The Full Guide on How to Take Better Portrait Photos

» Posted by Sinyu on Feb 5, 2010 in Digital Photography | 11 comments

A great portrait has the tendency to captivate and amaze the viewer. Photos, especially portraits, project emotions and the art to taking a quality portrait photo is not easily mastered. The following guide will allow you the ability to take quality portraits without the need of being a professional and you will be able to do it without spending a lot of time.

What’s a portrait?

A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, in order to most successfully engage the subject with the viewer.

Source Wikipedia.org

Step 1: The Shooting Session

For a good quality portrait follow these steps:

A. Choose the appropriate backdrop:

In a portrait you want all attention pointing to the face of the subject. Choosing the proper backdrop can allow the focus to be set on the face. Avoid objects in the background or a busy background, choosing a background is an important step.

B. Don’t allow the background to stand out:

Going with a neutral color is the right choice and blurring it slightly will allow the subject to stand out even further. This is done by using a shallow depth to take the photo. You can do this by shooting the subject up close with a wider aperture setting on your camera or by the use of a zoom lens. If you do not know how to do this, it can be done later using you favorite photo editing software.

C. Keep the focus on the subjects eyes:

Keep the eyes at the center of the portrait and decide what type of mood you want the viewer to feel, you can use a semi profiled picture or a straight on pose, that is up to you and the mood you want your viewer to feel, the simple addition of a smirk or grin can accomplish this very well. The subject’s features if changed in the slightest can allow you to capture any given effect that you as the photographer wish to capture. For example, you can turn a woman into a monster, by touching nothing but the eyes!

D. Keep the lighting natural:

You will want to do this if at all possible to keep the skins natural warmth and color. A good way to shoot a portrait would be to do it outdoors with the sun at the subject profile. Too much sun in the background of the photo will result in shading and distortion of the features as well as the colors of the face. If you are shooting your photo indoors, be sure to use an indirect form of lighting this will brighten the room without the effects of flushing the face of its natural colors. This can be done by placing lighting around the subject without actually aiming directly on the subject because the result can be the same as an over lit outdoor photo, creating a flushed out look in the subject and losing the vibrancy of natural colors.

E. Practice makes perfect:

This is done by simply taking several photos, in the digital camera age there is no added cost to take extra photos, this way you can choose the photo that has come out best for you. This is no time to be shy, the professionals do it and you can too just simply pose your subject in different poses, with different lighting and practice with all of your colors. Experiment with lighting, background colors that are darker or lighter and depth and keep on shooting. Shooting too many photos is better than not having enough when you’re trying to find the one you like most, it is easier to find the perfect picture among 500 than it is to find in 5.

Step 2:  Portrait exposure Values

Exposure is defined as how much light actually gets to the cameras sensor. The exposure Value, otherwise known as EV is representative of the camera settings, this goes along with the shutter speed. The meaning of the number will be explained along with exposure compensation.

Two factors in Exposure:

How much light is getting to the camera sensor and the length of time the sensor is exposed. The length of time it is exposed depends on the shutter speed; the determination of how much light gets through depends on the aperture value. The EV represents how much light can reach the sensor, or in a sense how exposed it allows the sensor to be. The EV is dependent of how well the scene is lit. An example of this is the shutter speed and the aperture value allows the same amount of exposure in the dark or in the sunlight.

example of full artificial lighting

Each EV number is representative of aperture and shutter settings that ultimately have the same amount of exposure. Even though the EV number is the same for all aperture value combination and the shutter speed, the result of each photo can be different.

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