How to Photograph Portraits
December 12, 2007
Portrait photography is one of the more important techniques for someone to master. Whether you are looking to go into photojournalism, fashion, wedding photography, or you are picking up photography as a new hobby, mastering a portrait is sure to create that “wow” factor. In this post we’re going to go over a few details: lenses, depth of field, lighting, composition, and subject interaction.
Subject Interaction
Subject interaction is one of the key elements to a great portrait. Nothing makes a portrait look worse than a fake or non-existent smile. By using a few of the following techniques you will be able to vastly improve your shots. Remember, you’re aim is to make your subject feel comfortable. One way to make sure they’re comfortable is take a look at your setup. If you aren’t using a flash, don’t have an external flash unit. If you don’t need your huge superzoom don’t use it. Basically, make your setup seem like it’s “less than,” this way the subject won’t get as nervous. Next, and the most important is to use your mouth. You must talk to the subject! How would you react if your doctor suddenly got silent? Well, as a photographer you are “analyzing” the subject as a doctor analyzes his patients, if you just keep talking you will get more natural expressions from your subject. Be careful not to keep saying “great, beautiful, wonderful…” because subjects will catch on that you are just blathering. Try to actually carry a conversation, when the subject does something good interrupt yourself and say “great.”
Depth of field, and Bokeh:
Depth of field or DOF is often one of the factors that can truly bring a portrait to life. Depth of field is roughly defined as the amount of the image that appears in focus, it is dependent on the aperture that the portrait is shot at. By shooting with a larger (lower F number) aperture lens you create a more narrow depth of field, thus less of the image is sharp. At first it seems like you’d never want to intentionally make your shots less sharp. But go take a look at some of the best portraits, they all have areas that are intentionally less sharp. One common use for a shallow depth of field is to limit the depth of field to just around the eyes. This makes the eyes appear very sharp, thus making them “pop” from the person’s face.
Bokeh is another principal similar to depth of field. Bokeh is how blurry the out of focus regions of a shot are. Bokeh is achieved by a few methods which may be combined for best results: long lens, distance between subject and the background, and a wide aperture. By using a wide aperture, telephoto lens and placing the subject far away from the background you will achieve the best bokeh. It’s not always nesecarry to go overboard, we’ll get to that in a minute.
Your Setup:
Now that we’ve covered DOF and Bokeh you’re probably about to go grab the longest, widest aperture lens you can afford. Well lets not go overboard, you’ll almost never need anything greater than 200mm for a portrait, in fact usually 75-105mm is a good length for a lens. Remember that on most digital cameras there is a 1.5 or 1.6 times crop factor, so a 50mm lens is effectively a 75mm lens and a 70mm is a 105mm. I personally use a 28-75mm F2.8 for most of my portraiture because it is a relatively small lens with a wide aperture. The reason why I mention that it is a relatively small lens is that it’s important not to intimidate your subject. I can remember taking a casual shot of my girlfriend with an 80-210mm f2.8, just the sheer size of the front element made her nervous. One other word of warning, the wider aperture lens you buy, the more expensive it will be. I usually stay away from third party manufactured lenses, but I will reccomend the Tamrom 28-75mm F2.8, it can be found in both Nikon and Cannon mounts. I found mine for a little over $200.
If natural light doesn’t work well for your shot, don’t be afraid to use flash. Again try to stay as “little” as possible. If you just need a little, short range fill, try using the build in flash. Don’t use a lead-acid battery powered Metz if you can get by with a small hot shoe flash etc. Also, unless you are just using flash as fill do not point your flash directly at the subject. Always try to bounce it, preferably off of a white ceiling or wall. Bounced flash gives a much more natural look to the portrait. Take time to make sure that your flash isn’t casting any obvious harsh shadows. Try and use the lowest power you can to give yourself greater recycle time.
Composition:
This is by far the hardest aspect to learn in portrait photography. Even if you have a professional model, you as a photographer need to figure out how to compose him/her into the shot. Although this aspect is mainly learned through trail and error there are some basic principals to keep in mind:
Never shoot from below: it’s very rare that you want to be below eye-level with your model. Generally shooting even from slightly below your model with yield bad results, harsh shadows, appearance of flared nostrils etc.
Watch out for the background: though proper exposure can help to mask or blur the background (heavy bokeh) always be aware of how distracting the background is. Maybe there is a harsh light, a pole that appears to come out of the subject’s head? On the same token, try to pick backgrounds that help build a mood, story or awareness. If you have a good background don’t be afraid to stop down your aperture (increase the f number) to sharpen it a bit. (I never go above F8 for portraits. I usually stay between f2 and f4.)
Positioning: Try positioning your model in different parts of the frame. Not every shot needs to be taken dead on, dead center etc. One technique which helps to add depth to the portrait is to have the subject slightly off center looking the opposite direction. (Model is a little to the left, looking to the right.) By having the model look “across” the frame you’ve instantly increased the depth of the shot. Don’t be afraid to ask your model to look different directions, just play around.
So I know this post was fairly lengthy but I tried to at least touch on everything that might be important. I’ll be going into more detail on certain sections in later posts. For now that should keep you busy. Please, if you have any questions or just want to let me know you liked the article use the comments section below.
1 Trackbacks/Pingbacks
- Pingback: How to: Portraits at home | Aaron Snyder Photography on January 10, 2008
5 Comments
Leave a comment
Filed under: Guides, Photography |
Very nice article Aaron. I really believe photojournalism is in your future.
I hope you have a great trip this month and bring back lots of photos.
Mark
Informative article, however, I would like to ask more on the proper techniques of posing a subject on graduation portraits. thanks
Hey Laya,
I’m glad that you liked the article. As far as graduation portraits I try to stay away from the “typical” shots. I try to let the models compose the portraits, thus improving the “natural feel” of the shot. I know a portrait has been captured well when I step back and see that the model seems like he/she fits into the environment/scene. When I had my graduation portrait taken, we went down to the docks to compliment my love for sailing. A few shots in, a long conversation about sailing, and one hour of photoshop and I had my graduation picture. Well, I’m updating this as I’m on vacation, but I’ll do a write up again on portraits. Take a look at the “Becca Mi Bella” gallery for some posing ideas. THanks for looking at the blog.
-Aaron
Hi , Living in Spain with the strong harsh sunlight has been a problem for me and as I am taking some photo¨s of a friend this weekend with black hair , I found this article very useful.. I just found you in google and am very glad I did the information on talking and big lenses may seem silly to some people but I for one will admitt I had forgotten how important that is …thanks for a wonderful and informative article ..
Thanks Ken, I hope you take a look at some of the other portrait guides on the website, they may be of use to you as well. I wish you all the luck with your photo shoot this weekend. If you think about it drop me a link, I’d love to see how they came out. Best wishes.
-Aaron Snyder