Can People Tell the Difference Between Portraits Taken by Professional and Amateur Photographers?

American photographer Ben Lucas experimented to check whether people see the difference between portraits taken by a professional and an amateur photographer, PetaPixel writes.

Lucas invited an actress named Mary to pose as his partner: together they took several portraits using the same equipment.

“Each person in this video was told that we were doing a Headshot Challenge, between two professional photographers, — the author says. — We showed them each photo without telling them which photographer took which, and found out if they could tell the difference between a fake and a full time photographer. If you are looking for a new headshot, some photographers are charging hundreds of dollars, and some seem to be giving it away for free. Is there even a difference?”

Below are the photographs taken during the experiment: works by the amateur are on the left, and works by the professional photographer are on the right.

Lucas also published a 5-minute video that shows the photo shoot itself.