Sunday 7 November 2010

How to Take Great Portraits

In this topic, I talk about outdoor portraits, although you can apply the majority of these techniques to indoor portraits, you'll just have to have a bit of prior knowledge on lighting to decide how to light your subject, everything else applies the same though.

I am going to go through step by step and what you need to do, so first of all, lets start right at the beginning.

Finding a Subject
Although this sounds simple enough, it might not be as easy for everyone as first appears. I'd say the best place to start if you're not sure where to find a model is look at your friends, most of them (be it male or female) will probably be happy to help you out, especially with the incentive of perhaps, a free print, or a new Facebook profile picture, whatever it may be. If you're struggling to have a friend pose for you, one way to convince them is to show them your other work, even if this isn't in portrait photography, if they're impressed by your photos they're more likely to model for you.
If you're still having difficulty finding a subject, photo forums and websites, or modelling forums and websites are often crawling with prospective wannabe models looking to start their portfolio, and will usually be happy to work with you for free! However, many may want to see your work in portraiture to start with to get an idea to see whether you're worth their time, this is why getting a friend to begin your portfolio is always the ideal, but if you can't, this route is certainly worth a go.

Meeting the Subject
Okay, so before your big shoot, you want to actually meet the model. This allows you to get to know each other a little better, so the model will be more relaxed on the big day, and allows you to discuss ideas on what kind of photos you think will work best. If it is a friend you're photographing this process will obviously be a lot easier, but you'll still want to go through a few ideas of what could work, and locations on where you want to create your art.

Deciding What to Shoot
This is a key part of your photoshoot, and should not be taken lightly. Turning up on the day and not really having any clue what you want to do will more likely than show in your photographs. When you're deciding what to shoot, this is definitely a stage you should involve your subject in, preferably by meeting them, but a phone conversation will suffice.
So what to bring when you meet your model for a preliminary meeting? You can probably get away with just bringing  yourself and a bit of knowledge, but what I like to do is take what I call my "photobook". If you want to create your own, the way I do it is to find a nice thick hardback artists sketchpad. Then in one side, stick all your best photos in a portfolio type manner, to show the model what kind of photographs you can create. Then in the other side, to stick images of portraits that you like, be it from fashion magazines (Vogue, Metropolitan etc.) or be it from specific photo magazines (Practical Photography and Digital Photo are favorites), or perhaps websites. This will allow your model to choose what style of photo they like, and then you can attempt to recreate trying to put your own spin on it. I lay mine out in a similar manner to the photo below and never meet a potential client without it. (Please note that this is one of the pages from the magazines cutting section).



So let your potential client flick through and decide what he/she likes, make sure you don't put in photos that you're not confident you can recreate, because this will just lead to disappointment.
When you're deciding what to shoot, it's also important to decide what to shoot. Clearings in woods are often good spots, it isn't too dark to get nice lighting, but the foliage usually produces a nice soft light on the subject, which is what I'll come to next, execution of the shoot.

Doing the Shoot
Okay, so this is the most important part, but perhaps the one I will go into least detail on. There isn't really that much in the way of specific techniques that you won't have learnt from other areas of photography. Just a relatively small list of  tips that you should always try adhering to (although, bending these rules is usually what results in a quirky portrait, a plain, normal portrait will almost certainly follow these key rules).
-Make sure to focus on the eyes, this is where the human mind automatically draws us in a photo, so making sure the focus is here is absolutely paramount for a beautiful portrait.
-Make sure theres no distracting background. Watch out for twigs, leaves and branches poking out of your subject, whilst it may be funny, it doesn't look good. Also, you want all eyes on your subject, the best way to do this, and to distinguish photos taken on a compact camera, is to throw the background out of focus, meaning no attention is focused on the background. Use a nice wide aperture (f5.6 and below), and make sure the background isn't too close, this should result in nice bokeh (out of focus elements).
-Soft light, i.e. don't shoot in direct sunlight, this will result in nasty photos casting harsh shadows, and if your subjects facing the sun, it will result in a squinting model. The best time to shoot is when the sun's behind clouds, this will produce a nice soft light to light your subjects face evenly.
-Try not to use the wide-angle end of your lens, this will result in distortion which usually doesn't make for an attractive photo and can accentuate a models nose, never a good thing. 50mm on a APS-C sensor seems to be the sweet spot, look at 85mm or 100mm for full frame cameras.
-A higher perspective is often best, looking down on the subject will flatter them, particularly a larger subject.
-Talk to the model, make sure they are relaxed in order to get nice relaxed feel to the photos, a tense subject is always noticeable in photos.
-Have fun! You and your subject will get bored equally quickly if you don't have fun so this is essential.
-Last of all, break these rules now and again! If you're looking to break the mold from ordinary portraits, breaking one of these rules is a sure fire way to do it, just be careful, because there's a reason these rules are in place, so break them at your own risk, you can get some amazing shots by doing so though, if done in the right way.
I've included a couple of shots below of during the shoot.


Putting the camera on a tripod will allow you to use longer shutter speeds (1/30sec) at longer focal lengths (200mm) as most people can hold still for 1/30sec but you probably wont with 200mm of non-IS focal length, (320mm on a Canon APS-C). A nice leaved background makes for nice out of focus elements.


Shooting from above makes for a more flattering angle on any subject.

Editing
I tend not to heavy editing, try and get everything right in the camera for the perfect photo, also any editing automatically reduces the quality somewhat. I usually shoot JPEG because I prefer the ease of use, but shooting RAW is absolutely fine, as I keep my adjustments to a minimum shooting JPEG is fine for my uses.
Slight exposure changes, colour correction if you mucked up the white balance, vibrance, contrast and saturation adjustments is all I'd recommend doing. Also, the spot removal or clone tool (depending on what program you're using) can help to soften the skin and make your photographs more flattering. DSLRs with decent glass pick up a surprising amount of detail which your subject won't always appreciate. Using a soft focus filter is one way around this.
I've including a few of the shots I got from one of my first portrait shoots using nothing but natural light.




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