Portrait Photography: 5 Tips to begin with

If you are looking to sharpen your portrait photography skills, this blog post is for you.

As a Photographer you already know the basics of portrait photography but that isn’t enough for stunning Portraits.  

As per Wikipedia, Portrait photography or portraiture in photography is a photograph of a person or group of people that captures the personality of the subject by using effective lighting, backdrops, and poses. 

If you want to capture the true personality and emotion of your subject, you need to plan the scenario in which you can express them with your portraits. So here are 7 tips that will help you improve your Portrait photography skills:

1. Frame of the portrait

2. Play with lights

3. Use of Props

4. Take candid shots

5. Planned timing and location

 

1. Frame of the Portrait:

Having your subject in the middle of the frame with a good background makes a stunning portrait but you should try more angles to discover which is the best suited frame for your portrait. You should have realistic shoots at first and then try with highly edited shots and complicated lighting. Once you figure out the best result of your subject you can easily pull out one frame you have in mind.

2.Play with lights: Not for only portrait Photography but using the lights properly is the most important prospect of photography. While capturing a portrait you have to adjust your lighting according to the camera angle, so that you will get lighting on the parts you want to focus on. Remember while using extra lighting you make sure that your subject is comfortable.  To capture a stunning portrait, do focus on the eyes. This means making sure that the eyes are sharp and have a good amount of light reflecting on them.   

3.Use of props: Using props in your images adds interest to your portrait and gives the observer more things to look at, even better if the props are connected to your overall theme. However, many professionals actually do the exact opposite and use props that add contrast to the subject. The thing is if you don't use different props you would not be able to extract the best of your portraits. If you use them according to your theme, you will get the best result.

4.Take candid shots: To get the best out of your subject who is not a modal or an artist, always go for Candid shots. You just have to capture them while doing the things they love, in that way you capture the emotion and intensity of the portrait. For e.g: capture portraits of Athletes while they work out, capture dancers when they are swinging in rhythm or as simple as portraits like when a mother is playing with her child. In these portraits you have to put in much more work than usual but the results would be delightful.

5.Plan timing and location: It is well known to every one that your photography session depends on your environment and lightning situation. If you plan your photo shoot indoors you can control most of the elements that need for a perfect portrait but if it comes to outdoor shoots it is a bit challenging to capture the exact thing that you have in mind. So it is best to be prepaid with your location and the time you have to be there, you need to set up before the actual timing to get the best results. You can always wait for the better result but can not go back in time to capture what you already miss. 

Although your images can be fixed with post-processing, planning around your shooting situation and preparing yourself for what can happen helps save you precious time later on. In the end it is not rocket science, just keep it simple and study for the best output.

And we at URetouch Photos are always here to help you with the post production.