How do you take Portraits that have the ‘Wow’
factor?
Today and tomorrow I want to talk about taking Portraits that
are a
little out of the box. You see it’s all very well and good
to have a portrait that follows
all the rules – but it hit me as I was surfing on
Flickr today that often
the most striking portraits are those that break all the
rules.
Note: this
post is an extract from our Essential Portrait Photography
Tips E-book – Grab Your Copy Today!
I want to look at some ways to break out of the mold and
take striking
portraits by breaking (or at least bending) the rules
and adding a little randomness into your portrait
photography.
Most portraits are taken with the camera at (or around) the eye
level of the subject. While this is good common sense – completely
changing the angle that you shoot from can give your portrait a
real WOW factor.
Get up high and shoot down on your subject or get as close to the
ground as you can and shoot up. Either way you’ll be seeing your
subject from an angle that is bound to create interest.
It is amazing how much the direction of your subject’s eyes can
impact an image. Most portraits have the subject looking down the
lens – something that can create a real sense of connection between
a subject and those viewing the image. But there are a couple of
other things to try:
A. Looking off camera – have your subject focus their attention on
something unseen and outside the field of view of your camera. This
can create a feeling of candidness and also create a little
intrigue and interest as the viewer of the shot wonders what they
are looking at. This intrigue is particularly drawn about when the
subject is showing some kind of emotion (ie ‘what’s making them
laugh?’ or ‘what is making them look surprised?’). Just be aware
that when you have a subject looking out of frame that you can also
draw the eye of the viewer of the shot to the edge of the image
also – taking them away from the point of interest in your shot –
the subject.
B. Looking within the frame – alternatively you could
have your subject looking at something (or someone) within the
frame. A child looking at a ball, a woman looking at her new baby,
a man looking hungrily at a big plate of pasta…. When you give your
subject something to look at that is inside the frame you create a
second point of interest and a relationship between it and your
primary subject. It also helps create ’story’ within the
image.
There are a lot of ‘rules’ out there when it comes to composition
and I’ve always had a love hate relationship with them. My theory
is that while they are useful to know and employ that they are also
useful to know so you can purposely break them – as this can lead
to eye catching results.
The Rule of Thirds is one that can be effective to break – placing
your subject either dead centre can sometimes create a powerful
image – or even creative placement with your subject right on the
edge of a shot can sometimes create interesting images.
Another ‘rule’ that we often talk about in portrait
photography is to give your subject room to look
into. This can work really well – but again, sometimes rules are
made to be broken.
Another element of randomness that you can introduce to your
portraits is the way that you light them. There are almost
unlimited possibilities when it comes to using light in
portraits.
Side-lighting can create mood, backlighting and silhouetting your
subject to hide their features can be powerful.
Using techniques like slow synch flash can create an
impressive wow factor.
I was chatting with a photographer recently who told me about a
corporate portrait shoot that he had done with a business man at
his home. They’d taken a lot of head and shoulder shots, shots at
his desk, shots in front of framed degrees and other ‘corporate’
type images. They had all turned out fairly standard – but there
was nothing that really stood out from the crowd.
The photographer and the subject agreed that there were plenty of
useable shots but they wanted to create something ’special’ and out
of the box. The photographer suggested they try some ‘jumping’
shots. The subject was a little hesitant at first but stepped out
into the uncomfortable zone and dressed in his suit and tie started
jumping!
The shots were amazing, surprising and quite funny. The shoot
culminated with the subject jumping in his pool for one last
image!
While this might all sound a little ’silly’ the shots ended up
being featured in a magazine spread about the subject. It was the
series of out of the box images that convinced the magazine he was
someone that they’d want to feature.
Sometimes posed shots can look somewhat…. posed. Some people don’t
look good in a posed environment and so switching to a candid type
approach can work.
Photograph your subject at work, with family or doing something
that they love. This will put them more at ease and you can end up
getting some special shots with them reacting naturally to the
situation that they are in. You might even want to grab a longer
zoom lens to take you out of their immediate zone and get really
paparazzi with them.
I find that this can particularly work when photographing
children.
Add a prop of some kind into your shots and you create another
point of interest that can enhance your shot.
Yes you might run the risk of taking too much focus away from your
main subject but you could also really add a sense of story and
place to the image that takes it in a new direction and gives the
person you’re photographing an extra layer of depth that they
wouldn’t have had without the prop.
Get a lens with a long focal length attached to your camera – or
get right in close so that you can just photograph a part of your
subject. Photographing a person’s hands, eyes, mouth or even just
their lower body… can leave a lot to the imagination of the viewer
of an image.
Sometimes it’s what is left out of an image that says more than
what is included.
A variation on the idea of zooming in on one part of the body is to
obscure parts of your portrait subject’s face or body. You can do
this with clothing, objects, their hands or just by framing part of
them out of the image.
Doing this means that you leave a little to the imagination of the
image’s viewer but also focus their attention on parts of your
subject that you want them to be focused upon.
Switch your camera into ‘burst’ or ‘continuous shooting’ mode and
fire off more than one shot at a time.
In doing this you create a series of images that could be presented
together instead of just one static image.
This technique can work very well when you’re photographing
children – or really any active subject that is changing their
position or pose in quick succession.