Welcome to Photographing Men with Jeff Rojas. In this series, explore the process of photographing men across commercial, corporate and cinematic setups. Focus on lighting, perspective, modifiers, and tone. But beyond the technical, learn how to create comfortable, confident imagery that evokes m...

With the understanding of how people perceive shapes and symmetry, identify the elements of styling that create a confident, compelling image of a man. Focus on wardrobe, the importance of a perfect fit, to evoke and accentuate the best features and attributes of men. Follow photographer, Jeff Ro...

Before entering the studio for a series of photo shoots featuring different male subjects, sit down with photographer Jeff Rojas to examine facial shapes. Explore a variety of facial shapes and how to manipulate light to create visually pleasing portraiture.

Follow photographer, Jeff Rojas, as he begins with the first studio shoot - a single light setup. Learn to use diffused lighting to create soft, clean skin tone and smooth dramatic portraiture, regardless of your gear. Watch as Jeff meters light, iterating through captures, and works with you ste...

In this setup, remove the diffusion from your key light and use a different modifier as a backdrop for your subject - the v-flat. With the umbrella diffusion removed, focus on creating higher contrast imagery. Watch as photographer, Jeff Rojas, meters lighting and creates the ideal settings for c...

For this setup, remove the v-flat and replace it with a softbox backdrop behind your subject. Focus on creating a controlled rim light around your subject’s face. Examine the effects of backlighting your subject with specific attention on retaining skin and hair texture. Build up through the ligh...

Change out lighting for a Westcott Zeppelin Part 47 key light to create a more commercial look for your male subject. With inner and outer diffusion on the light, a V-Flat modifier and longer, narrower source, control the look of the image using diffusion, angle, and lighting position. Intentiona...

Using the same commercial lighting setup, begin to incorporate different props to change the mood and posture of your male subject. Iterate through a series of captures changing your camera’s position to achieve different perspectives.

With a foundation for lighting, transition to structuring intentional posing for your subjects. Focus on the nuances of posing to create cool, comfortable, and confident male portraiture. Start this exercise in posing with a simple one light softbox setup. Learn to control shadows and highlights ...

In this second part of the posing focus, transition from a commercial portrait style into a corporate headshot aesthetic, evaluating posing techniques for professional male subjects. Continue to build on creating structure, negative spaces and accentuating the inverted triangle to create strong, ...

For this segment, transition to a different male subject for a variant of the corporate portrait aesthetic. In this setting, leverage the usage of your backdrop and props to create effective poses for standing vs. sitting. Learn to create posing the evokes both comfort and confidence, with subjec...

For this segment of the posing focus, switch to a more casual subject and aesthetic. Work to elongate your subject using perspective in relationship to the camera. Iterate through a series of captures using pose, props, and v-flat reflection for a casual, confident male portrait.

With a firm foundation establish, put all of the pieces together for a commercial studio shoot. Follow photographer, Jeff Rojas in a new lighting and modifier setup, leveraging a key with umbrella, v-flats bouncing 2 lights onto a white backdrop. Meter each light building up a precise setup to ca...

In this studio shoot, transition to a black background and a different male subject. Iterate through a few captures and then reverse engineer the lighting setup to understand the shape and control of lighting for this compelling male portrait.

Follow photographer, Jeff Rojas, as he builds up a single light setup for a commercial portrait. Using a Profoto B1 key light, diffusion, a v-flat modifier, and a black backdrop, watch as he builds up his light to create a modern, clean male portrait. Watch as Jeff experiments with a black v-flat...

Learn to create an image with a soft, diffused single light without an expensive gear setup. Follow photographer, Jeff Rojas, as he builds up a beautiful black and white portrait. Continue to build on your experience, to shape light, controlling highlights and shadows. Manipulate v-flats and basi...

Transition to an entirely different aesthetic for this next studio shoot. Follow photographer, Jeff Rojas, as he walks through his lighting setup for a more cinematic portrait. Build up the lighting, isolating the effect of each source and subsequent modifiers. Examine posing to create a moody, s...

With the same lighting setup, change the tone and mood of the cinematic male portrait with a different subject. See how changing up styling can change the emphasis of the story, while maintaining the same elements of the set. Switch out lenses and shoot handheld for more organic emotions and feel...

With production complete, move forward into the retouching phase. Follow photographer, Jeff Rojas, as he examines his top selects from the male portrait shoots, culling down to his favorite images to be retouched in Photoshop. Using Lightroom, learn about Jeff’s RAW processing approach. Leverage ...

Begin the retouching phase of your commercial portrait using Photoshop. Join photographer, Jeff Rojas, as he identifies a variety of areas across skin, wardrobe and backdrop that will need cleanup. Use the power of Photoshop’s patch tool and spot healing brush to eliminate high areas of contrast,...

For this phase of retouching, leverage the power of Frequency Separation to create, natural, even and textured skin tone for your commercial portrait. Follow photographer, Jeff Rojas, as he dives deeper into retouching the subjects skin, hearing best practices using this method of Frequency Separ...

For this step, focus on cleaning up the background of your image. Using Transform, the patch and clone stamp tools to create a seamless, distraction free background.

For the final phase, bring your image back into Lightroom for a black and white conversion process. Manipulate color within your Black and White mix to create the perfect gradation and tone to finish this modern, standout male portrait.

Begin the process of retouching the final image in this series - a Cinematic Male Portrait. Follow photographer, Jeff Rojas as he prepares the RAW image in Lightroom making balanced and targeted saturation adjustments. Using the Develop module, learn to process your RAW images for optimum retouch...

Jump into Photoshop to begin retouching a cinematic male portrait. For this wider, landscape portrait shot, quickly jump through skin and wardrobe cleanup using the patch and clone stamp tools.

In this phase, focus on creating lighting effects in post. Using Photoshops elliptical marquee tool, gaussian blur filter, curves layering and blend modes, to create targeted lighting effects for your image. Learn to build a basic composite for realistic and dynamic effect.

Continue to add dynamic environmental elements to enhance your cinematic male portrait. Using samples from PRO EDU’s Creative Overlays pack, create smoke and haze elements to create dimension and atmosphere. Add texture and more story elements to enhance the look and feel of your imagery. Leverag...

For the final phase of retouching this Cinematic Portrait, use Photoshop’s Liquefy toolset to continue styling the subject in post. Make subtle, nuanced adjustments. Take a moment to reflect and recap the process as you complete this Cinematic Male Portrait.

Congratulations on completing Photographing Men with photographer Jeff Rojas. We challenge you to go, do, create and then share your results within our community. We would love to hear your feedback. Keep asking questions and seek out constructive criticism as you develop your skills as working, ...