In Part 1 I wrote about some basic concepts regarding composition. Remember that photography, like any skill, takes practice to perfect. Keep reminding yourself to use things like Rule of Thirds or Leading Lines whenever you take photos, and eventually they will become habits that you do without thinking.
In Part 2, I want to go over some specific techniques to make for better portraits. About 75% of all photos are portraits, so most people find themselves using their cameras for them more than any other subject. They also make mistake that keep a lot of portraits from really shining.
There's a lot I want to go over concerning portraits. First, let's go over a few mistakes and how to correct them.
- Watch the background. If you are using a DSLR what you see in the finder is how the image will look at the largest aperture (lens opening) the lens has. The larger the aperture, the blurrier the background becomes. But the smaller the aperture, the more the background sharpens. So what looks like a nice blurry background in the viewfinder can turn into a mess in the actual photo. Things like distracting clutter or a tree or pole appearing to stick out of the top of the subject's head ruin otherwise good portraits. Solutions: move to someplace with a simpler background or change your angle of taking the photo; make sure the lens is at a larger aperture.
- Get close. A lot of portraits are spoiled by the failure to have the subject fill the frame. Unless you're taking tourist photos at places like the Grand Canyon or the Eiffel Tower, it's almost always a good idea to get in tight (but not too tight.)
- Watch what is cut off by the frame. This one is subtle, but it's what pros look out for that often sets their portrait photos apart from what the average person produces. Cropping so that the edges of the frame cut off the ears, the torso at the waist, arms at the elbows, hands at the wrists or cutting off fingers, legs at the knees and feet at the ankles or cutting off toes all result in some discomfort when viewing the photo. It's just a psychological thing. Cropping is best done at certain lines between the joints and above the waist. The guide below shows good and bad cropping/framing points.
Now let's go over a few basic concepts to help make your portraits shine.
There are two main "types" of portrait: candid and formal.
Candid is when you just decide to take a photo of someone on the spot. Even though they are spontaneous, the elements of good portraiture can still come into play. Often, using solid skills in candid portraits can make for really exciting images, ones your friends and family will notice and appreciate.
Formal is when you plan the shoot and have things set up to make for the best portrait. Time is usually taken to have the subject strike a variety of poses. You don't have to be in a studio, or have the person dress up for it to be a formal portrait: it's simply a matter of pre-planning and posing.
It's called "Portrait Orientation" for a reason.
Most cameras are not made for good people photos. They are meant to naturally be held in what is called "Landscape Orientation" or horizontal, where the width is wider than the height of the frame. This is, obviously, good for landscapes. It's not always good for portraits of a single person. Yet that is what a lot of people do, simply because it's more comfortable and natural to hold a camera in landscape orientation. (Smartphones tend to be just the opposite, with people taking a lot of photos in portrait orientation that they shouldn't.)
When taking photos of one person, get used to turning the camera on its side. That way it's easier to fill the frame with the subject. This is called "Portrait Orientation" or vertical. This avoids dead space or distractions on the sides of the main subject. Also, it simply looks more pleasing most of the time.
This formal senior portrait I did for my son also involves the concept that getting close is better than staying too far away. While it has the look of a candid portrait, it's actually a formal portrait because planning and discussion went into where we would shoot, his choice of clothes, and the poses.
However, there are times when shooting in landscape or horizontal and a wider framing can make for a solid portrait. You want to make sure that most of the time, you follow the rule of thirds (there are always exceptions). Often, having something of interest filling up part of the frame, but not distracting from the main subject, is a good reason to shoot a portrait in landscape. Here's a shot of a model taken in the main gallery at CSPS Hall. She had just finished a fashion show rehearsal, and we were doing portraits for possibly adding them to her portfolio. Note the Rule of Thirds placement, combined with the swirl of colors, keep the eye moving throughout the photo.
FYI: "Environmental Portraiture" is a genre of portrait photography that makes use of wider framing to show the subject within an environment that provokes visual interest and in many cases says something about the person.
Any Photography Is About Light.
