We all love to look at stunning portraits. The subject may be our friends, family members, a model or a perfect stranger. A well taken portrait tells us stories, creates some mystery or brings out some memories. A good portrait also reveals the true personality of someone. So how to take a good portrait? Below are some great tips.
1. Background factor: Background plays a vital role to a portrait. As you know, portrait is all about someone's face. So it is important to have a background which is not interfering with the subject. Simpler and less cluttered background works better for portrait. However, sometimes surroundings may need to be considered to bring out the personality of the subject.
For example, if you are taking the photo of a Lawyer, you may like to do it in his office where you may see stacks of legal books or references. Including them in the background will be a good idea. However, it may not have to be prominent. Make them blurred or dimmed by focusing on the object itself. Same applies to almost all sorts of portraits.
In most of the cases, it is a good idea to blur the background. This can be accomplished by using a wide aperture manual setting.
2. Light factor: If you have the chance to take the portrait in Natural light, you have the best chance to get the great natural look with the natural colors' and skin tones. However shooting outdoor may be tricky as you may not be able to control the light in most of the situations.
Make sure that you don't keep the object right in front of the Sun or don't keep the Sun right in front of the object. These may cause unwanted brightness or deep shadow. Shooting in mid day also may be avoided as much as possible. For best results, position the object such a way that Sun light falls on it from the side. You may also use reflectors or external flash to light up some parts of the face.
3. Aperture: Try different apertures. A wide open aperture (with a lower number) will blur the background and make the subject stand out. A smaller aperture (with a higher number) will make the whole scene come into better focus. Typically f/2.0 - 5.0 is good for Portraits or f/8-11 for groups of people.
4. Focus: When taking portraits, your focus should be your subjects eyes. They should always be in sharp focus, even if the rest of the face is blurring due to extremely shallow depth of field. It's not always a smiling face which makes a good portrait. Try different expressions on a face while keeping focus on eyes.
5. Getting the right angle and pose: Pose and angel of body and face plays a key role too. Looking straight to the Camera with motion less expression can be boring. Try to flare up the portraits with some twist. May be it is an inviting smile, an interesting expression, a flamboyant look, tilting the chin down or up, turning the head back while walking forward, sitting and looking up etc. Experiment with poses and you will get some great Portraits.
6. Make the subject comfortable: In order for the Portrait to look natural and in order to bring out the true personality of your subject, you must make the subject comfortable and easy. He or she must feel at home in order to be free and spontaneous. Make sure you spend some time with your subject before starting the shoot in order to know him/her better and also make him/her comfortable. Also don't forget to smile and make some jokes or talk about something which interests the person your are photographing.
7. Take lot of shots: It's the digital age. Unlike the conventional film shooting, your digital photos cost nothing. So why not shoot as many as you can with as many angles, poses and expressions from your model as you can. Shoot inside, go out, walk around and shoot, sit in the park and shoot, change outfits, change makeup apply all the creativity and options. Keep shooting.
8. Get high or get low: Taking portrait is not always shooting at the eye level. Positioning the camera high or low while keeping the focus on eyes brings out interesting features and add different flavors to the portraits. So ask the subject to sit, stand up, climb up the steps and shoot. Or you go high, climb up or position your camera high and shoot. You will have more and more interesting options.
