9 tips for BETTER PORTRAITS

so let's talk about por tres now if you're looking for one of those fashioned etype portrait tip videos the ones that show you how to pose people and do people's hair this may not be the video for you what I'm gonna do is talk you through nine tips that I think are important when taking portraits number one trust your gut feelings over the rules technical know-how is not artistic know-how understanding ISO aperture shutter speeds things like the rule of thirds how to pose a model how to make them look slimmer a younger etc they're all really important things to know from a commercial sense but that won't help you take a great portrait you need to tap into your intuitive understanding and our intuition is a result of all our collective thoughts and experiences and it knows a lot more than our conscious mind is capable of accessing at any one time it's why sometimes we might get a bad feeling about someone but we don't rework out what it is until later it's because your subconscious mind is picking up on tiny nuances in body language and speech and behavior it's about utilizing that intuitive understanding and combining it with technique and that can lead to a great portrait and it doesn't have to follow the rules to make the eyes your focus and I don't mean simply focusing on the eyes I mean think about what the eyes are doing think carefully about where your subject is looking are they looking at the camera are they looking away from the camera they're looking away from the camera we catch them in situ we start to imagine what they might be thinking or feeling it feels like a more honest approach a subject looking straight into the camera is more confrontational they're looking directly at the viewer and the viewer is looking back you're creating connection with them it's important to understand what you're communicating from where your model is looking now with group portraits this is an interesting one if the whole group is looking straight at the camera everyone kind of loses their individuality it doesn't really make it a bad shot but it's very different from if everyone is looking in a different direction if everyone is looking in a different direction you're capturing a scene you are an onlooker an invisible voyeur looking at a scene but if you have a scene where everyone is looking in a different direction except for one person who is looking directly into the camera and the viewer creates a connection with that person and they become their route into that scene three think about the setting that your subject is in what is the relationship between the foreground from the background choose what to include and what to exclude think about your aperture a wider aperture will give you a shallow depth of field it will make your photo completely about the subject a smaller aperture will give you a wider field of focus and your subject will become part of an environment you create a stage for your subject in which everything in the scene is an important part of the portrait if you remove the background altogether as then just have it just a plain color white or black and you remove all contacts from the photo so this is better for people of importance celebrities people who are recognizable rather than someone who's just randomly off the street and taken out of their context so don't just buy a lens that opens to F 1.2 and just always shoot at F 1.2 just because you can because sometimes the background is an important part or the whole image sometimes the scene can say just as much if not more about the subject take a look at this photo by cloudy a Yank it begs the question does a portrait even need a person you can tell so much about this person's lifestyle that values their routine their economic status their age it's an important thing to consider when you're taking a portrait for use lighting well think about what your lighting choices are saying about your portrait take a look at these with natural light again honest look different lighting can create different moods like warm evening light can create a certain mood cold winter morning can create another move the eerie cast of moonlight and the dead of night can create completely different mood again you can sometimes use the shapes and shadows that natural light casts to be a major subject in your photos if you use on-camera flash you get a very bright brash bold punky style this shot by Terry Richardson for example a bright flash onto your subject is a hit of light it's like an attack when using studio lighting I tend to favor more simple lighting more lights and complexities you involve in your lighting setup the less real your shot will feel this is an example of a single softened light sources maybe a bit of minor fill from a reflector what we call Rembrandt lighting it's very simple to achieve and I think it's rather effective most of the time you should probably avoid using flash to fill in dark areas in ambient light sure it will get you a nice clean sharp bright shot but you risk losing a bit of that ambience and feeling five like your subject be natural most people like to smile when they're having their photo taken but smile is a mask it's a facade you have to get rid of that wait for it to drop find a true representation of them pay close attention to your model observe what they do when they're not posing and use that as a guide to pose them there are a number of techniques you can employ to get people to relax a bit more when you're taking their photo don't hide behind a camera maybe set your settings then lean around and chat to them and fire away while you while you're talking to them another good technique is to get people to look at something else for a while so maybe go maybe ask them to look the floor and then look up at you there's that initial moment when they haven't yet formed an expression and that give us a bit more of a true representation of who they are sometimes you can set up your camera and just call someone and as they look round to see what you're calling them before you can press the shutter maybe you could get them to read something off the floor just say okay just tell me what that number is on that bit of masking tape down there and they'll read it and they look back up at you or wherever when taking candid street shots you've just got to be confident so I'll pretend you're not doing anything just put your camera up and if people look at you just kind of kiss keep it there just kind of look beyond them don't look at them don't acknowledge them just pretend they're not there Majan almost like you're photographing beyond them and they're in your way most people won't challenge you another great technique for taking photos of people on the street is to set up your shot and then wait for someone to walk into it that way the balance of responsibility is shifted because it's your shot and they're walking through it but try not to look too much like you're taking a shot because a lot of people will wait and sort of try to be helpful by standing just out of your shot a slightly more confident approach is to set up a shot and wait for someone to just notice you and that second they