One of the ideas that I emphasize in these lessons and in my workshops is the idea of telling a story with your images. The first thing you should ask yourself when picking up the camera is, "what story am I trying to tell here?". In the case of most portraits (though not all) the story is in the face, the eyes and the expression. Today I am going to show you an example of this. My model today is Marley. She is my computer girl Friday at the studio and she's amazing. One of Marley's defining features is her eyes. I took a handful of images of Marley today to show you the effect that getting closer can have on a simple portrait.
Here's my first shot. Marley gets lost in the scene. There are distracting elements in the window behind her and on the ground all pulling your eyes away from her face.
While coming in a little closer helps reduce some of the distracting elements, we still have too many things competing for our attention and it's hard to really appreciate the expression on her face.
So much better! You can see her now and her eyes pop too. The next one is my favorite.
While coming in a little closer helps reduce some of the distracting elements, we still have too many things competing for our attention and it's hard to really appreciate the expression on her face.So much better! You can see her now and her eyes pop too. The next one is my favorite.Here's another series showing the same process of getting closer.
Now, it's your turn! Grab a friend and try this out for yourself. Start wide and come in closer. Portraits will look best at the higher end of your lens' focal length. If you have the kit lens that ships with most DSLR's (18-55 mm), that would mean shooting "zoomed in" at the 55 mm mark. I would also recommend shooting on manual if you can or in the A (Nikon), AV (Canon) or in the portrait mode. If you are controlling your f-stop, choose a low number. These were all shot around F2.8 - 3.5.
Please share your images with us! Leave links to them in the comments section or add them to my Monday Lesson Flickr Pool. I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys capture!
Please share your images with us! Leave links to them in the comments section or add them to my Monday Lesson Flickr Pool. I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys capture!