Portrait photography is a popular commercial industry all over the world. Many people enjoy having professionally made family portraits to hang in their homes, or special portraits to commemorate certain events, such as graduations or weddings.

Since the dawn of photography, people have made portraits. The popularity of the daguerreotype in the middle of the 19th century was due in large part to the demand for inexpensive portraiture. Studios sprang up in cities around the world, some cranking out more than 500 plates a day. The style of these early works reflected the technical challenges associated with 30-second exposure times and the painterly aesthetic of the time. Subjects were generally seated against plain backgrounds and lit with the soft light of an overhead window and whatever else could be reflected with mirrors.

The above information is the definition of a portrait from Wikipedia, but what is the portrait now, how has it evolved.

Well one major change is the environment that clients want the portraits taken, instead of the old stuffy studio now everyone either want the photographer to come to them and shoot in there home or for the portraits to be taken in the outside world.

So now instead of the issues of setting up your lighting in the studio, now you have the challenge of finding a background to shoot on in someones home, or a vista or scene that is not going to overwhelm the image and remove the focus from the subjects of the portrait.

Below are some recent family portraits taken in the family’s home, utilising a blank wall after moving a sofa, in the next post I will post some images that I would class as wedding candids and some portraits captured in the great outdoors, which everyone is now calling lifestyle portraiture.