notice you take their photo there's something very nice about those shots that kind of blank expression the spontaneity of it is there's something really good but when getting people to pose for you it's not about making them feel relaxed it's about getting them to drop that facade so sometimes employing weird techniques can be helpful get them to just break out of their comfort zone take a look at this photo by Bettina Vaughn valves valves well here she sat a model in the complete pitch-black and made them listen to music and then suddenly out of nowhere she flashes the flash and releases the shutter and you get this really really candid moment of someone just involved in this emotional experience there's all sorts of techniques you can employ to get people to drop that facade all you've got to do is break social convention so get them to jump up and down get them to hold their breath for as long as they can get them to try and work out a maths problem but end you he needs help with working out something when you flash and then while they're all there thinking about it then you get your shot then you can get some really really interesting results this way six learn to not care there's a great quote by David Foster Wallace that says you'll worry a lot less about what people think of you when you realize how seldom they do there's something very liberating in that when you realize that everyone it's basically just concerned about themselves and don't really care too much about other people you can use that as a very liberating force to go and do what you want more confidently because confidence is something you do it's not something you are and like with everything with practice it gets better there are various things you can do to help sort of boost that confidence just to go around doing things personally I like to listen to music just put my headphones in walk around take photos and I feel less a part of the world it feel like more like I'm watching something and it gives me much more confidence ultimately you can just go up and talk to people ask people to take their photos because most people are really nice and they're really helpful and at the end of the day it is frightening that's not going to go away but what you need to do is learn to embrace that fear learn to enjoy it be like one of those adrenaline junkies learn to live with the fear feel the fear and do it anyway because you're always going to look back and regret what you didn't do rather than what you did do if you went for something and it failed you gonna feel a lot better about that then if you never went for something and what you could have got if you had gone for it just a basic rule of life there are only seven think about what lens you're using because different lenses have different feelings use the right one for what you want to get so for those wider shots that say the subject more in context of their environment somewhere from around a 24 to around a fifty kind of a good place to be personally I like a 35 that's my lens of choice but everyone's different I find 35s kind of a good middle ground for that sort of thing for close range shots tiring shots head shots somewhere around a 70 to 135 personally I like an 85 it's a nice focal length if you go really long if you go 200 300 400 you start to get that kind of paparazzi look and it feels very very voyeuristic and very very detached from your subject a closer in lens like an 85 will compress the features a bit more 50 85 will give a very kind of honest view of someone 35 close in 24 especially will give a more exaggerated look to the features which can be to your advantage depending on what you're looking to get there are no solid rules there's no such thing as a good portrait length 8 know the law this is more one for just being out on the street when you're out in a public place you can pretty much take photos of any adult you want kids are different they have different rules around them and unless you have a particular restraining order or something you can pretty much take photos of anyone you don't need a model release unless you're using it for commercial purposes but you can be arrested for harassment if you are following someone around taking photos of them so don't do that you're not allowed to show people in a defamatory context so best not to take photos of people walking out of a sex shop in Soho and exhibit that around because they might sue you be very careful with celebrities because they have really good lawyers and they like to sue people because their public image is their livelihood you can photograph children but you need the permission of the parent or guardian just a bit of common sense really I mean if you go and you're taking pictures of street children in Peru then you're less likely to get sued because they're less likely to see it it's a bit more of an observational sort of slice of life than if you just go out in London and take a photo of someone's child generally top level rule if you're taking photos of people in the street just don't be a dick about it if people ask you not to do it don't go well I think you'll find legally I can just walk away to find something else don't be a dick because the police don't always know the law and it's just it's gonna be a hell of a hassle sort out be aware that public spaces can be privately owned and you get some gray areas so maybe a pub or a cafe is a public space so you may be able to take photos in there but for having a private event and you're taking photos of the private event then it gets a bit more of a gray area the police can seize your equipment and they can delete your photos if they believe it will prevent a crime and only if they believe it will prevent a crime if police do stop you and take your stuff get a receipt from them for your stuff they shouldn't be able to delete your photos unless you're planning something really bad so don't do that either it's all right to have brands and logos in your photo but they need to be two things they need to be incidental and they need to be an honest portrayal and also the companies for advertising so incidental as in not the subject of the photo on this portrayal as in how they are meant to be used for someone wearing an Apple watch is fine because you know people wear that you don't have to blur it out but someone wearing an Apple watch or with a bracelet that you're trying to sell you can't do that finally number 9 take your time don't cut your session too early as the shoot goes on there will be tiny tiny nuance changes in facial expressions and mood and that can completely change your photograph push through keep going until you get that shot that you really want until you're sure you've got it so I hope that's been helpful those are 9 tips from me for taking better portraits I'll see you later

Channel: Jamie Windsor

Views: 1,527,704

Keywords: photography, portraits, people, portrait, tips, techniques, how to, lens, lenses, 85mm, 35mm, 24mm, 135mm, 50mm, aperture, DLSR, camera, Canon, shooting, shoot, photographing, hacks, tutorial, best

Id: H79c5jPAuX8

Length: 14min 39sec (879 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 18 2017