Turning a drab portrait into an epic portrait.

Capturing an epic portrait is not as difficult as you may think. It takes three simple steps to get a spectacular shot. Some photographers, such as Meghan Nelson have displayed how simplistic it is to turn a drab photo into an epic one. You start off by taking a portrait of your subject, but with the settings to have the face well exposed, and the background overexposed. Next, you take a shot with the subject underexposed, but the perfect exposure for the background. Lastly, with the same settings used for the underexposed photo, take the same photo, but with a speedlight.

 

Overexposed

epic portrait

My shutter speed was at 1/1250, with an aperture of f/1.8 and ISO 100.

 

Underexposed

epic portrait

My shutter speed was at 1/500, with an aperture of f/10 and ISO 100.

 

Epic

epic portrait

Just as the prior image, my shutter speed was at 1/500, with an aperture of f/10 and ISO 100.

I edited the final photo a bit in Photoshop and Luminar 4 to bring out the colors and soften her skin.

Overall, this is a fairly simple project that anyone can try out. Next time you’re out taking portraits, try to capture your own epic portrait.