Advice for Creating Great Formal Portraits

When someone you wants a nice formal portrait there are a few things to keep in mind. Posing, lighting, background, retouching and focal length are some of the points that need to be taken into consideration. When everything comes together the result is an image that the subject will be proud to display.

There are many styles of portrait lighting. The recent trend is toward a very even and diffused light on all sides of the subject. Formal portraits for many years were built on a foundation of the key and fill light. This lighting style features one side of the face in brighter light than the other. The Hollywood era of the 1930s and 40s featured black and white images with deep shadows. The important point is that the subject is lit in a manner that is flattering.

By definition formal portraits have some type of cloth or paper backdrop as opposed to an environmental portrait which includes elements such as tools for an image of a mechanic, or horse and hay bales for a cowboy. There are all painted canvas backdrops and seamless paper in all colors. A brightly lit portrait with a white background is known as a high key portrait.

Posing your subject is important and professionals have many poses in their repertoire. It is best not to use a regular chair because that can end up showing up in the image as a distraction. An adjustable is the beat. I prefer to have the person seated at an angle with one shoulder pointed at the camera. Then I have them turn their face directly at the camera. Shoot some with that shoulder facing forward; then switch to the other shoulder. Also make slight adjustment to the head position. If you are using a tripod, which is great for camera stability, shoot a few image from a bit higher than the subjects’ eye level and a few images from below eye level. If the person wear eyeglasses, it may be necessary to have them drop their chin a bit to avoid glare from the lenses of their glasses.

Another advantage of a tripod is if you are shooting several people in a session, things will move faster if the posing stool and tripod-mounted camera stay in position as the people posing flow through. Some photographers prefer not to use a tripod because they feel they have more freedom to move about. Shooting toddlers for instance may work better when not locked into a tripod. But executives tend to be well behaved in that regard.

When 35mm cameras were the workhouse of photographers the 105mm lens was known as a portrait lens. Why? Because if did the best job of replicating the way the human eye sees another person. Focal lengths on the high end such as 400mm and longer tend to flatten the face a bit. On the other end of the scale wide angle lenses tend to distort the face and make the nose seem longer. In some cases the subject’s ears may far seem away or the shoulders look out of proportion. With a DLSR there is a slight conversion to compensate for the fact that most digital sensors are smaller than a frame of 35mm film. So if you have a zoom lens on your DSLR set the lens at somewhere between 50mm and 90mm for optimal results.

Children have beautiful clear skin, but when you are shooting adults, retouching becomes an issue because of wrinkles, bags under the eyes, blemishes and other issues. Learning to use a few post processing techniques will lead to pleased customers. Just remember that there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. I used to do some portrait work for people who needed pictures to go on their online dating profile page. Although I normally did some fix up work; one woman requested that I make her look much thinner and offered to pay extra for it. I declined.

Retouching jobs can be sent out to third party firms, often located offshore in places like the Philippines or Malaysia. I recommend doing it yourself. The healing tool is my favorite. Get a fuzzy brush and set the opacity pretty low and go layer by layer. Most adults have crow’s feet on their eyes that can be dealt with easily. Select some nice clear on the cheek and layer that over the problem area. Then look for bags under the eyes and do likewise. Sometimes I will brighten the whites of eyes with the dodge tool or a very light application of white paint with the airbrush. It will make the person look healthier. Just don’t overdo it. The teeth can be whitened this way too. Some women will apply a thick coat of lip gloss right before sitting for a portrait and that using ends up reflecting the portrait light back at the camera. So this may have to be solved with the cloning tool or the healing brush.

One more point important when shooting portrait is to put the subject at ease and get them to relax and give a pleasant smile. I always like to get a good natural smile in a t least one shot. But for some portraits, such as a police officer or politician I also like some serious expressions. There are some photographers that real masters of dealing with people. Others know equipment, but lack people skills.

It takes practice to get it right. However, if you keep these points in mind, you will find it easier to create great formal portraits.

RTFM Where is My Owner’s Manual?

by Jon Wason   copyright 2012

Back in 1901 if you had a dollar to spend on a frivolous luxury you could buy a Kodak Brownie camera. Even though the advertisements claimed the camera was so simple “any schoolboy or girl can make good pictures with the Brownie Camera” it came with a 44-page instruction booklet.  

More than a hundred years later, cameras still come with a manual and people still don’t read them. However, there are benefits to reading your camera manual or the manuals for any other mechanical devices.

The initials RTFM stand for “Read The Fine Manual” – or something like that. I think perhaps the angry retort, “RTFM, you idiot!” can be traced back to frustrated computer help desk employees, but that is just a hunch. Anyhow, my advice is just invest a few minutes and read the manual. After that put in your camera bag so in some future date when you are out in the field shooting some interesting subject and need to adjust something on your camera, you can easily retrieve the manual and find the answer. If the manual is back at home with the box the camera arrived in you are out of luck.

Many people purchase a new camera, excitedly open the box, remove the wonder of modern technology and never even open the manual, much less read it cover to cover.

