Photo Retouch

The digital camera has led to increasing numbers of people taking to photography. They love to be out there happily snapping away, and many of the pictures they take are of friends and family. Portraits, head and shoulders pictures, are some the most popular pictures these amateur snappers love to take. And while they may appear easy to take, many people make a thorough mess of them.

Too close, to far away or heads and other body parts mysteriously missing, let’s face it we’ve all been there.    To help avoid those problems lets look at some basic principles and tips for taking portrait photography.

With a digital camera the problem of missing heads shouldn’t be too difficult to solve.  Always use the LCD screen to help compose the shot. Make sure that everything you want to shoot is centred on your digital cameras LCD screen. Everything that appears on that screen will appear in your portrait photograph.

If you try and pose the person you are photographing, the picture will lose its spontaneity and the subject will look stiff and awkward. Just take the picture on the spur of the moment. If the subject suddenly moves out of range or you do not like the way the picture has worked out your digital camera allows you to erase it and you can try again. If that doesn't work out, you can erase the shot and try again.

One of the best tips in taking portrait photography, either posed or spontaneous shots, is to ensure that you fill the frame and use every available bit of space. It is important that photo fills the frame. That is important as it will add character to the picture.

Another basic factor to consider when taking your portraits is the lighting. Many people photograph outdoors so lighting is not such a big issue.  But, if you are taking the photos indoors than there some things you need to think about.

When shooting inside light beaming through a window can be an interesting aid as it can create attractive shadows. Make sure the shadows are not too strong especially if the light is very bright.

Finally, when taking portrait photography remember to focus on the eyes as they are a persons most important, and revealing, feature.

If you are a sports fan, you know what it means when a team goes into a “rebuilding year”.  It is just when the owners or coaches decide its time to train new members and correct bad habits in others.  And invariably, what team leadership says when they go into such a time is that they are going “back to basics.”

Most times it’s best for you and I as professional photographers to go back to basics.  And, of course, if you are just getting started in the world of photography and want to learn “the ropes”, the basics are a natural start.  Nevertheless you will want to study the work of other professionals.

Anybody can take a photograph.  I attended a wedding reception where the wedding party left a disposable digital camera on each table at the reception for guests to snap photos.  Before all was said and done, it was all those youngsters that were walking about taking pictures from the dirty dishes to their own underwear. These were not photographers and while those pictures will no doubt get a few chuckles, these are not the kind of professional pictures people want for their long-term memories.

Now don’t get too upset about confusing technical terms.  Aperture is just a term for how wide your camera lens is open to let in light.  And shutter speed is just how long you let the light come in to affect the picture.  For getting a shot of a fast moving event, let the lens opening real wide but a short shutter speed so you capture the event quickly and close the window so the picture is caught before more light hurts the quality.

Photography is about being able to see light and light situations.  You can and will get learn a lot about lenses and flash photography and other ways to turn the control over the lighting of a shot to you.  So add to your core skills of photography a willingness to never stop learning.  The better and more sophisticated you get in your ability to work with the equipment, the more you will learn and the more you will want to learn. 

You can get a greater control over these basic controls of the camera such as aperture and shutter speed by learning how to switch from automatic settings to manual settings.  The automatic settings of any camera are just there for the general public who are not interested in learning the basics.  So they give you some basic settings like landscape, portrait and sports settings.  By switching to manual, you can learn what settings work best in different situations.

And that takes us to the most important basic about becoming a great photographer and that is practice.  Take some time with your equipment and play with it.  Take it to situations and take photos with different aperture and shutter speed settings, in outdoor and indoor settings and different orientations to light.  Don’t be alarmed when some of your images don’t come out correctly.  That’s part of the learning curve.

By learning by doing, you will build your confidence in your work and eventually become a great photographer.  Please don’t get over confident, there is always more to learn.  And that is one of the ammusing things about cameras and photography, isn’t it?

Photography in San Antonio by Richard’s Photography- 2010 Senior Portraits

Portrait photography can be indoors in a studio setting or outside in natural light. You can also take full body shots, half body or head anf shoulder shots. It is important to plan your shoot before actually getting into it.

When the location has been decided you should establish what source of lighting is available and from which direction it will be coming, or do you need to provide your own lighting. From there you can determine what camera is best suited, which lenses to bring and what other props are required.

So you have now scoped out the scene, gathered your equipment and are raring to go.

But wait there is something equally as impoerant that is you need to develop a close rapport with your client. It is imperative that you put your client at ease. Find out there likes and dislikes, discuss the procedure and reassure them that everything will be fine.Keep a close watch on their mannerisms and look for their best side and recognize their natural smile

In a Portrait Photography session you will find that most clients are nervous at first and usually try to hard, as the shoot procedes they will relax and better shots will be taken. If you are wondering what to talk about with your clients then the answer is anything that will show you something distinctive for that person. Try to look for different face expressions and eye or mouth movement. When you see something beautiful keep it in mind and later capture it in your portraits. Believe me that studying the subject before making the portrait photography is the biggest secret in this art.

I advice you to always use natural light if it’s possible. Choosing the background is very important. If the picture is to close then the background looses any meaning, if it’s to far then the background will overwhelm the subject. So try not to merge the subject with the background in an indistinguishable shape.

From my perspective portrait photography has it all. You have the subtlety og lighting, angles, poses expressions and character traits that all form part of the storey.

There is nothing more satisfying than to see the amazed reactions of your clients as they come face to face with themselves in a way that they have never seen before.  For many of us a realistic portrait gives the subject a degree of immortality.

Portrait photography is the photographic capture of a person or group of people with the main objective of displaying the likeness, mood and personality of the individual or individuals. Most portraits are not intended for public display and depict ordinary people rather than professional models. Portraits are common possessions of families today. Portraits usually focus on the face of the individual although the entire body or background is sometimes included. The portrayed usually looks directly at the camera but some portraits have them looking off to the side or feature two individuals looking at each other rather than the camera.  Portraits regularly honor special occasions like, graduations and weddings and many houses have professional family portraits hanging on their walls as well. So when and where did portrait photography actually originate?

The Development and Popularization of Portrait Photography

Portrait photography first gained its popularity in the middle of the 19th century with the invention of the daguerreotype, developed by Louis Daguerre. Though it was not the first photographic process invented, it required much shorter exposure times than the previously available processes. This made the daguerreotype the first commercially practical process with the ability to permanently record and fix an image with an exposure time well-suited for portrait photography. By 1840 daguerreotype studios could be found all over Europe and the United States, bringing portrait photography to an astonished middle class. Some of these studios produced over 500 portrait plates each day.

Unfortunately, the daguerreotype was not capable of duplication because it was a direct photographic process in which the image was directly exposed onto a mirror-polished surface. Further advancements in portrait photography occurred in 1851, when Fredrick Scott Archer developed the collodion, or wet-plate process. The collodion produced sharper images because the negatives were made of smooth glass, which was more durable than paper. This allowed for a lot more paper prints to be produced from one negative.

In 1854, the United States was introduced to the ambrotype, a glass negative that was backed with black material enabling it to be viewed as a positive. The ambrotype was sold to the same portrait studios that used the daduerreptype, but at a much lower price. Two years later, the tintype was patented which used iron plates instead of glass. It was a lot cheaper than the ambrotype and soon became the most readily available form used for location portrait photography. Tintype portrait photographers mainly photographed Union solders and pioneer families, usually working out of the back of horse-drawn wagons. Modern portrait photography owes everything to the inventors and founding photographers who started it all.