My top 5 tips for taking great portrait shots.
Of all the genres of photography I work in, for me portraiture is the most challenging and most rewarding.
Portraiture is incredibly personal, and there’s so much more to taking a good portrait than just taking a snapshot of an individual. To me it’s not just about capturing a likeness of a person on film, it’s about capturing something about them as a person too.
With this in mind, I’ve put together my top 5 portraiture tips which I think if followed should produce a pretty good result!
Engage your subject
This depends a lot on who your subject is. If you are photographing a person in a more formal setting and they are completely aware of what you are doing then you’ve got to get them relaxed. You’ve got to break the ice, talk to them, joke around a little if appropriate, tell them what you are doing and why, and what you want to achieve. You’ve got to relax too, if you don’t then your subject won’t either.
If you are photographing children then get them doing something that they like doing. Get them focussed on a fun thing so that you effectively no longer exist in that space, and then shoot away. Don’t tell a child to sit still, look at the camera and smile!
Get closer
Fill the frame, get in close and compose the image so you can really see the character of the subject, the facial expressions, the smile and the eyes. If you’ve got a zoom lens then use the long end so you’re not literally a foot from their face. If you use an SLR then use a medium telephoto. This also flattens perspective slightly – too close in with a wide lens makes noses long and ears disappear! Take care with what you leave in the frame too. If you’re outdoors watch out for lamp posts growing out of heads, distracting signposts and things like that.
Understand your equipment
Know how your camera works, and understand its strengths and limitations. Never try new, untried techniques without also utilising those which you know will get you a shot. Play it safe, THEN experiment. Check your settings too, for example make sure you’re not shooting at ISO 1000 in daylight because you forgot to change the setting from the low light shoot you were doing the night before. If all you do is keep your camera in full auto mode then that’s fine, so long as you understand how it works and how the results are likely to come out.
It’s all about the light
Probably the most important aspect of a portrait is the lighting. The easiest way to produce a flattering shot is to take the shot outdoors on a reasonably bright but overcast day. Shooting in direct sunlight produces very contrasty images, so although people like being in the sun for photography it’s not ideal. On-camera flash can be useful in bright sunshine as it fills in those dark shadows, but other than this it can be particularly harsh and unflattering. In low light if you have to use flash then see if you can bounce it off a wall or ceiling, or use some kind of diffuser. With a compact you’re pretty much stuck with direct flash, though you can always try a couple of shots with the ISO turned up and the flash turned off.
A diffused light source from an angle rather than head on can be particularly flattering. In the studio we can control this to a tee, out and about this is more difficult but there are probably things around you that can help. Positioning your subject next to a light coloured wall gives you an instant reflector to bounce light back, or shooting under trees should give you a gentler, more diffused light. Try a variety of ideas in the same shoot and see what works, then learn from it.
There’s more about lighting here on another of my blog posts.
Ease off the post processing
Imaging software these days is very good. You can do all sorts with it, including repairing images, removing items you don’t want in shot, and applying various effects to improve different scenes.
Go easy on this though. Overuse of software can make your images look a bit odd, especially attempts to airbrush skin. An incredible number of portrait images fail here because after processing they just don’t look real. A well taken portrait should require very little post production, so know when to stop. Usually I balance colours, subtly adjust the exposure if I need to in order to emphasise shadows and highlights and then gently sharpen the image. Never use a Photoshop filter just because it is there.
There’s many more things to consider, but I think that these can be picked up as you go along provided you get the basics right. If you want to see some more examples of our portraiture sessions then you can visit our portrait site at http://www.elmportrait.co.uk.