I can’t recall how many times I was at wedding shooting all the events of the day and a person approached to ask me how to operate their camera. They ask, “Hey can you show me how to turn on the flash? I just got this camera,” or “Do you know how to change the shutter speed?” I did my best to help them but they were making two mistakes. The first was assuming that because I am a wedding photographer I know how to operate every camera. The second mistake was not learning how to use their camera. The best remedy for that one is to read the manual.

A few minutes spent looking at boring little booklet can pay off later with better photos.


HERE IS A LINK TO A SHORT VIDEO ABOUT F-STOPS:


http://youtu.be/FBJLg77daP8 

Why Would I Need Filters On My Lens?

by Jon Wason copyright 2012

There are several reasons to use a filter. Serious film shooters usually have a several filters in their camera bag. But with the widespread transition to digital cameras, the use of filters has waned because the after capture processing done in a computer may often accomplish the same results. A dropdown menu in Adobe Photoshop can perform wonders with an image.

However, there is one important thing that a circular piece of glass can do for you: protect your expensive lens from windblown dust, splashed liquids and blunt force impact with the floor. Replacing a cracked, dented or shattered UV filter is a lot cheaper than buying a new lens. A skylight filter is basically a clear glass but it protects your investment. A UV filter is a bit more than just glass; it filters some of the ultra violet rays and can slightly enhance the colors of your images.

The use of either a skylight filter or a UV filter is a wise choice and after taking the baby step you may want to delve deeper into the wonderful world of filters by adding a polarizer filter to your line up of equipment. A polarizer is sort of like sunglasses for your camera but better. This filter has the effect sifting multidirectional light beams into a tidy collection of light that is uniform. This is great for capturing bold blue skies. Another use is eliminating reflections, especially on surface water or glass such as the windshield of a car. The most useful polarizer filter can be rotated into the best position once mounted on the lens. These are called circular polarizer filters. If you want a dramatic sky in your photo, point the camera at about a 45 to 90 degree angle from the sun. Then slightly rotate the polarizer until you get the effect that suits you best. Linear polarizers are a bit lower in cost but cannot do this. One little parlor trick you can perform with two polarizer filters is to stack one in front of the other and rotate it. At a certain point the two polarizers cancel each other out and block all the light. Impressive.

Neutral density filters are used by digital photographers and film photographers. This is a filter that reduces the amount of light that enters the camera. This is desirable when a long exposure is required such as a photo of a mountain stream with blurred out details denoting fast moving water.

There are a variety of special effects filters. One is a star filter that creates a pleasing twinkle when photographing the flame of a candle or sunlight reflecting off a lake. The soft focus filter is a favorite of portrait photographers. It can create a dreamlike effect or reduce the detail of a wrinkled face.

Soft focus

Photographers who shoot black and white film can use color filters to control which parts of the light spectrum enter the camera and expose the film. For instance a red filter can bring out the green tones in an image.

Filters are yet another creative tool for photographers.

Tips for Photographing Children

By Jon Wason copyright 2011
Photographing children can be a challenge but a few simple tips can help you capture some great shots. Children can be hard to photograph because they move quickly. Children also tend to have a short attention span and their mood can change from giggling to crying in two seconds.
The first thing that I recommend when photographing children is to move down to their level because if an adult six feet-tall stands close to a four year-old and shoots a photo of that child most likely the resulting image will be the top of the child’s head. Not a great portrait.
So kneel or sit down and your photographs of children will improve. If you are getting older and your knees can’t take much kneeling; then pull up a chair. You will find yourself closer to eye level with you subjects. Also try moving closer. Some people are always too far from their subject and their images include too much background.

Because little kids run around a lot the photographer has to be ready. Using a flash can stop some of the action. Sports photographers know this. The duration of typical photo strobe is 1/10,000 of a second. Even a sugared up three-year-old does not cover much territory in that short amount of time. Even on a sunny day a flash can improve your photography because mid-day sun tends to created harsh shadows under the eyes, nose and chin. The light of a flash can reduce this problem.
If you are attempting to shoot a formal or semi-formal portrait of a child in a studio setting get the camera and all the equipment set up before the child (or children) are asked to pose. Otherwise the ten minutes or so that they can refrain from running, jumping and playing are wasted as you set the ISO, changes lens and adjust the shutter speed. By the time you are ready to start, they are all done and twitching to get out there and play.

Talented child photographers know how to use props like bubbles, balloons and puppets to get children to look at or at least toward the camera. Babies can be especially challenging since they are just learning to respond to verbal commands. A three-month old cannot understand, “Smile for the camera,” but she will probably look at a red balloon or turn toward a squeaky toy. Be warned that even these new and exciting stimuli will lose their interested after a few times.
What happens if the happy children are uncooperative, bored or crying? I usually try to enlist the help of the parents to get the child to cooperate. But I do not push it too far. I believe that children (and all people) have a limit of how long they can pose for the camera. Even professional models have limits.
Threatening a child to smile or face punishment is not effective but I have witnesses several occasions when a well-meaning parent said something like, “smile or I’ll take away your Gameboy.” It doesn’t bring a smile to the children’s face.
The candid approach is very effective for children. Just let kids be kids and photograph them from a distance. Shoot a lot and delete the ones that did not work out. Also keep practicing. The more you practice the better you will get at photographing children.