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It isn't that hard to make a great portrait. You don't have to be a rocket scientist or a neurosurgeon. If you'll follow the guide I've included here, you can be making exceptional images today! OK, here goes:
Where do we place the camera? Which part of the subject do we focus on? How far away should the camera be from our subject? What lens should we use? What aperture should we use? How do we make our subjects look good if they're heavy? Old? Wrinkled? All this and a whole lot more is covered in this guide. I call it "Guerrilla Photography." "Just the facts ma'am." Only what you need To know, without all the technical stuff.
Technique: The most important "secret" of good photography is the thought the photographer puts into a picture before s/he even considers picking up the camera! The point here is that we have to train ourselves to think before we shoot! OK, let's start off by examining a few questions we should ask ourselves before we start shooting.
What do you see in the picture of this girl? You see a pretty girl; and that's what most people see. But the photographer sees a 75/25% which means 75% lighting on the highlight side of the face, and a 25% on the fill, or shadow side, giving the image depth and separation and drama. This is what the photographer in you must learn to see.
Now let's start with what you need to learn to look for and consider before you make your next portrait: Is our subject old or young? What color is his/her clothing? What color is his hair? What color are her eyes? How can we make one or more of those colors (or shades) stand out and emphasize the attractiveness of our subject? Perhaps by using an appropriate background, or placing our subject in an appropriate setting. Look at the examples below, and see how the simple choice of using even a plain, solid color background that matches our subject's eye color, can improve our pictures dramatically. But before going any further, please be aware that I'm not purporting to be a teacher, nor can I guarantee that everything I say is 100% correct (heck, I can't guarantee that anything I say is correct). Proceed at your own risk!
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Aaaaarrrrggh! No matter how hard I try, I just can't get eBay's "Guides" system to work properly! Either there's too much text, or there are too many pictures, or some other horrible limitation. And eBay will not allow any links in the guides to a location outside of eBay. But I have finally devised a method to get you to my complete and fully-illustrated "Portraiture #101" Guide. We're allowed to post outside links on our "About Me Page " pages.
To get to my complete guide: Go to my About Me page. Then scroll down just a tad, and on the left side, under the picture, you'll see a link to my Portraiture Guide. Click on that link, and Viola! You'll be where you can see it all. And when you've finished reviewing the guide, come on back here, go down to the bottom and give a click on the "Yes" button if you thought the guide was worth your time. Meanwhile, I'll add as much of my guide below as will be allowed by eBay, and I'll post the rest on eBay in Part II.
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Here's a Basic Portraiture Setup, but be aware that having even only one light can make your portraits 100% better, so don't worry if you don't have all the lights shown; this is just an "Ideal" setup, not a Required one:
OK, let's first consider what we place behind our subject. First, make sure that whatever is behind our subject doesn't interfere with, or detract from, our image. If the background is not pleasing, move your subject to a better location, or place something behind the subject. We don't need expensive backgrounds, but for portraiture it will help to have something available, or even a blank wall. Avoid busy patterns and loud colors; they just detract from our subjects. The image at left was made using a black velvet piece of material, and touched-up in Photoshop.
However, we all know (er, well, we all should know) how a different background (also called a backdrop) can completely change the look, feel, tone, and atmosphere of a shot. That's why there are backgrounds! Just as a "quickie" (no, not THAT kind of a quickie ;-) to give you an idea of the power of thinking before shooting, and using a simple background technique, look at the pictures below; both are the same girl. Only one has a blue background, and the other has a green background. Look at her eyes. See?
Yeah, yeah, I can hear the purists already complaining about the lighting differences, but I ain't trying to make art here, nor is it a "professionally-mentored lesson" but just an imperfect example to help make a point.
Backgrounds don't have to be expensive, professional backgrounds; a simple light blue piece of fabric (as in the image below) can work wonders. And simply placing our subject in the right place (either indoors or outdoors) can similarly work wonders for our pictures. If we don't have a photographic background (also called a backdrop), look around the room or the outdoor location and choose the best background we can for our subject. Indoors, avoid "busy" backgrounds and annoying things on the walls; move our subject to the best part of the room we can find. Outdoors, make sure there are no ugly telephone poles or wires in our camera's viewfinder. Make sure there's no tree behind our subject "growing" out of our victim's head (um, well, our "subject's" head, that is). Also, outdoors, never put the subject in direct sunlight, which causes "squinty" eyes, harsh shadows, and excessive intensity between bright and dark areas of our images! Move them instead to a shady spot for picture-taking. Sunny days may be great for going to the beach, but overcast days are the very best times to make great outdoor pictures.
