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Current Trends In Portrait Photography World

Portrait photography is one of the most creatively demanding and challenging jobs in the world. Bringing out the best in your subject by taking a different route and photo ensemble each time and carving a different mood for every client is what makes portraiture unique in its own rights. However, just like other things in the world, trends come and go with the portrait photography landscape as well. Let us have a look at all the trends that are creating some buzz this season.

The way we are clicking portraits is changing. Here are a few trends that are here to stay.

The Classical Painting Portrait

Photo by: Bill Gekas
Photo by: Bill Gekas

You would find such paintings in many old-timey houses. The person is either sitting on a chair or standing beside it in full glory. Often, the complete silhouette of their body is shown in the paintings. Modern photography is taking clues from the same. You can get a similar portrait for your clients. Simply take the chair as a prop and ensure that the subject is standing at a 45-degree angle from the camera. However, you need to add some dramatic flair in these pictures. The clothes, the setup, and the skin tone of the subject need to be perfect, at least interesting or the portrait looks very dull and half-hearted effort.

The Desaturated portraiture

Desaturated Portrait Photography
Photo by: Lars Krogsgaard

We have all loved colors and many photographers are famous for their highly saturated pictures. However, these days, the trends favor desaturated color portraits a lot. The color becomes very metallic or brownish in looks. The picture stays very transparent all the while. However, the color desaturation is not visible in the first look itself. You have to find a more beautiful picture of drama and color here. The more creative you get with the pictures, the better results you would get.

The Environmental shoot

Current Trends In Portrait Photography World Environmental shoot
Photo by: Brian Smale

Studio or indoor shoots are not in anymore. In fact, if you see portraits these days that are shot in studios, they are mostly done for fashion photography. The environmental shooting style is more natural and presents better transformations than the rest. This kind of portraits always makes sure that the subjects present more beautiful results later.

Moreover, the pictures appear more creative and candid. You are free to experiment with many different styles and poses. Moreover, the environment shoot can make even the most boring styles appear very colorful. Families are especially liking this kind of portraiture for their shoots.

Creative & Candid portraiture

Candid Portrait Photography
Photo by:Jakub Ostrowski

The more you go away from conventional poses, the better would your portrait becomes. You have to make sure that you are finding newer portrait poses. In fact, going without poses and finding absolutely abstract images for the clients are quite a in vogue. You must think of defining some really great poses for your client. The more you understand your client and the better you understand the subject’s lifestyle, the better decisions you would be able to make. There are absolutely no limits on what you can get.

Also See: How to be Good at Candid Photography

More experience, more prices

Current Trends In Portrait Photography brian smith
Photo by: Brian Smith

Photographers are mostly known to be rigid with their pricing. However, these days, the pricing of pictures is becoming more like a tariff card rate structure. Though the pricing itself is not pre-decided, the structure defines that the prices would increase as per the experience of the photographer. Portrait photography is an art and a science at the same time.

Therefore, the more you work on the style, the better results you would be getting with time. Try to maintain a reasonable price structure. This would not scare away your clients. People worry more about good photographers then they think about the price that they are buying. So don’t worry about the client responses and review your pricing structure.

Social Media is in

Current Trends In Portrait Photography World Saskia Nelson FB
Fanpage of : Saskia Nelson

The best way to promote yourself, find new clients, get in touch with old clients and stay updated about the reviews that your existing customers are giving is to use social media. Facebook and Instagram along with Pinterest are more visually rich mediums that can help you in getting in touch with a large number of audience. Therefore, you must at least have a Facebook page dedicated to you and your photography work. This would work even if you don’t have a website or a separate blog to showcase your art.

Also See: Exposure Guide for Beginner Photographers

New Print offerings

These days, it has become trendy for photographers to offer different print qualities and even print materials to the clients. This helps in making your business more innovative, offer something unique to the clients and also ensure that you are being given the best of both worlds, new clients and better competitive advantage. Watercolor paper printing, rag printing, canvas printing, acrylic printing, metallic printing, etc. are becoming very popular these days. You can experiment with these and see the improvement in customer response as well as customer experiences.

New packaging

Current Trends In Portrait Photography World packing
Photo by: Kirk Voclain Photography

The best thing about portrait photography these days is that there is a host of packaging options that are available to the photographers these days. Let’s face it. There are hundreds of photographers in the market and you have to ensure that you remain fresh, competitive, and desirable. For this, you can simply change the packaging of the pictures when they are delivered or think about some add-ons to the pictures. This helps you in ensuring that everything is going in the right direction. Your customers would feel elated with more creative or appealing packaging and your rapport would increase. Consequently, the number of repeat clients would improve as well.

Online advertising

If you want more business and wish to stand apart from the competition, then go for online advertising. This would help you in getting more effective advertising campaigns that come at very reasonable prices. The online advertising efforts are more long-lasting and you don’t even pay as much as you do for local newspaper advertising. You can be getting more clients with these efforts.

Following these trends, you can be clicking great portrait pictures and also ensuring that you get good business. These trends are here to stay and they can be turning your business around 180 degrees.

2 Comments

  • Jodz

    Hi, great post, thanks! However, I was disappointed you didn’t have photos as examples for the trends you listed, it would have been clearer for me, as a non-photographer, what you were discussing.

    • Prad

      Hey Jodz,

      So glad that you found the post helpful. We have updated it as requested. I hope it’ll be a lot more easier for you to understand now.

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