Portrait Photography – Tips and Tricks
This is our second post to Portrait Photography, if you want to know what is portrait photography, please check here.
Lets discuss some of the tips that can really enhance your portrait photographs.
EXPRESSION
“Its really important”
The main thing that distinguishes a photograph from a portrait is the Expression. People find it difficult to connect to an image that lacks some kind of emotion in it. An image with a beautiful blurred background but without any expression will not be able to do much good.
The only way to get this done is to make the subject comfortable and let the real thing come in.
ENVIRONMENT SELECTION
“Shoot where object is comfortable”
There shall always be the time when you will not be able to get the real expression of some one in your studio. For ex: A farmer will be comfortable in working in his fields rather in the studio, so its better to take shots of him there in. Another example are the children, just let them play and keep capturing them.
USE THE DEPTH
“Try to enhance the composition”
The composition of the image plays a very important role. Our eyes see the objects in 3 Dimension, whereas the photograph is basically a 2 Dimensional. So try to enhance the foreground as much as possible, one of the way is to blur the background.
ADJUST HEIGHT
“Move to the objects height”
If you are photographing kids or pets, don’t take the pics from your height, rather move to the height of the object, else you might be missing in some details.
INCREASE ISO
“Little grain is better than blurry useless photo”
While photographing a portrait, there are always possibility of people blinking or moving. A photographed with half opened eyes is really a nightmare. To avoid this you may increase the ISO speed from may be 100 to 400.
For low light conditions outside increase it to ISO 800, 1200 or even 3200.
LIGHT
“Use it wisely”
This in itself is a very broad topic. Just like the artificial lights in the studio, try to use the natural light while taking outside portrait images. Take advantage of the light coming from the road , or from the tunnel or from a huge window if the house.
In case of the open field, light source is at the top, so the face can be tilted upwards slightly.
SOMETHING DIFFERENT
“Try something different”
You should try different gestures, postures to make photographs more appealing. For ex: May be surround the kids with toys or take them in the pool, this will give you some remarkable photos.
For You-Tube lovers here are some videos on the same topic:
PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS
TIPS FOR PERFECT COMPOSITION
NATURAL LIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS
PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS
Hope you liked the above post, if yes, please do share.
Thanks
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The content of the articles has been inspired from various other ones, and I will like to give full credit to them, here are the links: Fstoppers, Improve Photography, Digital camera world.