lukas hassell

Being the first couples shoots I have ever done, I am both proud of what I created and also feel like I’ve learned a lot. Everything from paying attention to each part of the couple’s positioning to interacting with the client, there is a lot that goes into it.

For the first shoot, I had an overcast day with plenty of light, so I didn’t have to worry about harsh lighting. Since I am new to the portrait photography world, poses do not come naturally to mind. Although an easy way to work around this is looking for inspiration online or just being confident. If you act like you know what you are doing with your client(s), they will trust you. This shoot went well with the help of some reference poses, and I kept it light and enjoyable with engaging conversation.

With all of these images, I did global adjustments for tone and presence. This is always a good start to make the images look nice. From there, I did both noise reduction and sharpening to make sure noise was as low as possible while also keeping the faces sharp. Additionally, I always apply some sort of mask over the subjects to make some minor tone and presence adjustments to just the subjects themselves. For this first shoot specifically, I brightened up the subjects a little bit and also made a mask on the crack above to lower the exposure a little bit.

For this next shoot, conditions were a lot different. I was able to control the lighting in this scene and easily try different poses within the same spot. I used a key light on the right side and a fill light on the left to fill in some shadows.

For post-production, the one thing I did differently here was use a color range mask to reduce the redness in the faces. One thing I also do for all the photos is do minor healing on faces for any blemishes or distracting elements. Other than that, I just brightened the subjects up a bit with a mask and lightened the shadows.

For this next shoot, I was back in the same spot as the first, but the conditions were a lot brighter. I was shooting around 6 p.m., so the lighting was very warm. Using the light to reflect off the walls around the subjects helps lighten them up without introducing harsh shadows to the faces.

The biggest issue I ran into while editing these was the harsh red lighting bouncing off the rocks. I used many color range masks to try to reduce the red lighting as much as I could on the wife’s arms and the husband’s face. The head does break the plane of the horizon here, but since it was not the closest direct horizon, I do not think it is too distracting.

For this next shoot, I also had different conditions, and I was working with indoor fluorescent lights. These can definitely be harsher lights, and you have to watch out for lighting on the face, especially. Originally, the husband was wearing a cap but decided he should remove it so he didn’t have harsh shadows along his face. The environment was important for this shot since I was trying to incorporate the pickleball courts in the background.

For local edits on these images, I made another color range mask to reduce the redness on the faces. Other than that, I just brightened up the subjects and made global adjustments.

For this last shoot here, I tried to do some more detail shots as opposed to just regular posing pictures. The lighting here was pretty easy to work with, and I wanted to incorporate the ring to give some emphasis on that.

Since the ring is the main subject here, I was sure to make masks around the ring and hand to brighten those up. Aside from that, I darkened the wife’s shoulder a little and brightened up both of their smiles.

Overall, these couple shoots were a great experience, and I learned a lot. A big part of photography is being able to be personal and outgoing. If you can make the couple have fun while doing the shoot, regardless if the photos turned out amazing or not, they are going to remember the enjoyable time they had.

For any of you looking for future engagement or couples shots, I will make sure that I am able to capture exactly what you are looking for. Whether that be an indoor studio shoot or an outdoor sunset shoot, I’ll make sure you guys are both having a good time during the shoot and happy with the photos that come out of it.