Showing posts with label Portraiture Research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Portraiture Research. Show all posts
Portraiture tips 2
6x6: Give your subjects some room
The rectangular format of most cameras encourages photographers to crop rather tightly around a subject's face or torso. The 6x6 cm square format encourages you to give subjects a little bit of space.
 | George on the carpeted floor of an office building. Hand-held, Tri-X film. It seemed like a good idea to crop out some of the carpet with Adobe Photoshop. After all, this is supposed to be a photo of the dog, not of commercial carpet. As the cropping tool was being adjusted, an an art director from Hearst Magazines walked by. He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook until I became convinced that it was the space in front of the dog that made the photo work. |
 | Roommates. Sadly marred by a technical flaw: the reflector edge in the lower left corner of the frame. |
 | Reading. From Cape Cod. This was taken with the 80mm lens, a normal focal length for 6x6. If you're not trying to fill the frame with the subject's face, you don't need a telephoto lens to avoid an unflattering perspective. In medium format, this can result in big savings. A telephoto lens for a Hasselblad or Rollei 6000 is about $4000! |
 | Generation Gap. If you're still using film... Most people probably look better in black and white. If you want the sharpest results, you'll get them with Agfapan 25, Kodak TMAX-100, and Kodak BW400CN. Kodak's ancient TRI-X emulsion has enough grain that it may flatter certain subjects. You will probably find that TRI-X in the 35mm format yields grain that is simply too obtrusive. TRI-X works very well in 120 or 4x5 size, however. If you're doing color, you'll want subtle tones, low color saturation, and low-ish contrast. Good places to start in the color negative world are the Kodak Portra films, Fujicolor Pro 160S, and Fujicolor Pro 400H. For color slides, try Fuji Astia or Kodak E100. |
Information from: http://photo.net/learn/portraits/?p=4
Portraiture tips
Location
If you don't have or can't create a photo studio, concentrate onenvironmental portraiture. Show the subject and also his surroundings. These tend to work best if you can enlarge the final image to at least 11x14 inches. In any smaller photo, the subject's face is simply too small. Taking photos that will enlarge well is a whole art by itself. Your allies in this endeavor will be a low ISO setting, prime (rather than zoom) lenses, a tripod, and at least a mid-range digital SLR.
There are two elements to a photo studio for portrait photography. One is a controlled background. You want to focus attention on your subject and avoid distracting elements in the frame. Probably the best portraits aren't taken against a gray seamless paper roll. On the other hand, you are unlikely to screw up and leave something distracting in the frame if you confine yourself to using seamless paper or other monochromatic backgrounds. You don't have to build a special room to have a controlled background. There are all kinds of clever portable backdrops and backdrop supports that you can buy or build. If you absolutely cannot control the background, the standard way to cheat is to use a long fast lens, e.g., 300/2.8. Fast telephoto lenses have very little depth of field. Your subject's eyes and nose will be sharp. Everything else that might have been distracting will be blurred into blobs of color.
The second element of a portrait studio is controlled lighting. With lights on stands or hanging from the ceiling, you get to pick the angle at which light will strike your subject. With umbrellas and other diffusion equipment, you get to pick the harshness of the shadows on your subject (see out studio photography primer). There are some pretty reasonable portable flash kits consisting of a couple of lights, light stands, and umbrellas. These cost $500-1000 and take 20 minutes or so to set up on location. If you don't have the money, time, or muscles to bring a light package to a project, the standard way to cheat is to park your subject next to a large window and put a white reflecting card on the other side. Don't forget the tripod, because you'll probably be forced to use slow shutter speeds.
Stealing a Location
What if you don't have a big open space with diffuse light and a neutral background? Steal one. If you live in the United States, a vast open space with light pouring in from expensive skylights is as close as your nearest art museum or university. With a 200mm lens set to f/2.8, the background will be thrown out of focus. Here are some examples from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and a couple of lobbies at MIT, taken on a cold February day in Boston. Canon EOS-5D, 70-200/2.8 IS lens, handheld without flash.
Lighting
The most flattering light for most portraits is soft and off-camera. A large north-facing window works, as does the electronic equivalent, the softbox (light bank). The Elsa Dorfman Polaroid photo at the top right was taken with two large light banks, one on either side of the camera. Note that there are essentially no shadows.
If your subject is outdoors, an overcast day is best. If the day is sunny, make sure to use a reflector or electronic flash to fill in shadows underneath the eyes.
At right: In a New York loft, light coming from a bank of windows at left. Canon 70-200/2.8 lens on tripod. Possibly some fill-flash. Fuji ISO 400 color negative film.
What if you're in Mexico, the sun is strong, the longest lens that you have is a 50/1.4, and you meet someone who needs a portrait for her Web page? The results will not be happy (left). On the other hand, if you're photographing people for whom bright mountain sun is their natural environment, the portrait can be acceptable (right; Olympus E1, 14-54/3.5 zoom at f/7.1 and 37mm (74mm equiv.)). |
 | The photo at left (Dieter) was taken with a Canon 35-350L zoom lens. The 35-350L slows down to around f/5.6 at longer focal lengths. The photo at right (Emma) was taken in Alaska'sKatmai National Park in front of a background with similar potential for distraction. Emma was captured on film with a 300/2.8 lens. You can decide for yourself whether the reduction in background distraction is worth the cost and weight of a fast lens. |  |
 | This was taken on vacation with a Canon S60 point and shoot digital camera. The small sensors of point and shoot cameras necessitate very short lenses. Even at wider apertures, these lenses have way too much depth of field for portraits and the background will always be distracting. |
Julia Margaret Cameron
Julia Margaret Cameron
b. 1815 Calcutta, India, d. 1879 Sri Lanka
photographer
British
photographer
British
After receiving a camera as a gift, Julia Margaret Cameron began her career in photography at the age of forty-eight. She produced the majority of her work from her home at Freshwater on the Isle of Wight. By the coercive force of her eccentric personality, she enlisted everyone around her as models, from family members to domestic servants and local residents.
