In Person: Portrait Photography Essentials

Lolita Lens
E65095e1 seeable

Taught by David Samuel Stern

David Samuel Stern's photography-based artwork has been featured in publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and National Geographic, and shown at galleries such as Marshall Gallery in Santa Monica. He has taught photography at Pratt Institute and Penland School of Craft among other institutions. He lives and works in Manhattan. Instagram: @dsamuelstern

Photo: Tom Warner / Artica Svalbard

 

 

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Portraiture is the soul of photography. But success in this genre relies on mastery of technical concepts, aesthetic subtleties, and your simultaneous ability to work with human subjects.

Amp up your portraiture skills in this streamlined, four-session course. We’ll dive into understanding how to work with natural, window, continuous, external-flash, and mixed lighting scenarios, as well as lens and camera-handling effects, in both a low-budget studio setup and on-site environments. Through in-class shoots with models and weekly challenges, you will create a portfolio of formal, casual, headshot, and full-length portrait work, while gaining skills for directing and posing your subject and building rapport. In lectures we’ll analyze the work of significant portrait photographers, and in hands-on demos we’ll demystify specialized photo gear.

Students should have a working knowledge of manual exposure controls. A DSLR, hybrid, or mirrorless camera with manual controls is strongly suggested. There will be some out of class exercises to complete as well. 

Check out some behind-the-scenes and student work below:

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photo credit: Inga Barchan

 

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photo credit: Joseph Ciccarella

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