Posts Tagged ‘Portrait photography’

Taking photos around midday is often shunned by many photographers. Certainly it is more difficult to get nice photos at midday than it is around sunset or sunrise, but this doesn't mean you can't get great shots at this time of day as well.

The main problem with photographing at midday is the harsh overhead light of the sun. This causes strong highlights and shadows, and can be particularly unflattering for portraits. There are still plenty of photo opportunities about though.

People make great subjects for photos, but finding people that are happy to have their photo taken is not always easy. Even friends and family can often be camera-shy.

But there is a way you can get great photos of your friends and family. In fact, once they've seen the results, they will probably be asking you to take more photos of them in the future!

In today's portrait photography photo tip we are going to wrap up our discussions of the three light set with a quick review and an example of how to build a three light set - with no lights! Just because you don't have any studio lights, doesn't mean you can't shoot quality images.

Here is a quick review... Most good portrait photography requires three lights.

A good way to get viewers to connect with your photography, is to use your photos to tell a story. This can be done over a sequence of images, or just through a single image.

Newspaper photographers often have to tell a story using just a single image. Normally there will be a caption or written story alongside the image, that gives more of the context and background behind the photo. But most often, the image can speak for itself even without these.

Begging by pedrosimoes7 on flickr (licensed CC-BY)

A photo can convey emotion, ideas and messages, without any words at all. But to tell a story through a photo, you need to be intentional in how you tell it, just as a writer is when writing a story.

Ironically enough, one of the most difficult pictures a photographer can take is a self-portrait. With self portraits you don't have the advantage of looking through the lens and carefully composing your image, so it can be real tricky to get it right.

Self-Portraits by Maiquel Borges on flickr (licensed CC-BY-ND)

That being said, there are a few little tips you can work into your next self-portrait shoot that will make the process much, much easier.

Today I have a photo tip that actually breaks the rules. I'm going to talk about including hats in portrait photography.

Hats can say a lot about a person's personality and are a good prop to use - if they actually DO fit the subject's personality.

miss holmes by Angelo González on flickr (licensed CC-BY)