O.K., that's all well and good. But once we have the background taken care of, what's next? Next is setting up the lights, setting up the camera, knowing where to focus, knowing what lens to use, and more. That's all covered - in detail - just below. But first, what if we're shooting outdoors? What if we can't control the space behind our subjects (whether indoors or out)? What do we do then? We be creative.
When we can't control what's behind our subject, and can't move the subject to a better position, there are a few techniques we can use to deal with background problems; one is CROPPING the subject tightly, as in the photo on the left; another technique is creative DOF, as shown in the center image, and another is to allow some background to appear, lending a bit of place to the image as in the picture on the right.
The image on the left uses two creative photographic techniques: Cropping and DOF. Cropping, a term from back in the old days, when we would cut off (crop) the areas around our subjects with a pair of scissors, is today either "Photoshopping" or zooming in on the subject when taking the picture, and filling the picture with the subject (here our subject is a woman's face), and showing little, if any, of what's in the background. And the small part of the background that does show is so blurry we have no idea what may be behind the subject. The middle picture uses the background as part of the image, establishing place, but blurring enough of it so our eyes go right to the subject because that's the only part of the image that's clear and in sharp focus. How do we get DOF? We open up our apertures! The wider our aperture, the shorter the DOF. Open up wide (F1.4 or 2.8) for short DOF, and stop down to F16 for deep DOF. I go into DOF in more detail in the Exposure Guide (covering aperture, shutter speed, & ISO).
Oops! Run out of the space eBay allows for the Guides! So you'll have to see "Part 2" of this guide. Or, you can get it all -- the whole guide and all the pictures by going to my "About Me Page" then scroll down just a tad, and on the left side, under the picture, you'll see a link to my Portraiture Guide. Click on that link, and Viola! You'll be where you can see it all.
In the next chapter(Photography 101: How to make a Great Portrait Quickly, Part II), we'll learn how to set up our equipment, where to place our camera, what to focus on, and how to use photographic techniques for dealing with subject appearances.
Where do we place the camera? Which part of the subject do we focus on? How far away should the camera be from our subject? What lens should we use? What aperture should we use? How do we make our subjects look good if they're heavy? Old? Wrinkled? All this and a whole lot more is covered in this guide. I call it "Guerrilla Photography." "Just the facts ma'am." Only what you need To know, without all the technical stuff.
Technique: The most important "secret" of good photography is the thought the photographer puts into a picture before s/he even considers picking up the camera! The point here is that we have to train ourselves to think before we shoot! OK, let's start off by examining a few questions we should ask ourselves before we start shooting.
What do you see in the picture of this girl? You see a pretty girl; and that's what most people see. But the photographer sees a 75/25% which means 75% lighting on the highlight side of the face, and a 25% on the fill, or shadow side, giving the image depth and separation and drama. This is what the photographer in you must learn to see.
Now let's start with what you need to learn to look for and consider before you make your next portrait: Is our subject old or young? What color is his/her clothing? What color is his hair? What color are her eyes? How can we make one or more of those colors (or shades) stand out and emphasize the attractiveness of our subject? Perhaps by using an appropriate background, or placing our subject in an appropriate setting. Look at the examples below, and see how the simple choice of using even a plain, solid color background that matches our subject's eye color, can improve our pictures dramatically. But before going any further, please be aware that I'm not purporting to be a teacher, nor can I guarantee that everything I say is 100% correct (heck, I can't guarantee that anything I say is correct). Proceed at your own risk!
----------------------------
Aaaaarrrrggh! No matter how hard I try, I just can't get eBay's "Guides" system to work properly! Either there's too much text, or there are too many pictures, or some other horrible limitation. And eBay will not allow any links in the guides to a location outside of eBay. But I have finally devised a method to get you to my complete and fully-illustrated "Portraiture #101" Guide. We're allowed to post outside links on our "About Me Page " pages.
To get to my complete guide: Go to my About Me page. Then scroll down just a tad, and on the left side, under the picture, you'll see a link to my Portraiture Guide. Click on that link, and Viola! You'll be where you can see it all. And when you've finished reviewing the guide, come on back here, go down to the bottom and give a click on the "Yes" button if you thought the guide was worth your time. Meanwhile, I'll add as much of my guide below as will be allowed by eBay, and I'll post the rest on eBay in Part II.
