Tips for Beginners Portrait Photography

A portrait made of superior quality always leaves a good impression. The same is with a portrait projecting and capturing the right emotions, feelings and character. Tips to achieve good quality photo portraits will enhance your knowledge on portrait photography. Although good quality portraits are an outcome of experience and art there are certain guidelines that allow you to improve on your skills quickly.

1.Background

A passive background is the essence of any photograph that has a person as its central attraction, so that the interest from the central object is not taken away. Portrait photography focuses on the face of the person. Therefore it becomes necessary to take photos within a neutral backdrop. By good background one basically means background that has soft and solid colors. A busy road with people in motion is not considered as good backgrounds.

2. A Blurring effect

The best way to draw the viewers' attention to the object would be to blur the details of the background. This will help the object to standout from the background. Making the background blur is very simple and just needs setting up the camera depth of the field. This can be done with the use of a zoom lens and by shooting at a short distance with the help of a broad aperture manual setup. easier with single portraiture than with group shots though, as you need a certain f stop 8-11 usually to capture all people in focus in the group - which renders a blurred background nigh on impossible in camera ( can be blurred using photoshop in post production).

A face consists of many features the eyes, the nose, the lips etc. Which part of the face do you think is important to focus on? Obviously the eyes, because the eyes is the window to ones mind and emotions. Focusing on the eyes will project the feelings better. Make your subject look straight into the camera or even sideways would do, this certainly depends on what you are trying to project or convey through the photography.

3.Lighting

Natural lighting should be used wherever possible. It is the best solution for capturing the full range of color as well as the skin warmth. So photographs must be taken outdoors during daytime. The object must be positioned in such a way that the object is hit by the sunlight from the sides as you will get only a silhouette. Never take photographs when the sun is behind a. object, as this will lead to overexposure and distortion of color.

4.Experiment

Experiment with a digital camera as the film cost here works out to literally zero. So experimenting will help you to make the required adjustments and thus help you to get the perfect shots.