This is a photography visual tip for the occasion phototaking tasks that a non-profession person may need to do where the situation arise.
What is a Portrait? Well it can be said to be a photographic or artistic visual representation of a person. Almost everyone has taken a portrait before.
Portraits can appear interest, attractive or boring and dull. It really depends on the lighting conditions as well as the composition of the photo . The followings are some tips for taking better portraits:
1. Draws attention to the Eyes of the Subject
The eyes of a Human Being is the most expressive part of a human face. It tells a lot about the mood and characteristics of a person. For example, eyes that show alot of white make a person appear to be more sad. Big Eyes with expressive pupils tends to make the person appear youthful and vibrant. The photographer should attempt to bring out the expressions of the Person’s eyes, for more attractive and interesting portrait.
2. Keep the focus on the person who is the subject.
To draw the focus to the person( subject) in mind, it is always a good idea to keep the surrounding area of the scene as low key as possible. This can be done via certain method of which some are listed below:
a.Deploy a uniformly coloured background. One way to do this is via studio photography which will be covered in a separate article.
b. Diffuse the background by employing a shallow depth of field. In another word, the Photographer should use a lower F-number or F-stop. On the other hand, High F-number will keep all details sharp.
3. Frame the Person appropriately with respect to the size of the frame
We do not always need to frame the entire body of the Subject or Person into the scene. Often, it it better to have a closer view of the person’s face.
4. Communicate with the Person who is the Subject.
This is an aspect of portrait photography that is often overlooked. Nevertheless, this is one of the most important process for allowing the Subjects’ essence and character to be expressed physically. By maintaining good communication with the Subject, we can put them at ease and thus allow their natural personality to shine through. We are not just taking a photo here, we are also attempting to capture their personality on print as well.
As current technology is digital. Photo images are often save as digital formats such as RAW, Jpeg etc. Digital images can be further enhanced via photo retouching using software programs such as Photoshop, Photoplus and GIMP.
Simple retouch can be stuffs such as modifying controls and brightness. One can even replace colours using photo editors.