How to Capture Great Portraits in a Tiny Space

You don’t need a ton of space to create an impromptu “home studio” and capture some high quality portraits. As photographer Mark Wallace shows you in this informative tutorial, the corner of a tiny hotel room in Paris is plenty if you know what you’re doing.

This episode of Adorama TV is all about capturing great portraits in a tiny space, breaking down the common excuse that you just “don’t have enough room” to shoot studio portraits at home. You do… you just have to get creative.

Wallace managed to cram a Profoto B2 inside a small softbox into the corner of his hotel room, where there were a couple of windows and some curtains that made for a decent background. Using just that space and his Leica, he was able to capture some close-ups and even a few half-body vertical shots of his model—studio-quality work with no studio in sight.

Could Wallace have used a bit more room to work? Of course. But since he couldn’t control that, he made the most of the space by focusing on the direction of light, quality of light, strength of light, framing, and depth of field—in other words, everything he could control. Then, at the end, he shows you how to add the finishing touches with a bit of processing in Lightroom.

The final images aren’t what Wallace could have created working in a large studio with a proper backdrop, but the keepers he selected are great nonetheless. Check out the full video above, and then head over to the Adorama TV channel on YouTube for more tutorials just like this.