Good lighting is the key to a good portrait. The above examples benefit from being taken on an overcast day, with just enough light to cast pleasing shadows. Often people take portraits in bright sunlight, which can not only result in people squinting because of the brightness, but creates harsh shadows. There are a couple of ways to avoid some of the typical problems that arise from shooting in full sun.
First and sometimes easiest is to find some shade, whether a tree or building. Pros shooting in direct sun will also use reflector panels to put the model into some shade, or diffusion panels to soften the light. Shade has the same basic effect as overcast light as seen in the above photos. It softens the light to avoid harsh shadows, as well as avoiding any squinting by the subject. Just be careful with exposure: if the person is in shade, but the background is in full sun, the camera will underexpose the subject if you don't dial in a stop or two of exposure compensation or use spot metering to set exposure only for the subject.
Another option is to use fill flash. If you can't find or make shade, the fill flash does just what the name says: fill in shadows by using the light from the flash. Most cameras made within the past 5 years have a fill flash mode, which makes it easy to do. Direct fill flash can take some practice with the settings to keep from looking too artificial, but it's a common technique for outdoor portraiture.
Finally, you can also use reflectors to fill in shadows. Pros and experienced photographers will use some pretty elaborate set ups combining reflectors and diffusion panels to provide shade, soften direct sunlight and fill in shadows. You don't have to spend a lot of money on the panels made especially for photography. Foam core or art board work great. I use pizza pans from take and bake pizzas as makeshift reflectors.
In this example, the sun was low but still very bright out in the open. This lovely powwow dancer was standing in the shade, with just enough direct sun coming from behind her to provide some rim light. The main light was the nice open sky on a nearly cloudless day. Notice how I made sure her elbows were in the frame, and that I cropped just below the waste. Also, I moved my position a bit so the people standing behind her, who would have created a distracting background, were no longer in the frame. She didn't pose: she was just standing there talking to a friend, then when she saw me pointing my camera at her, she broke out in this lovely smile. I took one photo, smile back, we both nodded and she want back to talking to her friend. It's a candid portrait, but the various elements combine to produce an image that could also have been made under the controlled conditions of a formal potrait.
Think Outside the Box
Anyone can take a photo of someone standing there, smiling at the camera (or not) often looking a little bit uncomfortable as they try not to look uncomfortable. There are billions of portraits out there in which people smile (or not) at the camera. Ho hum.
The best portraits-those that really capture the personality or mood of the subject-don't involve having them stand there and say "cheese". Portraits which really stand out are ones that step away from the typical shot and grab the viewer's attention by being out of the ordinary in some way. Sometimes, that out of the ordinary quality comes when something is revealed about the subject that a smile wouldn't reveal.
When I do a portrait session, I talk with the subject. This helps to relax him or her and gets them thinking about something other than the camera. Then, rather than just having the subject strike a pose, I will take some photos when he or she is thinking about the answer to a question I ask, or listening to what I am saying. These "between the pose" images are often the best portraits.
In this example, I had asked my beautiful daughter Emily to sit for some formal portraits. Lighting was a combination of a standard overhead lighting fixture and "North Light" coming from a window to her left. I wasn't worried about color balance because I planned on all the images being Black and White.
Emily can be quite the ham when she is taking photos with her friends, especially selfies. When I asked her to pose, however, she became very self-conscious. She either overdid it with hamming it up, or just sat there. Finally I grabbed "Griff", a teddy bear I'd used as a prop, and she brightened up and started playing with him. Her pose and expression in this photo came when I asked her why she'd written "Love" on her fingers.
This photo engages me more than any I have of Emily simply smiling at the camera.
Avoid being straight.
When it comes to group portraits, the number one mistake people make is having everyone line up in a row, parallel to the plane of focus. This is OK for class or team photos where you have a lot of people to fit in the frame (though even then a good portraitist will avoid the "rank and file" approach if at all possible). However, for groups of less than a dozen people, such as a family, there's a much better way to produce eye catching portraits that will brighten up a wall or make for better than average Christmas cards.
