Portrait Photography: Creative Tips & Ideas for Great Images

So, you like taking portraits, that’s great, but how happy are you with the results and could you do better? 

In this course you’ll learn many of the tips and tricks that professional photographers use for creating stunning portraits, and in a varying assortment of environments, both inside and outside. 

At the end of the course you’ll be armed with so many ideas, that you’ll no longer need to worry about freezing up, or wondering what to do next with your subjects.

1. Learn the fundamentals of portrait lighting and lighting patterns.
2. Discover new ways of taking photos of individuals on location in live sessions.
3. Learn my relaxed methods for taking photos of families and children in live sessions.
4. Laugh at my 17 tips for getting great expressions from families and children.
5. Learn how I pose people to make them look relaxed.
6. Watch and learn from my live maternity sessions with an 8 month pregnant mum-to-be.
7. Discover some specialist ideas for amazing portraits.

Content and Overview 

Suitable for beginners, intermediates and even advanced photographers, you’l learn the fundamentals of portrait photography along with many tips and ideas for adding drama and creativity to your portraits.

Rather than just using paid models, this course also has live sessions with friends, and families with their children. Some of these are typical location sessions where we just walk around in parks taking photos.

This is an extremely varied course demonstrating both natural light and off-camera flash portraits, with some specialist ideas that you can easily replicate, plus many tips on composition.

You’ll see how I interact with people to make them feel more comfortable, which in turn helps to get better expressions.

On completing this course you’ll have the knowledge, know-how and confidence to tackle many portrait scenarios.

Beginner and intermediate photographers, and even advanced photographers wishing to learn new skills.

1. Bernie does a wonderful job of explaining and then demonstrating the techniques that he uses. It’s so much easier to comprehend when taught this way ~ A Lumpkin
2. I'm neither a beginner nor a professional, I enjoyed the course from the first to the last section Bernie. I particularly enjoyed that you are taking it easy and don't seem to take yourself too seriously which shows to me personally that you are very comfortable with what you do. The fact that you were admitting and showing your mistakes made me feel very comfortable. Nice one, Moving to your next course soon ~ Emmanouil K
3. Fantastic course with lots of great tips and tricks and real life examples. Bernie is great fun and I love that he doesn't take himself (or his models) too seriously :) ~ Bryony C
4. This was a great course for the beginner or intermediate student. I enjoyed the relaxed style of the presenter who gave us a course with a good basic introduction to portraiture and lighting, excellent videos of using both natural light and flash. I'm looking forward to putting his excellent advice into practice. Thanks Bernie! ~ D McIlwain
5. Bernie obviously knows the material, and is able to convey ideas in simple terms. His British wit keeps the tone lively and entertaining, while he keeps on point ~ J Westlake
6. Honestly, when I started the course, I thought Bernie is some high-headed guy with a bunch of dogmas. How wrong I was! He is fun, amicable, nice to watch, and has a load of photography knowledge which photographers, and especially beginners, can learn. Though I have been doing photography for 10 years now, I still learnt a lot. Thanks Bernie and God bless you!! ~ Buddhaditya P
7. A very informative course and I've learnt a whole lot. I am going to practice the things that you did and this course also gave me ideas when I am shooting. Great job and this course is very beneficial to me ~ E Mae Rolle
8. I loved this course, lots of useful ideas to try out without breaking the bank. Would definitely recommend to any anyone wanting to improve their portrait photography. Thank you Bernie ~ Cheryl F
9. Excellent tutor. Very easy to follow and looking forward to try out the lessons learnt. Just hoping to succeed as the course was brilliant ~ A Scicluna
10. This is now my 3rd course with Bernie and I'm already a big fan of his open friendly way to communicate with people. And of course he has great tips to get the best of light and shadows for the portraits. What I really like in his courses is the possibility to take great photos with non-expensive equipment. Time to practice now for me :) ~ P Leinfellner

1. Learn how to improve your portrait photos.
2. Learn how to add drama to portraits for more creativity.
3. Learn how to get great expressions and reactions from your subjects.
4. Learn the fundamentals of portrait lighting.
5. Discover great tips, tricks and ideas in live photo sessions with models, families and children.

1. A DSLR or Mirrorless camera and a basic understanding of its use.
2. A keen desire to learn more about shooting portraits.