The wife of a retired jurist, Cameron moved in the highest circles of society in Victorian England. She photographed the intellectuals and leaders within her circle of family and friends, among them the portrait painter George Frederick Watts, the astronomer Sir John Herschel, and the Poet Laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson. She derived much of her subject inspiration from literature, and her work in turn influenced writers. In addition to literature, she drew her subject matter from the paintings of Raphael, Giotto, and Michelangelo, whose works she knew through prints that circulated widely in late nineteenth-century England. Summing up her influences, Cameron stated her photographic mission thus: "My aspirations are to ennoble Photography and to secure for it the character and uses of High Art by combining the real and Ideal and sacrificing nothing of the Truth by all possible devotion to Poetry and beauty."
The wife of a retired jurist, Cameron moved in the highest circles of society in Victorian England. She photographed the intellectuals and leaders within her circle of family and friends, among them the portrait painter George Frederick Watts, the astronomer Sir John Herschel, and the Poet Laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson. She derived much of her subject inspiration from literature, and her work in turn influenced writers. In addition to literature, she drew her subject matter from the paintings of Raphael, Giotto, and Michelangelo, whose works she knew through prints that circulated widely in late nineteenth-century England. Summing up her influences, Cameron stated her photographic mission thus: "My aspirations are to ennoble Photography and to secure for it the character and uses of High Art by combining the real and Ideal and sacrificing nothing of the Truth by all possible devotion to Poetry and beauty."
Information from http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=2026
Nadav Kander
"I was drawn to found pictures - pictures where there was a subject that I realized needed me to formalize and compose to make a picture. I was not drawn to the full creation, to the idea of starting off with nothing. I was rather drawn to a landscape or subjects where you intervene to make the picture satisfying yourself."
"I have never been that interested in commenting, in documentary. It has always been about the satisfaction I get from a composition, a line, an amount of space, a feeling, an atmosphere, a response to a picture. I am still about that today. I've always admired art that tells me more about the artist's opinion and state of mind shown to me through the subject matter."
"I am wary of seeing too much, looking at too much other imagery. It is dangerous for my personality - all this imagery we could look at all the time if we let ourselves. When I started, I had about six or seven books and no internet. The books were, I think, ones on Atget and Edward Weston, along with the Encyclopedia Britannica and one or two others. I could look at the work carefully, and slowly decide what it was, be aware of how I was informed. Today there is so much."
"I have never been that interested in commenting, in documentary. It has always been about the satisfaction I get from a composition, a line, an amount of space, a feeling, an atmosphere, a response to a picture. I am still about that today. I've always admired art that tells me more about the artist's opinion and state of mind shown to me through the subject matter."
"I am wary of seeing too much, looking at too much other imagery. It is dangerous for my personality - all this imagery we could look at all the time if we let ourselves. When I started, I had about six or seven books and no internet. The books were, I think, ones on Atget and Edward Weston, along with the Encyclopedia Britannica and one or two others. I could look at the work carefully, and slowly decide what it was, be aware of how I was informed. Today there is so much."
Mary Ellen Mark
"I see better in black and white. Perhaps I'm a little bit color-blind. It's also the subject matter I pick that I think works better in black and white."
"People are amazed by the camera. It is the opposite of digital photography. You are making the decisions all upfront and you can't just go for it in post-production."
"My main influences come from photography and film. I have done a lot more work on film sets. Fellini I adore; is I was going to say just one name as an influence or inspiration, it would probably be him. He presented an amazing world and an amazing imagination, but all based in neorealism. He's a realist."
"Irony is in my work. You are conscious of what you are looking at and why, it's in your was of looking. Then you learn how to express it as you become an experienced photographer."
"People are amazed by the camera. It is the opposite of digital photography. You are making the decisions all upfront and you can't just go for it in post-production."
"My main influences come from photography and film. I have done a lot more work on film sets. Fellini I adore; is I was going to say just one name as an influence or inspiration, it would probably be him. He presented an amazing world and an amazing imagination, but all based in neorealism. He's a realist."
"Irony is in my work. You are conscious of what you are looking at and why, it's in your was of looking. Then you learn how to express it as you become an experienced photographer."
Mark Seliger
"I always start from the place of an idea. I don't walk into a photoshoot without an idea at hand, a possibility of where I want to go - perhaps just the format and the energy, or perhaps something really conceptual that might take a lot of planning and have a very strong foundation."
"Why platinum-palladium? There's a real satisfaction in making your own paper, it looks so much better than anybody could make for you."
"Photography can also be so consuming, so it is good to have another outlet. It's another muscle to develop. It makes you better, pushes you to think differently. It's a great balance for me. Sometimes in photography you introduce the idea of theater and performance and it helps that I have directly been involved in that with the music."
Quotes from Photo-wisdom, Master Photographers on Their Art, Lewis Blackwell.
"Why platinum-palladium? There's a real satisfaction in making your own paper, it looks so much better than anybody could make for you."
"Photography can also be so consuming, so it is good to have another outlet. It's another muscle to develop. It makes you better, pushes you to think differently. It's a great balance for me. Sometimes in photography you introduce the idea of theater and performance and it helps that I have directly been involved in that with the music."
Quotes from Photo-wisdom, Master Photographers on Their Art, Lewis Blackwell.
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