That technique is to place people so that ideally triangles are formed between their faces. Even placing the faces at different heights within the frame creates a more pleasing image. That's the main thing: you want to avoid the route the eye travels to view each face to run parallel to the long sides of the image. Similar to the concept of the S Curve and Leading Lines, triangular or uneven height placement of faces adds a dynamic to a group portrait that leads the eye from face to face in a pleasing manner.
The effect is even better if you place people at different distances from the camera, or line them up angling away from it. This second technique is also helpful if you do have a straight line between faces because by having one end of the line closer to the camera, it causes the line to be at an angle to the frame. There are exceptions, of course: these are guidelines more than rules.
Here's a favorite from a semi-formal session with my kids Ethan, Jacob and Emily. By "semi-formal" I mean I grabbed my camera when the light from a patio door was bathing them in a soft, diffuse light and said "I'm going to take a few photos". I had wanted them to just keep doing what they were doing (watching TV) and I've take candids. Instead, they immediately all sat down in a row on the sofa. Bo-ring. So I told Ethan to move from sitting on the sofa to kneeling on the end, I moved close to the end of the sofa, and the result is a photo much more effective than if I'd just taken the shot of them sitting next to each other on the sofa.
Selfies as they ought to be.
I read recently that of the 1.8 billion photos uploaded to the internet every day, over 2 million are selfies. Selfies/self portraits have become such a hot item that the latest top of the line smart phones include front facing cameras and features to make taking selfies easier. However, that nice new DSLR or MILC you have can let you do far more than take possibly embarrassing photos of your reflection in the bathroom mirror, or doing duck lips with pals at the bar. The option to put the camera on a tripod or other steady surface, together with a self timer (which usually have a choice of delays from 2 to 12 seconds) or wireless remote, will let you produce what is traditionally called a self portrait.
All the same guidelines and suggestions from above apply. The difference is you are both the subject and photographer. While with some cameras it can take a few tries to get the framing right, with cameras that have an articulating LCD that can be turned toward the subject, self portraits can be easily done. Even better are the very latest cameras which let you view things through your smart phone via wifi and even do things such as adjust exposure, activate the shutter and zoom in and out if the camera has a power zoom.
Properly done, this sort of "selfie" rises above the average smart phone grab and can impress people with the idea that you had the photo done professionally. This self portrait was taken with a combination of window and bounced strobe light. The window was about 15 feet away, so the strobe was used to augment the light. I used a wireless remote and 2 second delay.
"Rules" are meant to be broken, nudged or outright mangled.
The various "rules" offered in both parts 1 and 2 are not meant to be hard and fast ways of making photos. As with any artistic skill, honing them is meant to provide the ability to bend, break or mangle them effectively. The important thing is to understand the rules well enough to know when and how breaking them will make for a better photo.
I broke a couple of "rules" with this photo. I place the subject's face directly in the center of the photo. I chose a busy background that is in sharp focus and competes with the main subject. It works because of several things: the square format actually reinforces the center placement by helping use the circular pattern of the artwork as a framing device in itself. The pattern and color of the artwork combine with the pattern and color of her dress to constantly redirect attention to her face. This photo would not work as well if it were in another format.
Final note.
I use Olympus DSLRs. They have sensors with a 4:3 aspect ratio. Most DSLRs and MILCs have a 3:2 aspect ratio. Cameras with electronic eye level viewfinders usually allow the selection of the aspect ratio or format in camera Choices are usually 3:2, 4:3, 1:1 (square) and 16:9, which has historically been a movie mode, but is being used more and more for still images. though it's only really effective for large groups or environmental portraits. Play around with the different aspect ratios to see how they can change the impact of a portrait. If you don't have a camera that allows you to make changes in camera, an image can be cropped to a desired format.
I find 4:3 to be more aesthetically pleasing in Portrait mode, but as you can see I also like 1:1. 8x10 is a print format that also is a traditional favorite for portraits. About the only time I use 2:3 format is group shots or a vertical shot of a standing person where I want to include the whole body. Same goes for 16:9.
I hope these ideas help you make the most of your camera, whether new or old, DSLR, MILC, compact or smart phone. If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the comments and I'll answer within 48 hours.
