Post by yohan on Jun 24, 2010 16:01:52 GMT 8
This was originally shared at the Team Nikon Bullies thread and in my Multiply blog section, but then I don't see any harm sharing it here in our Forum site. Besides, this is all about sharing.
I actually don't know how to start this. lol. As a disclaimer, I am not "lecturing" this as a way of teaching a "standard." This is basically called sharing. Anyway, to be honest I haven't been reading any stuff about portraiture, so don't ask me about any names of famous photographers in the field of portraiture, except for Manny Librodo I guess (which I haven't seen any of his works actually haha) nor with any technical terms in photography. What I will be saying here is what I know. All my takes are based on my own perception. What looks good to me, well, is good for me. Sometimes it may not be as good for the others, but, sometimes too, we see photography in our own version. Got that?
One major factor I consider in shooting, most especially in Portraiture, is framing. And in good framing, I usually follow the "Rule of Thirds." Another thing to remember is that since you are taking a Portrait, your subjects are usually human. And the most interesting part in a human portrait is the face. Make everything soft, just not the face! But sometimes this can depend your own taste and approach.
Here are some examples of shots taken that follows the rule of thirds:
For this shot, although her body didn't accurately followed the line, at least she's not at the center. Notice that her face/eyes still fell at the line of rule of thirds.
We know for a fact that Abby has a killer body, but I emphasized her face here. This one went well as per rule of thirds as the eyes fell into it.
Talking about framing, notice that in this shot of Abby, her forehead is cut off. However, it doesn't look awkward (at least for me). Why do you think? Because the picture emphasized what I want to emphasize: the face. Just make sure that when you cut the forehead off, you have an ample amount of spacing below the chin to the chest (not too hallow, not too short). Notice that I included the shoulder line to balance the cutting of the forehead, to the space beneath her chin and neck. Don't make it look like the subject is trying his/her best to be seen in your frame.
Depending on your shooting location, most especially in outdoors, try to add some interesting "accent" within the portrait.
In this shot, I took advantage of the Anahaw leaves and asked the model to pose behind it. It gave that little bit of interest around the subject.
This is one approach that I recently learned myself. If you won't follow the rule of thirds religiously, please make sure that you still don't put the subject at the center! Instead, I place them on the extreme sides, leaving no space for anything. However, as I have mentioned above, putting some accent on the "blank" area will also make it good to look at.
This shot of MJ is an example of what I just said. I used that stone product they had posted on their booth as her background, filling up the "blank" area since she was placed at the extreme right of the frame.
If you notice she kinda fell off the rule of thirds line, but the stone design also helped in the overall composition of the shot.
When taking portraits that include some body parts like the arms and legs, make sure you include them properly in the frame, and that they are not cut off unnecessarily. If you do really need to cut them, make sure it won't look awkward.
This is the original shot. Notice that I included the arms and hands here.
Now if it was taken this way, it may still look good yes, but compared to the one above, it was still better to include that arm there. It somewhat 'completes' the subject.
For these kind of shots, as I have mentioned earlier, make sure that the face is the sharpest of them all. For that shot of Annie, the face is still the emphasis.
Another approach I do is the 'suffocation' of the subject. I'm not sure if I'm original at this, or if others may be calling it differently. I tell my subjects that I'm gonna take a close up shot. In that case, utmost focus should be on the face, or the eyes. What I meant with 'suffocation' is that the subject takes up almost the whole frame, leaving not much for the background.
Nothing much left for the background here. The only reason why there was something left there is because I didn't wanna put my subject at the center.
Same approach, points of interest still falls as per rule of thirds.
Taking whole body shots for me is a little bit harder than shooting facial portraits. You will need to balance it well with your framing and composition. One thing that makes it difficult to take one is that I don't want to use a wide angle focal length when taking a whole body shots. Using wider angle makes the subject look distorted. For a more artistic approach, some photographers intend to shoot this way (i.e. Wedding portraits). The result is I have to have a good space to step back for the subject to fall right into the frame.
Although I used only 20mm here, it was ok because the subject is elevated about a feet higher than me. That prevented it to look distorted.
For this one I used 120mm since I got a whole lot of space on my back. Using farther focal range also creates a good depth of field. Although due to the limited capability of my lens, I can only use f/5.6 for this. If this had been on f/2.8 or f/4 perhaps the background could have been 'shallower.'
One of our common mistakes is the 'headroom.' Try not to make too much headroom as it really, really looks awkward. Remove it from your thinking that you can always crop it afterward. That's not a good practice of good framing, lest composition. Balance the amount of headroom to how much your subject occupies the whole frame.Below are examples of photos with good framing (at least for me):
Aside from the fact that the headroom clearance is good, it also allowed me to include her folded arm since it contains accent to the concept of the shoot.
Though headroom here is bigger than the one above, it's ok since the shot is taken on Portrait orientation.
If we will approach this on a mathematical basis, the biggest headroom you should allow should be just about 1/8 of the whole frame.
Things to remember:
1. Do not stick it to your mind that you can always PP your shot anyway and not focus in getting a good shot. Always, always take the effort of taking a good shot at the first press of the shutter.
2. As I have mentioned, cropping is included in PP'ing. Do not get to thinking that you can always crop it later on, unless otherwise needed. I suggest to always stay on the aspect ratio of your shot even after cropping.
For example, my Nikon D40 has 3008 x 2000 pixels on each picture. If I will crop the picture to achieve my desired look, I will have to crop it strategically to retain the aspect ratio of a wide shots produced by my camera, and if possible set it back to 3008 x 2000.
