One of the workshops I teach is called “Succesvolle portretten” or in English “Successful portraits”.
In this workshop I give (as the name suggests) a lot of attention to shooting a portrait.
For me a portrait is much more than “just a headshot” although there is a section on the headshot, which of course is a very vital and important part of most successful studios.

The main thing about this workshop is that we don’t work with professional models…. I use the attendees of the workshops as my models, and also let them shoot each other, because in my opinion it’s very important to experience what it is like to be in front of the camera before you can successfully stand behind it for a good portrait.

A good portrait for me shows the character of the person in front of the camera, with model/fashion/glamour etc. photography you can get away with letting your model “act” but with portraits I always want something more, a little bit of the soul of the person in front of your lens so to say, so making sure your subject is at ease before and during the shoot is important. To make sure that you get them at ease, it’s very helpful that you have been in that situation yourself.

After some more serious techniques and setups I always try to play around a bit with the group creating what I call “a semi avatar”.
In this part I try to get some more humor in the shots so to say. Today I’m gonna show some of these shots from the last workshop “Successful portraits” and remember these are not models just people that probably “hate” to be photographed 😀

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