| The Portrait Workshop: Photography and Retouching

Learn the fundamentals of portrait photography and improve your skills for your business or how to make compelling portraits of your family and friends.

Learning the fundamentals of portrait photography is key whether you want to improve your skills for your business or learn how to make compelling portraits of your family and friends.

In this workshop, you will gain the basic foundation necessary in the elements of portraiture including, lighting, environment and location, posing, gesture, and expression. You will learn to work with various kinds of lighting, including natural light, window light, indoor, and studio lights. 

Mickey will cover the entire process of making expressive and interpretive portraits, from the photo shoot through post-processing.

Topics covered in this workshop include:

Studio Portraits

We will talk and work in the studio with standard Studio gear. Great place to try out new lighting before making the plug into the studio. We will talk and work through solutions for Formal and Informal settings and how to get that pivotal/decisive moment. 

• Key Light 
• Fill Light
• Hair lights
• Rim lights
• Backgrounds
• To Strobe or Not to Strobe 

Environmental Portraits

• Sunlight and how to bend it
  • Time of day 
  • Reacting to unfavorable time of day conditions 
• Bounce light into the portrait 
  • Artificial or bounce sun
  • Strobe flash (Fill)

Retouching with Photoshop

• If you’re new to Adobe Photoshop this class will take you through the basics of editing and the tools needed to get the best results.  We will also get into Layers why and how, Brushes why and how, and adjustments to get better portraits from your RAW images.

What to bring?

Students should bring their camera and lenses, the 85 mm and 105mm are two of Mickey’s preferred lenses for portraits.  A tripod is recommended, but not required.  Students should also bring a storage device to be able to store their images.

Photos & header image by Mickey Strand