I hope I've shared something helpful.
Cheers!
I actually don't know how to start this. lol. As a disclaimer, I am not "lecturing" this as a way of teaching a "standard." This is basically called sharing. Anyway, to be honest I haven't been reading any stuff about portraiture, so don't ask me about any names of famous photographers in the field of portraiture, except for Manny Librodo I guess (which I haven't seen any of his works actually haha) nor with any technical terms in photography. What I will be saying here is what I know. All my takes are based on my own perception. What looks good to me, well, is good for me. Sometimes it may not be as good for the others, but, sometimes too, we see photography in our own version. Got that?
One major factor I consider in shooting, most especially in Portraiture, is framing. And in good framing, I usually follow the "Rule of Thirds." Another thing to remember is that since you are taking a Portrait, your subjects are usually human. And the most interesting part in a human portrait is the face. Make everything soft, just not the face! But sometimes this can depend your own taste and approach.
Here are some examples of shots taken that follows the rule of thirds:
For this shot, although her body didn't accurately followed the line, at least she's not at the center. Notice that her face/eyes still fell at the line of rule of thirds.
We know for a fact that Abby has a killer body, but I emphasized her face here. This one went well as per rule of thirds as the eyes fell into it.
Talking about framing, notice that in this shot of Abby, her forehead is cut off. However, it doesn't look awkward (at least for me). Why do you think? Because the picture emphasized what I want to emphasize: the face. Just make sure that when you cut the forehead off, you have an ample amount of spacing below the chin to the chest (not too hallow, not too short). Notice that I included the shoulder line to balance the cutting of the forehead, to the space beneath her chin and neck. Don't make it look like the subject is trying his/her best to be seen in your frame.
Depending on your shooting location, most especially in outdoors, try to add some interesting "accent" within the portrait.
In this shot, I took advantage of the Anahaw leaves and asked the model to pose behind it. It gave that little bit of interest around the subject.
This is one approach that I recently learned myself. If you won't follow the rule of thirds religiously, please make sure that you still don't put the subject at the center! Instead, I place them on the extreme sides, leaving no space for anything. However, as I have mentioned above, putting some accent on the "blank" area will also make it good to look at.
This shot of MJ is an example of what I just said. I used that stone product they had posted on their booth as her background, filling up the "blank" area since she was placed at the extreme right of the frame.
If you notice she kinda fell off the rule of thirds line, but the stone design also helped in the overall composition of the shot.
When taking portraits that include some body parts like the arms and legs, make sure you include them properly in the frame, and that they are not cut off unnecessarily. If you do really need to cut them, make sure it won't look awkward.
This is the original shot. Notice that I included the arms and hands here.
Now if it was taken this way, it may still look good yes, but compared to the one above, it was still better to include that arm there. It somewhat 'completes' the subject.
For these kind of shots, as I have mentioned earlier, make sure that the face is the sharpest of them all. For that shot of Annie, the face is still the emphasis.
Another approach I do is the 'suffocation' of the subject. I'm not sure if I'm original at this, or if others may be calling it differently. I tell my subjects that I'm gonna take a close up shot. In that case, utmost focus should be on the face, or the eyes. What I meant with 'suffocation' is that the subject takes up almost the whole frame, leaving not much for the background.
Nothing much left for the background here. The only reason why there was something left there is because I didn't wanna put my subject at the center.
Same approach, points of interest still falls as per rule of thirds.
Taking whole body shots for me is a little bit harder than shooting facial portraits. You will need to balance it well with your framing and composition. One thing that makes it difficult to take one is that I don't want to use a wide angle focal length when taking a whole body shots. Using wider angle makes the subject look distorted. For a more artistic approach, some photographers intend to shoot this way (i.e. Wedding portraits). The result is I have to have a good space to step back for the subject to fall right into the frame.
Although I used only 20mm here, it was ok because the subject is elevated about a feet higher than me. That prevented it to look distorted.
For this one I used 120mm since I got a whole lot of space on my back. Using farther focal range also creates a good depth of field. Although due to the limited capability of my lens, I can only use f/5.6 for this. If this had been on f/2.8 or f/4 perhaps the background could have been 'shallower.'
One of our common mistakes is the 'headroom.' Try not to make too much headroom as it really, really looks awkward. Remove it from your thinking that you can always crop it afterward. That's not a good practice of good framing, lest composition. Balance the amount of headroom to how much your subject occupies the whole frame.Below are examples of photos with good framing (at least for me):
Aside from the fact that the headroom clearance is good, it also allowed me to include her folded arm since it contains accent to the concept of the shoot.
Though headroom here is bigger than the one above, it's ok since the shot is taken on Portrait orientation.
If we will approach this on a mathematical basis, the biggest headroom you should allow should be just about 1/8 of the whole frame.
Things to remember:
1. Do not stick it to your mind that you can always PP your shot anyway and not focus in getting a good shot. Always, always take the effort of taking a good shot at the first press of the shutter.
2. As I have mentioned, cropping is included in PP'ing. Do not get to thinking that you can always crop it later on, unless otherwise needed. I suggest to always stay on the aspect ratio of your shot even after cropping.
For example, my Nikon D40 has 3008 x 2000 pixels on each picture. If I will crop the picture to achieve my desired look, I will have to crop it strategically to retain the aspect ratio of a wide shots produced by my camera, and if possible set it back to 3008 x 2000.
I hope I've shared something helpful.
Cheers!