I Shot Professional Portraits for 2 years, This Is What I Learned….

Portrait Photography shot on FujiFilm and Sony Cameras

(all models are tagged on my IG photos)

🔧 Favourite 24mm and 50mm For Fujifilm and Sony

(all models are tagged on my IG photos)

🔧 GEAR THAT I USE

⬇️ FujiFilm Setup

⬇️ SONY Full Frame

⬇️ SONY APSC

🎒 What's In My Professional Photo Camera Bag

🎒 My "TRAVEL" Camera sling/bag

🎙️My talking head set up

🖥️ My desk setup

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✖ Professional & Sponsorship Inquiries ✖
#portrait #portraitphotography #fujifilm

[gerardneedham]

Let me know in the comment section what you guys have learnt while shooting portraits or if this video helped to get started!

BTW I just realised I spelt Photographers wrong in the last slide 😅, I’m slightly dyslexic and I miss miss-spelt words a lot 😂

[ethannarrow]

“Portrait photography is simple… get really hot models”

[kevinmurphy]

All of the above points are very valid and represents perhaps 10% to 20% of a photographers ability to succeed. Remember there are thousands of photographers better than you, but most of them are not good business people. Marketing, networking, understanding your customers needs, gaining trust and respect, optimizing your lead generation and onboarding process, optimizing you shooting, post processing, and final product delivery process, optimizing you pricing strategy, having a unique or recognizable style, having a clear target audience, and a clear product and value proposition .... ALL trump photography skill, as long as you meet the bare minimum standard. Just look at all the mediocre photographers in your market making top dollar. If you are not a beginner ... focus on business.

[momentsbyebba]

Thank you so much for a great video! Sometimes I feel like photography advice is just teaching people about the rules, but I love that you instead talked about what to pay attention to in a photo, and how to find your own style and voice! This will definitely help me improve my portrait photos

[theowlfromduolingo]

1:15 I would also add color palette and theme / intention of the photo

[mileswittboyer.photoco]

Dude. Super love the advice to simplify a gear set. It's so wildly against the grain these days because the industry has to sell to survive. The truth is the most talented photographers I know limit themselves intentionally as a posture of creativity. They find art baked into the problem solving process and when there's 6 cameras and 12 lenses spread around the temptation to second guess every decision is too high. Thanks for the honest push here.

[bo_norris]

I once went on a little rant to good friend. He is a wise man and has a large following on instagram and he is also here on YouTube. Anyways.. I was ranting about how many photographers I know that take such mediocre photos and got paid so well and all he said was, “It’s never the best photographer who gets the job, it’s always the best marketer”. He said nothing more about this. But man, this really hit. Not because it’s groundbreaking news or anything. It’s just how true it is. I never really thought about it much that way. The key to success in photography is really just about selling yourself. So many big YouTube photographers are so meh.. when it comes to taking photos as well. The reason they’re so popular is only because they put in the time and effort to record, edit, and upload their videos of them talking photography. They just put in the work and it pays off. I’m not a fan of many YouTubers photography work but I still respect them for not being lazy and putting in the effort of creating content. Congrats to them.

[DigiBentoBox]

Subscribed because your tips and your example photos were stellar. Great content in a sea of noise.

[wesbaynham]

Great video! You summed up my beginners portrait style pretty quickly! Now I'm keen to level up and get more creative. Keep the great videos coming!

[michaelbell]

Good video. 1:44 yep! Constantly chasing the latest and greatest gear will kill your creativity. Ive been shooting portraits professionally for 20 years now and I have sold off most my newer gear. Sony makes the sensors for just about everyone now and almost every modern mirrorless camera (Fuji aside) churns out the same boring, sterile, over-sharpened images with zero character. Ive gone back to DSLRs like the 5D Classic and Sony A300 as well as some great bridge cameras like the Panasonic FZ47, FZ50 and FZ200. Those older CCD sensors on the A300, FZ47 and FZ50 have a filmic look to them with tons of character, same with the 5D Classic. Really happy with the look of my portraits more recently.

[TKNORTH]

Great vid man! Some awesome info in here

[EddyMaynard]

just come across your channel, SOLID portfolio man love your style. instant sub ✌

[samuelwebster]

Thank you for your insights some very good comments from seasoned pros.. I'm passionate about landscape photography and bought my first dslr canon 550D in 2018.. I come from a special needs back ground so learning new skills is a massive challenge.. I've found photography late in life and it has helped quite a bit with confidence.. I have a mentor who I'm so thankful for he last year through a camera club in the UK brought out a 7d mark ii and a 24-105mm prime.. I'm getting into portraits as well now as that pays a little more then landscapes.. I live in a smalleish town so getting regular work is tough.. I'm trying to learn photoshop but it's tricky as a newbie.. But all in good time 🙏

[altarego]

Great, great video! This was really encouraging and inspiring. I haven't broken out my camera for a while and I'm feeling the itch to get back into it!

[mcmillanvideos]

I definitely like having a plan, great advice, with details as to how to get a plan! Thank you! My problem is finding people who WANT to have their photo taken. Looks like you've found lots of attractive young people that know how to pose and love having their photo taken (in this video).. Probably shooting weddings would put you in touch with that target audience.
I just want to find 'interesting' people in general... and that has proven quite difficult. So, I plan to move to an area with more interesting people... and hope to find some interesting peeps.

[Vincentecreativeservices]

Thank you. The advice on contrast and not shooting for the edit is particularly helpful to me.

[CurtisRedden]

I wish there was a way in youtube I could save this video to watch again. Its so good. but you've disabled the save option to add to playlists.

[quentindescotte]

Good advices, sincerity, a nice video pleasant to watch. Thanks Gerard

[bananaman-zdlq]

When you said wedding photography is a start, I find that interesting because I don't even know how to start as a second or third photographer at a wedding but I would like to know.

[gbl]

Gerard can you make a video of how to edit using your preset?