Portrait Photos How to Take the Prefect Photo
Saturday, October 8th, 2011
Taking a photo is super easy, taking a portrait photo a little bit harder, but taking a portrait photo that is good is a totally different thing. After you learn and master these next 5 tips then you will no longer need a professional photographer, or you will be able to produce the same results.
1. Selecting your Location There are to main focal points in portrait photography. One is for you to control your background. You need to focus your attention on the subject, and try to avoid elements that are distracting in the frame.
One of the best way to produce a great looking photo is by having a gray background or a monochromatic background. Stop! you don’t need a special room with these background just make sure your always in control of your background. There are so many portable backdrops that you can build or buy.
The second element is controlling the lighting in your portrait studio. Using lights on stands or using lights hung from the ceiling you can pick the angle the light strikes the subject. Allot of different equipment can be used to remove harsh shadows like unbrellas. There are suprisinly allot of portable lighting kits that arn’t that expensive, these normally come with a unbella,couple of lights and flash kits. Always use a tripod when you are taking portraits.
2. You Can Steal a Location If you do not have a big enough open space for diffused lighting and a neutral background, then you can steal a location. There’s all kinds of vast open spaces where light can pour into from huge skylights found at places like museums or universities. Using a 200mm lens with an f/2.8 it will put your background out of focus
3. Lighting For the majority of portraits the most flattering light is soft and it’s off camera. A north facing window works or you can use an electronic equivalent, which is called a softbox. There will be no shadows using a shadow box.
If you are taking the pictures outside an overcast sky is always best. Make sure if your shotting with sun then you need to use your flash, this is because the flash will fill the shadows under the eyes and other area’s.
4. Lens selection Another tip when taking portrait photos is to deemphasize the nose. To do this stand back 10’ to 15’ away from your subject so that the nose isn’t closer to the rest of the subject’s face. A portrait lens works best between 90 and 135 millimeters.
5. Framing the Subject This is an interesting technique that allot of photographers use, it uses one element to frame the photo naturally while the subject is surrounded by that object or element. Framing will give the image depth and draw the eyes to a point of interest. If you simply just do a Google search, you will be able to find some example framing photos, this would be a great starting point.
Getting to know your camera is a good place to start. Of course the better you know and understand what your camera can do the better the photo. Taking quality portrait photos isn’t as difficult as one might think. Of course these are just 5 of many tips when taking photos and portrait photo’s, so if this doesn’t fulfill all your questions continue asking.
Make sure you get a good camera before you go and try and take good photos. If your interested in looking at the top 5 digital cameras for 2011 or would like to see the Best Digital Camera Reviews then make sure you take the time to read through them carfully. See other tips like these at our blog, an example would be DSLR what is it