pausing and just standing, as if posing while completely oblivious of him. “I was able to make my way around to the front of her and click my shutter several times. I was aware of the composition that was unfolding—the low angle at her eye-level with her dark glasses parallel but just above with the line of the path; the strong horizontal and vertical lines of the old classical mansion; and the group of three with bride and groom in the middle distance, and further back the larger group relaxing amongst the pillars at the house’s entrance. That added up to three groups of figures making a triangle and taking the eye into the picture and then back out again to the little girl’s face. And behind them all, the great stately form of the mansion.”

Patrick adds that he loves all the contrasts going on here: “the small foreground area of intense rainbow colors against the serene low-key greens, browns and grays; the little girl, waving her flag to no one in particular, oblivious of the scene behind her; the old Georgian mansion with its classical lines and abundant ivy; the bride clearly cold, wearing her new husband’s jacket; the guests lazing about and leaning on the pillars at the entrance of the manor house, perhaps too timid to the brave the cold breeze beyond. They are arranged like one of those old Victorian portrait groups where everyone looks in a different direction. It is a quintessentially British scene—with a twist.”

Dig into our Photo of the Day archives for even more compelling and eye-catching portraits and photos that showcase dramatic lighting, silhouettes and other effects to enhance an image.