Techniques for Stellar Digital Portraits
With the Right Tricks, Your Shots Will Look Professional
Oct 30, 2008
Many amateur photographers take portrait shots, but they rarely come out looking like the portraits seen in magazines or from professional photographers. That's because professional photographers have certain techniques they fall back on to make sure their portraits really shine. Follow these tips to make sure your portraits come out looking great every time.
The Camera
The first thing you want to do is to make sure your camera is up to the task. If you're using a point-and-shoot camera, try using the "portrait" mode - it should be the one with the little person logo on it. On a digital SLR camera, you can also use this mode, or you can set your settings to one of the manual settings and your white balance to match the lighting you're using.
If you'll need to use your flash for the portrait, try to find a diffuser of some kind (even taping some wax paper over your flash will do wonders for toning down the light source).
The Location
In portraits, the focus is usually on the person being photographed. In that vein, you'll want to pick a location for the shoot that offers a nice background that's not distracting and matches the mood you want to go for. You might want to pick a park or a forest, or even an urban setting, on a rooftop in the city. The options are endless. You can also shoot against a solid background, accomplished by hanging a sheet or seamless photo background against a wall. Make sure you have the model stand out from the wall by several feet so the background will be out of focus and won't be too distracting in the photo.
You should also focus on the light in the area you're shooting. Sometimes in daylight, the sun's angle will cast shadows on the face, under the eyes. This does not make for a flattering picture. But sometimes it's as easy as just spinning around to the other side of the model, and having them swivel by 180 degrees, to fix the light.
How to Pose
When you're dealing with the person to be photographed, unless they have modeling experience, they'll want to know what to do in front of the camera. It's your job to make them feel at ease as you suggest different poses and expressions.
Make sure you use a variety of poses during the shoot. Have your model stand, sit, crouch, walk or run while you're taking their picture. Give them props to work with, like a hat or a boa. Maybe they want to take some photos with their family dog? There are many ways to add character to the photos like this.
Try taking a succession of photos with different expressions. Call them out in rapid succession and get a shot or two of each to loosen up your model. Try happy, shocked, scared, serious, worried, elated and cool. You'll be amazed at what you find.
Post Processing
After you have your digital portraits, you'll want to put them into the computer to clean them up a little before using them. If you're using Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, there are many ways to do this. You can also do great post-processing work in free programs like Google's Picasa.
Try cropping different photos for different effects, converting some photos to black and white or spicing the photos up a little by increasing the contrast. In the end, you'll have a professional-looking set of portraits that should make you proud.
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