10 TIPS FOR GREAT PORTRAITS
Alter your perspective
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 possible and shoot up. Either way you’ll be seeing your subject from an angle that is bound to create interest.
Play with eye contact
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:
-
Looking off camera - have your subject focus their attention on something unseen and outside the field of view 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.
-
Looking within a frame - alternately you could have your subject looking at something (or someone) within the frame.
Break the rules of composition
There are a lot of 'rules' out there when it comes to composition while they are useful to know and employ that are also useful to know so you can purposely break them, as this can lead to eye catching results.
Experiment with lighting
Another element of randomness that you can introduce you 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.
Move out of your comfort zone
Take your subject out of their comfort zone to create more interesting portrait shots. Use angles, jumping etc to create interest.
Shoot candidly
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.
Introduce a prop
Add 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 ives the person you’re photography an extra layer of depth that they wouldn’t have had without the prop.
Focus on one body part
Get a lense 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.
Obscure part of your subject
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 the 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.
Take a series of shots
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 you 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.