Portrait Photography Essay

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Few crucial elements you need to think about when doing portrait photography:

1. Lighting Pattern
• Split lighting
• Loop lighting
• Rembrandt lighting
• Butterfly lighting
• Short lighting
• Broad lighting
2. Lighting Ratio
Ratio Stops Difference Description
1:1 No Difference Flat lighting
2:1 1 Stop General color photography
3:1 1 1/2 Stops General black & white photography
4:1 2 Stops Dramatic lighting, low key
8:1 4 Stops Very dramatic, low key
3. Quality of light
• Hard light is produced by a small light source and is characterized by high contrast, enhanced texture of the subject, added drama, and harsh well edge-defined shadows.
• Soft light is produced by a very large light source. It is low contrast (or can even be quite flat), less texture enhancing, and is more forgiving and flattering for people photography.

4. Lens selection
• Telephoto lenses compress …show more content…

Background
• Contrast
• Bright colours (warm tones are the worse for distraction like red and yellow)
• Sharpness
• Bright areas

6. Exposure/metering
• Manual shooting mode
• Single shot drive mode (when I press the button it takes one image only)
• Single point focus (not multi or zone)
• One-shot or AF-S focus mode to focus and lock (not continuous)
• Shoot in RAW

7. Sharpness – getting it in focus
• Focus on the subject, precisely on their eye if I’m in close enough, and then recompose my portrait and shoot away.

8. How to position the subject (posing)
• You’ve likely heard this before, but if it bends – bend it. Meaning get them out of a stiff body position bending one leg slightly, and bending elbows and wrists.
• Get them to shift their weight away from the camera (hip away) it will be more flattering that way.
• Add a slight head tilt for ladies to add a touch of femininity.
• To get people to turn their body when standing – tell them to turn and point their feet, the body will follow naturally.
• Turn shoulders slightly to narrow the body width, which is more flattering for most

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