Copyright Scott Bourne 2010 – All Rights Reserved

If you want to make strong compositions, look for repeating themes. I made this portrait of my pal Skip Cohen and his lovely wife Sheila at the @AlbumEpocaUS launch party in Las Vegas at the swanky new Cosmopolitan Hotel. Making portraits at a party or wedding reception is always a challenge because you typically have little time. It’s also very easy to end up with lots of cliches. I wanted to set up the composition in Skip’s portrait so that it would be a tad bit more interesting than the average party grab shot. I spotted this portrait on the wall of a young woman and I positioned Skip and his wife so that her head came close to mirroring the model’s pose on the wall. It won’t necessarily make the Museum of Modern Art, but it’s a good portrait and the use of iteration to make it interesting made it just a bit better than it would have been otherwise.

Take a look around the next time you make a portrait or any other photograph and look for repeating themes to make your shot more impactful.

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