8 Top Portrait Photographers in Dallas
Having access to a good professional portrait photographer can prove to be a very important factor for your wordpreneur and publishing projects. If you live/work in the Dallas, Texas area, you have nothing to worry about—the available pool of top caliber Dallas portrait photographers is quite impressive. To help you on your quest, here’s a list in no particular order of some of the best among them.
1. Casey Lee
Although he does the occasional color one, we find photographer Casey Lee’s black-and-white portraits particularly compelling, evocative, and strong. His direct head-on approach is no-nonsense impactful, and his tendency to have his subjects stare seriously straight into the camera pulls you right into the picture’s environment. Typically shot with very simple backgrounds that offer zero distractions, the texture and detail in Lee’s portraits all come from his sharply rendered and heavily contrasted subjects, and the results are powerful. Lee’s portraits truly are among the best work we’ve seen from the pool of Dallas portrait photographers.
2. Jared Rey
Not really sure how you’d like your portrait captured, whether you want it manufactured in studio, or less structured out in the open in natural light, or maybe some elements of both? Then you’ll want a really versatile portrait photographer, adept at producing great images, whatever the situation or setting. Jared Rey fits the bill really well. At least that’s what his portfolio shows us. You’ll see portraits of all kinds, in different common environments. Very well executed ones. There are studio shots. The naturally lit on location ones. The ones at makeshift or portable studios. Rey just consistently nails them all.
3. Jen Bertrand
Going through her portfolio of virtually flawless studio portraits—shot after perfectly lit and posed shot—it’s plainly obvious that Jen Bertrand isn’t some noob with a sparkly new camera who just decided to make like a pro and try this photography thing. Bertrand’s clearly the real deal. Going on 18 years at it with her own studio, in fact. Frankly, if we needed a perfectly executed portrait concept in mind with a model, say for a book cover idea, Bertrand would likely be our choice among Dallas portrait photographers. She’s that good.
It’s always a curiosity to see many folks settle for generic, uninspired corporate headshots and professional portraits—in today’s highly visual Web-driven environment, mind you!—especially when it can be easily so much better. Like with the headshots and portraits Kelly Williams produces. Really, as you can see, her skills and experience at lighting, prepping, and posing her subjects just right, although theoretically subtle, just make all the difference in the world. We can even see through her portfolio that she often regularly takes the extra effort to try different looks and environmental elements to see what works better. It’s really that kind of attention to detail you want on your image team, don’t you think?
What brought Jayme Okerblom to our attention was her excellent work with fashion and personal portraits. But Okerblom does a really thriving trade in photographing babies and children too, and we simply couldn’t resist going through her adorable work with the little ones, oohing and aahing as we went along. “No sense fighting it,” we figured, “babies need portraits too.” So here we are, singing praises for the very obvious talent behind the camera, a seriously top choice among Dallas portrait photographers for capturing incredible shots of your tiny humans. Experience? Okerblom’s been running her Miette Photography and Design studio since 2001. The math is easy.
Women are totally Shea Mayberry’s focus, capturing them in exquisite portraits and boudoir imagery. Equally adept at color and black-and-white photography, we can’t really tell which of them we prefer with Mayberry’s approach, with each being just as visually appealing as the other. Mayberry does have a lighter, softer, more delicate touch, but way subtle, just enough lightening and softening touches to turn normal into tasteful, classy, and elegant. And yes, that goes for her boudoir images as well. It’s simply beautiful, masterful work.
7. Daniel Motta
Versatile professional photographer Daniel Motta provides his skills and services in a few different genres. If all you see is Motta’s Instagram portfolio, which mostly showcases his wedding work, you may miss the fact that Motta has killer portrait and headshot photography skills! Head on over to his website to see the proof. We find ourselves drawn to his darker portraits, the ones that he pairs up with serious or contemplative expressions, giving a palpable sense of contrasty drama. But true to his versatile skillset, he’s just as adept at producing the more standard bright, colorful, and cheery look, and the solid, professional style, of course, prevalent through his business headshots.
8. Amy Orchard
For the last five years, boutique portrait photographer Amy Orchard has run Lantana Studios in Dallas. Presenting a number of different portrait styles on her website and Instagram portfolios, from the artistic to the professional, Orchard has a varied clientele. What we find quite intriguing, however, is a portrait project and exhibit she’s been working on she calls 40 Over 40, “to celebrate and showcase the beauty, style and grace of women over 40.” Its premise is that as women gradually mature, they also gradually lose their identity and “become invisible.” The project aims to help them “see themselves more clearly,” and to showcase “diverse beauty at any age because beauty is ageless.” We eagerly look forward to see how it turns out!