Behind the Lens: Elevate your Portraits with Props!

The days are getting longer and the nights are beginning to get lighter which can only mean one thing… Spring is here! To celebrate the turn of a new season, this week I’m bringing a pop of colour to the blog in this ‘Behind the Lens’ breakdown of one of my most colourful shoots. Using props correctly can elevate your portraits to the next level, not to mention they are great fun! In this photoshoot, I utilised some ribbons to provide some colour and movement to my portraits. The theme for this photoshoot was Rainbow and I entitled this mini series ‘Fun! Fashion’ because fashion, if nothing else, should always be fun!

Planning and Prop Sourcing

The main goal for this photoshoot was to create portraits that were fun, colourful and a little editorial, meaning the styling would play a big part in the final outcome. My lovely friend who volunteered to model this concept had a beautiful rainbow-coloured dress that we paired with a white blouse that worked really well in front of the camera, despite how initially unconventional it felt! I additionally sourced some coloured ribbons to play with, that I felt might help when it came to positioning the arms.

I curated a moodboard for this shoot that provided a guide for posing and post-production, as well as to ensure a colour scheme was maintained. As you can see, this moodboard was very cluttered! I have since moved to a stripped back approach with my personal mood boards, which you can read more about here.

Moodboard

Shooting!

It rained the entire day, until a perfectly timed window of sunshine during a lunch break at University gave us the time to do the shoot. It was a scramble to get ready, head to the location, and shoot the images before my next class but my friend and I worked really well together, so we were able to get the shots quickly. I posed my friend in different, editorial-style positions and really tried to capture the movement of the dress. As for the ribbons, I encouraged my friend to just have fun with them and throw them in various directions. I also got some portraits of her head and shoulders as she moved the ribbons, which resulted in a nice framing of her face.

Editing and Final Shots

I shot this work nearly three years ago now, and back then my editing style was very much on the high contrast side. I also enjoyed playing with the Lightroom Presets, which is reflected in a lot of this work. To ensure the colours in both the prop and her dress really popped, I increased the saturation. Again, at this time, I didn’t fully understand how to mask in Lightroom, or how to edit colours separately, so the final images are a little oversaturated. Nevertheless, here are some of the final images!

I think I really hit my theme of ‘Fun! Fashion’ with this series. It’s bright, colourful and expressive, and the addition of props really adds an extra dynamic to the images.

This photoshoot was all about trying new things. Learning how to incorporate props effectively into a concept has been invaluable as my photography has progressed; I use props a LOT, especially during my Halloween concept photoshoots. I learnt so much about editing during the post-production side of this concept and gained a clearer understanding of how my editing software works, thus my editing style has improved. Making time for your own passion projects, whatever it may be, is a great opportunity to not only have fun, but to learn more about yourself as a creative and your craft, which is why I will always aim to make time for my own personal projects, big or small.