-------------------------------
Here's a Basic Portraiture Setup, but be aware that having even only one light can make your portraits 100% better, so don't worry if you don't have all the lights shown; this is just an "Ideal" setup, not a Required one:
OK, let's first consider what we place behind our subject. First, make sure that whatever is behind our subject doesn't interfere with, or detract from, our image. If the background is not pleasing, move your subject to a better location, or place something behind the subject. We don't need expensive backgrounds, but for portraiture it will help to have something available, or even a blank wall. Avoid busy patterns and loud colors; they just detract from our subjects. The image at left was made using a black velvet piece of material, and touched-up in Photoshop.
However, we all know (er, well, we all should know) how a different background (also called a backdrop) can completely change the look, feel, tone, and atmosphere of a shot. That's why there are backgrounds! Just as a "quickie" (no, not THAT kind of a quickie ;-) to give you an idea of the power of thinking before shooting, and using a simple background technique, look at the pictures below; both are the same girl. Only one has a blue background, and the other has a green background. Look at her eyes. See?
Yeah, yeah, I can hear the purists already complaining about the lighting differences, but I ain't trying to make art here, nor is it a "professionally-mentored lesson" but just an imperfect example to help make a point.
Backgrounds don't have to be expensive, professional backgrounds; a simple light blue piece of fabric (as in the image below) can work wonders. And simply placing our subject in the right place (either indoors or outdoors) can similarly work wonders for our pictures. If we don't have a photographic background (also called a backdrop), look around the room or the outdoor location and choose the best background we can for our subject. Indoors, avoid "busy" backgrounds and annoying things on the walls; move our subject to the best part of the room we can find. Outdoors, make sure there are no ugly telephone poles or wires in our camera's viewfinder. Make sure there's no tree behind our subject "growing" out of our victim's head (um, well, our "subject's" head, that is). Also, outdoors, never put the subject in direct sunlight, which causes "squinty" eyes, harsh shadows, and excessive intensity between bright and dark areas of our images! Move them instead to a shady spot for picture-taking. Sunny days may be great for going to the beach, but overcast days are the very best times to make great outdoor pictures.
O.K., that's all well and good. But once we have the background taken care of, what's next? Next is setting up the lights, setting up the camera, knowing where to focus, knowing what lens to use, and more. That's all covered - in detail - just below. But first, what if we're shooting outdoors? What if we can't control the space behind our subjects (whether indoors or out)? What do we do then? We be creative.
When we can't control what's behind our subject, and can't move the subject to a better position, there are a few techniques we can use to deal with background problems; one is CROPPING the subject tightly, as in the photo on the left; another technique is creative DOF, as shown in the center image, and another is to allow some background to appear, lending a bit of place to the image as in the picture on the right.
The image on the left uses two creative photographic techniques: Cropping and DOF. Cropping, a term from back in the old days, when we would cut off (crop) the areas around our subjects with a pair of scissors, is today either "Photoshopping" or zooming in on the subject when taking the picture, and filling the picture with the subject (here our subject is a woman's face), and showing little, if any, of what's in the background. And the small part of the background that does show is so blurry we have no idea what may be behind the subject. The middle picture uses the background as part of the image, establishing place, but blurring enough of it so our eyes go right to the subject because that's the only part of the image that's clear and in sharp focus. How do we get DOF? We open up our apertures! The wider our aperture, the shorter the DOF. Open up wide (F1.4 or 2.8) for short DOF, and stop down to F16 for deep DOF. I go into DOF in more detail in the Exposure Guide (covering aperture, shutter speed, & ISO).
Oops! Run out of the space eBay allows for the Guides! So you'll have to see "Part 2" of this guide. Or, you can get it all -- the whole guide and all the pictures by going to my "About Me Page" then scroll down just a tad, and on the left side, under the picture, you'll see a link to my Portraiture Guide. Click on that link, and Viola! You'll be where you can see it all.
In the next chapter(Photography 101: How to make a Great Portrait Quickly, Part II), we'll learn how to set up our equipment, where to place our camera, what to focus on, and how to use photographic techniques for dealing with subject appearances.
Guide created: 10/28/06 (updated 10/30/09)
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