If you’re serious about improving your portrait photography, there are thousands of pounds you can spend on lenses and lighting to give you an advantage over the elements.
But in these lean times we’ll show you how you can make portraits with more punch without emptying your billfold. Below we share 10 quick portrait photography tips for working with what you’re given, making better compositions and inspiring great reactions from your subject.
SEE MORE: 14 portrait photography tips you’ll never want to forget
10 quick portrait tips for instant success
1. Start inside
Where you shoot depends on what style you’re offering, the time of year and what the client expects. But starting the shoot inside is a great way to get everyone, particularly kids, accustomed to your camera. If you start your shoot in a field, for instance, you won’t see the kids again.
SEE MORE: 5 ways to improve your portraits in an instant
2. Create a black background
A quick and easy technique you can use to get a few solid shots in the bag straightaway is to turn off all the lights off in the foyer. Next, ask the family to stand about three feet in from the doorway. By exposing for your subject’s faces you will underexpose the dimly lit foyer behind them, thus creating a clean, black background behind the family.
SEE MORE: When to use a reflector – how the different colors produce different effects
3. Good backgrounds are everywhere
Clean backgrounds, of course, are one of the key elements of a successful portrait. Some houses may have amazing wallpaper or glass rooms that can work well to this end, but if you’re stuck, use the back of a couch. This works particularly well with kids. Simply drag a sofa near a doorway and turn the couch around.
Sit your subjects in front of it so that you have a nice, solid block of colour, which is the sofa back behind them. Because the sofa is being lit by light reflected in from outside, the colour will be rich and warm. Even a black leather couch works nicely in this regard, he says.
SEE MORE: 11 easy ways to make a portrait stunning
4. Make the room more spacious
If shooting indoors and the room feels cramped around your subject, try placing your subject in a corner and shooting from a very low angle. This vantage point gives emphasis to the lines where the floor meets the wall, which will travel from one central point out to the lower corners of your frame, giving the exaggerated appearance of wide open space. Using a wideangle lens for this type of shot will enhance the effect even further.
SEE MORE: Camera angles – 5 ways to add impact with unusual perspectives
5. What to wear
Shooting outdoors, it can be hard in winter to find backgrounds with colour. Instead, try asking your subjects to wear something colourful or stripey to give the image some extra visual interest and warmth. Conversely, in summer colour is everywhere, from the golden light to the verdant green or floral backdrops.
To keep from confusing an image with too much colour or pattern, ask your sitter to keep it simple with single colours and patterns. And always ask them to bring a change of clothes, regardless of the season.
SEE MORE: Outdoor portrait photography made easy: tips for pro-quality results
6. Make a frame with foliage
We’ve all used a canopy of leaves to create a frame around a subject in our compositions, but you can take this technique to the extreme by getting down low and shooting from the ground looking up.
Try using individual blades of grass, wildflowers and other stray ground foliage to frame your subjects within the frame. The low vantage point gives dramatic emphasis to the subject, and the bug’s eye view of the grass in the foreground creates an otherworldliness.
SEE MORE: The 10 Rules of Photo Composition (and why they work)
7. Make a day of it
It’s not enough simply to bring your subjects into their garden or down to the local park and take their photograph. A good portrait captures a genuine expression, an unguarded moment, and these typically only come when someone is having a great time and forgets about the camera.
Instead, plan days out with your subjects. Think about your shoots as an experience – a walk through the woods, a picnic with family, a day at the beach – that everyone is sharing. People let their guard down, you’ll get more natural pictures, and at the end of the day everyone feels like they’ve had a fun day out rather than their picture taken.
SEE MORE: 10 portrait photography mistakes photographers make (and how to fix them)
8. Controlling exposure
When you move from indoors to outdoors you are ceding your element of control over the light. If it’s sunny and conditions are high-contrast, zooming into your subject will give you a more balanced exposure. A telephoto zoom such as a 70-200mm is great for this very purpose on outdoor shoots.
The more scenery you want to include in your background, the harder it will be to get an even exposure because of all the ambient light you’re letting into your camera at wider focal lengths.
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9. Best apertures
Shooting outdoors is particularly tough because it’s often a blanket of colour. If you shoot your subjects at f/8, they’re not going to be distinguished from the background. Use an aperture of about f/2.8 in your outdoor portraits so you can achieve minimum depth of field.
SEE MORE: A layman’s guide to depth of field – how to check and affect sharpness like a pro
10. Use bounced flash indoors
Shooting indoors, you’ll likely want to use flash, particularly if your shot is posed. If you set a full aperture, an average shutter speed of about 1/60sec and bounce off-camera flash light from the ceiling or wall at your background (direct flash light will give you harsh results), you should be able to capture well-lit portraits at low ISOs of 100 or 200.
http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2015/08/20/portrait-tips-10-quick-ideas-for-better-pictures-of-people/
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