The Summer I Discovered Portrait Photography
The summer of 2026 has become synonymous with portrait photography for me. It wasn't something I planned when the year began. It really started sometime during the spring, with me photographing myself.
It started with self-portraits
During the spring, I started taking self-portraits in the studio, mainly to use as references for my art. Photographing myself was practical. I was always available as a model, and I could experiment quite freely without anyone else having to be patient with me. It was also a challenge to myself, to try to become more comfortable in front of the camera.
After a while, I also started posting some of the self-portraits and the resulting drawings. Photography began to take up a little more space in my life, and I created a separate website just for my photographs.
From self-portraits to family
During the spring and early summer, I temporarily set up part of my studio for portrait photography. At first, it was mostly about experimenting and photographing family. The backdrop, in the beginning, was a curtain.
But the portraits turned out better than I had expected. More importantly, I discovered how much I enjoyed photographing other people. On Sweden's National Day, I photographed my sister-in-law Hedvig and my parents-in-law, Ann and Johan. It was another step from experimenting with self-portraits towards something that was beginning to resemble actual portrait sessions.
At the same time, it started to show in what I was publishing. My photography account on Instagram became more and more about portraits, and the same thing happened with the portfolio on my website, which I rebuilt.
The studio changes
As I became more interested in portraits, I also started expanding what I could do photographically in the studio.
What had started as a fairly makeshift setup was eventually complemented by a studio flash, more light modifiers and a proper backdrop. I started reading and watching more about how other photographers work with portraits. I studied different ways of lighting faces, classic lighting setups, and how the direction, size and hardness of the light changes an image.
There was a lot of experimenting. Soft light, hard light, black and white, colour, colour gels, different backgrounds and different ways of positioning the light.
But the more I photographed, the clearer it also became that portrait photography is about much more than lighting and photographic technique.
Photographing other people
I started asking people outside my family if they wanted to step in front of my camera. Asking wasn't entirely easy for an introvert like myself, I have to admit.
During the early summer, I photographed, among others, Anders, Joy, Karolina and Hannah. Every session was different. Different people respond differently in front of the camera, and something that works during one session might not work at all during the next.
That has been one of the things I've enjoyed most about portrait photography. A portrait session is a collaboration. I can plan the lighting, backdrop, lenses and ideas in advance, but when the session begins there is suddenly another person involved in the process.
Sometimes a planned idea works exactly as I imagined it. Sometimes something completely different turns out much better. And sometimes a photograph taken in between the planned shots becomes my favourite.
Outside the studio
Not everything has happened in the studio either. During the summer, I photographed the model Kimmie and her fiancé Jonas in Karlaparken in Örebro. It was a completely different kind of session, with available light, flash outdoors, the park environment and two people in front of the camera instead of one.
It was also a reminder that portrait photography doesn't have to mean a studio backdrop and carefully positioned lights. What matters is still the person, or people, in front of the camera.
When the portraits started taking over
Portraits started taking over my photography. As I published images from the sessions, more people began to notice what I was doing. Later in the summer, I photographed Sandra, and not long afterwards I photographed Joy for a second time and then Karolina for a second time. The fact that several people would consider coming back to be photographed again is incredibly touching to me.
In my portfolio today, the change is quite obvious. Something that started with a few self-portraits to create reference images for my art has, in a fairly short time, developed into a large part of my photography.
A summer of portraits
It has, of course, been a summer of a lot of technical learning. But the most interesting things I've learned probably aren't about the equipment. They're about people.
Photographing a portrait is somehow both very simple and very difficult. A person stands in front of the camera and I try to make a good photograph. At the same time, there is so much in a face, a glance, body language or a small expression that can't be planned. I've heard it said that a portrait is a documentation of the relationship, at that particular moment, between the photographer and the person being photographed.
I think that's a large part of the reason I've become so fascinated by portrait photography. There is always something new to discover, both photographically and in the encounter with the person in front of the camera.
When spring began, I had no idea that 2026 would be the year when I started photographing so many portraits. Now, as summer is beginning to come to an end, it almost feels as if that's what I've spent the summer doing. It wasn't really planned. But perhaps that's how some of the most enjoyable projects begin.