How to: Portraits at home

January 10, 2008

Whether for graduation, a wedding, or your e-harmony account taking a professional quality portrait at home is easy and cheap. This guide will cover lighting, background, clothes, make up and various other tricks to make it possible to get the “wow” factor of a professional, at home. Instead of recommending expensive products, I will be giving you examples of household items that make great photographic aids. If you already have a camera then nothing in this how to guide for shooting portraits at home should cost you a thing…

Backgrounds are a great way to take a portrait from looking like a snapshot to a masterpiece. When choosing a background or backdrop try to pick something that has a good contrast and is not too busy. A black sheet or wall is my favorite. Be careful, white sheets show off a lot of ugly wrinkles sometimes. By doubling a black sheet you can usually get a great looking background. I try to make small ruffles in the sheet to help add a little dimension and avoid a completely flat light on the background. If you don’t like the look of the sheet, or you are shooting a tight head shot you can go buy a piece of poster board from Staples/Office Max (look for one that is white on one side and black on the other). Tack the poster board up on the wall and you have a nice flat, professional looking background. Although I haven’t tried this, you can use a “tri-fold” poster board and frame the flaps out of the shot, while using them to bounce light into the shot.

Lighting portraits could have an entire library dedicated to itself. Lights, strobes, etc. all cost hundreds to thousands of dollars, but if you are creative you can still take great looking shots with lights found around your house. I will recommend that when selecting lights you try to use lights with the same bulb type to help maintain color balance.

When lighting a subject try to avoid harsh lighting on one side of the face, also avoid lighting straight on or from straight above. Your goal is to adjust the position of your lights to create a flattering image of the subject. There are countless methods, techniques and “laws” to guide your lighting, but for now just experiment and find what you like. A great technique is to have your light source off axis up high and pointing at a downward angle. Then you illuminate the other side of the model’s face with a reflector. You can use a white poster board as a reflector, but my favorite is just a piece of cardboard with crinkled aluminum foil stretched across it. Try placing the reflector low and point it at the subject’s face, experiment find the best look. This will not only illuminate the non-light side of the face, but it will help to reduce shadows underneath the nose, chin and eye sockets.

Remember that the “ideal” lighting will have a three to one ratio between the darkest shadow and the lightest highlight. when lighting your portrait try to make sure that there is definite contrast between the light and dark parts of the photograph. Most importantly, make sure no part of the model is so light or dark that there is a loss of detail. You want to be able to see the detail in black hair, as well as the light area of white skin.

Flash can always be used in combination with external lighting, however I highly suggest demand that you do not use the flash that is built into your camera. At minimum you will want the Nikon SB-600 Speedlight Flash for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras or Canon 430EX Speedlite Flash for Canon DSLR Cameras. The on camera flash units will only supply a light directly onto the front of the subject. By using one of the two flash units mentioned above you can easily bounce the flash onto the subject. When bouncing, only bounce off of flat white objects because the light will take whatever color the object you bounce off of. For example, bounce off of a brick wall or wood ceiling and you’ll have a red or brown light on your subject. The list of objects you can use to bounce flash off of is endless: white ceilings, walls, posterboards, computer paper, business cards, credit cards… use your imagination.

Hair, make up, and clothing are probably the last three things I should talk about. I brush my hair as often as I put on make up (never). And my wardrobe consists mainly of the color gray and navy blue. But here we go: in today’s world everyone thinks in color. Be careful, there are still a lot of publications (yearbooks, newspapers….) which print only black in white, therefore it’s important to choose clothes and makeup that look great both in color and black and white. The key to making a model appear black and white compatible is contrast. White pearls may look great on a light pink shirt in color, but when shot in black and white there simply is not enough contrast. Try having your model wear a darker purple or green to create contrast between the pearls and the sweater. Make sure that clothing provides enough contrast against the background. White shirt and a white background is like asking for a terrible shot. As far as styling goes, if you aren’t shooting a fashion shot stick to simple and elegant. Many times, a black ribbed trutle neck photographs better than a cashmere sweater. Because you are shooting a portrait, not a fashion shoot, try to make sure that the clothing compliments the model, not the other way around. use cauion with sparkles, metalics, laces, stripes, patterns; they are simply distracting.

Makeup should provide the same function of contrast in your portrait. When a model applys eye make up, insist that they apply a heavier load of eye liner. This will prevent the eyes from fading into the face. Applying a slightly lighter eye shadow will help prevent the eye from sinking underneath the brow. Another trick is to put a dot of white on the inner corner of the eyelids. Lower lip liner will help to pull the lip away from the face and give it definition. For the most part focus on making sure the eyes are correct, everything else should be okay providing the model has some clue about applying make up.

Hair is another aspect to watch out for. dark hair often appears as a black blob. The best way to give it some life is to apply a little hairspray. This will create a shine and help to make the hair actually stand out.

In closing, it’s important to remember that the difference between a good portrait and a bad portrait has little to do with the cost of your camera or equipment. The key thing is to make sure that you take the time to get the details right in lighting, makeup, backgrounds etc. For guidance some other portrait ideas see How to Photograph Portraits

Questions and comments welcomed below.

-Aaron Snyder

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1 Comments

1. Jamie July 12, 2008

   Very helpful! Thank you so much.

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