Working with the person...

[sotography]

Hello everyone,<br>

I am fairly new to photography. However, I feel that I already

have the "eye" for still life and some architecture photography. I

would like to expand my abilities into the realm of portrait

photography. If you go to my gallery, you will see that three of the

newest pictures that I have posted are portaits. I know that the three

portraits are probably not even that good, but I posted them to get

some serious critique, becuase they <i>are</i> the first portraits I

have done since I picked up my camera. Those three shots took

<i>forever</i> for me to envision and for one reason - I didn't know

how to use the model's features to get the effect that I was trying to

accomplish. Does anyone have any wisdom to impart? I really want to

develop the skills to move the model/person the way I want in order to

capture a good image. Please give me any tips. Thanks,<p>

Rob

[daydreamsart]

Hi neighbor! I'm just over an hour from Idaho Falls. I looked through your street folder and I would recommend having someone in that area where you're already very good at. Like someone sitting on the steps, or walking down the tracks, maybe someone leaning against a wall. For portraits, start with what you're good at and just add to it. When I approach a shoot, I have some ideas in mind, but the actualy shoot usually goes much different as the subject begins to relax in front of the camera and shows their uniqueness. Sometimes that takes more than a few minutes. If the three portraits you posted are your first and only attempt, practice makes perfect. My advice would be to look through magazines to stir your imagination, like Vogue. Really study what it is you like about the photography like where the light is coming from, the depth of field, the model's stance, etc. Then go out and try to replicate it.

[jennifer valencia]

hi Robert,

I looked through your portfolio and I really like some of your architecture pictures! You have a good eye for capturing interesting shapes and patterns.

 

About your portraits, I think the model is pretty and I like the colors you selected for the background & ambience. I think the pictures could be more powerful if you isolated her more, doing more of a close-up of her face. I'd also like to see sharper focus on her eyes, but a shallower DOF overall.

 

I like the idea the other poster had, of looking through magazines and finding interesting poses to copy. Will your model be willing to pose for you again?

 

Thanks for sharing your photos, and good luck with the portrait work!

Jennifer

[sotography]

Cindy and Jennifer, Thank you so much for your responses. Visits to my site have been extremely low for some reason, so your responses mean a lot to me. Your suggestions have been very helpful. Thanks again, - Rob

[sophiafield]

Hi there,

<p>

I've just started my photography business, mainly doing portraits for now. I chose to do portraits for my main business focus because well, the flowers don't pay me to be photographed. ;) Having that said, my current portfolio consists of portraits are rather "commercial" than fine art and conceptual, and that's probably not what you're going for.<br>

However, working with people is a bit different because it involves another person with their own thoughts and actions. :)<br>

Unless you can get lucky and always find the model that suits whatever particular concept that you want to work on, it's really hard to carry out your ideas. (They also would have to know how to "act" a little because portraits are quite often about the people :P)<br>

So, one way to approach this first so that you can get the hang of working with people is to just really capture whatever you see in the person (their personality, beauty, whatever you may feel from the person), instead of planning the shot ahead so much. And perhaps just work on the technique of photographing the person, lighting, poses, etc. first. Then once you really get the hang of it, carry out your concepts and ideas for your fine art portraits.

<p>

I don't really claim to know much about photography, but one thing I seem to know is "capturing" people. So far, all the people I have photographed have been very very happy with their portraits. I myself haven't really moved up to doing the fine art portraits yet, but I'm also just right in the beginning of my career, just working on the craft...

<p>

Take a look at some of the portraits I have in my portfolio, most of them are actually my very first set of portraits that I've done just in the past couple of months.

<p>

Good luck, and you do have an eye for it. :)

<p>

Sophia<br>

<a href="http://www.sophiafield.com">www.sophiafield.com</a>