This head-turning effect may look like it was created entirely in post-production, but it’s less complicated than that. To achieve it, you’ll need to get hold of a glass prism, which can easily be found in all shapes and sizes and to suit all budgets on sites like eBay and Amazon. A 4-inch glass prism can be sourced from eBay for less than £10/$10 and is a great way to get started. If you like the prism technique, you may want to upgrade to a Fractal Filters Classic 3-pack, which is more versatile but comes with a premium at $119.
Bear in mind that the prism needs to be long enough to cover the whole front element of your lens (for most 35mm, 50mm and 85mm prime lenses, the 4-inch version will be fine). Requiring hand-holding, the prism needs to be long enough to avoid your fingers appearing in the shot.
Start in Aperture Priority mode and select the widest aperture on your lens, such as f/1.8. This will not only throw the background out of focus but will also render the prism in the foreground out of focus. Adjust the ISO value until you can shoot with a shutter speed of 1/200 sec or above to eliminate camera shake and enable any image stabilisation.
Now it’s time to start shooting and asking your model to experiment with their poses.
Gear advice
Commonly referred to as a ‘nifty fifty’, a 50mm f/1.8 lens is usually priced around the $100-150 (£100-150) mark and even less on the second-hand market. With a brilliant focal length for portraits, when used on a full-frame camera, the wide maximum aperture of f/1.8 will create separation between your model and the background by turning the latter into blurry ‘bokeh’.
See some of our best 50mm lens options
Fractals Filters Classic review: a three-pack of prisms for portrait photographers -
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