My Sunday Series on Outdoor Portraits remains remains on hiatus as I gradually change the day’s theme to Available Light Portraiture. Today’s post features an image of Leslie that, because of the contrast, I originally envisioned in black and white but have worked on the original JPEG file to produce this color version.
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
A smile is the light in your window that tells others that there is a caring, sharing person inside.—Denis Waitley
I’ve already said it a thousand times but still believe it’s true: The best way that you can improve your photography is by practicing. I think you should try to photograph something—anything, really—each day, each week until you get to a point where you don’t have to think about how to operate your camera. When you’re doing this, don’t worry about producing masterpieces. Instead, use your camera as a sketchpad to explore the visual possibilities. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. As Bram Stoker once said, “you don’t learn from your successes but from your failures.” This thought lead me to making a few suggestions for improving your portraiture skills…
A Few Tips for You
Start with the basics. It mat seem obvious, but you should make portraits in locations where the light is best. Many available light portraits seem to be made in locations without considering the lighting. This may work for an outdoor location where there’s plenty of light but for indoor portraits it’s probably a good idea place your subject where the light is best.
Shoot with wide apertures to soften and blur the background to focus attention on your subject. In my former home, my favorite place to shoot portraits was the kitchen and that’s where I made this image of Leslie. You may have a similar location in your home and never thought that sucj an unlikely location would be a great place to make a portrait.
How I Made this Portrait: I photographed Leslie in the kitchen of my former home using light from a North-facing bay window. I used a reflector to help with fill and to reduce contrast from this extreme lighting ratio. The camera used was a Canon EOS D60 with an EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II USM lens (at 65mm.) The exposure was 1/160 sec at f/6.3 and ISO 800. The image was lightly retouched with the Glamour Glow filter from Color Efex applied to further reduce contrast.
Keep lighting tools simple. Work with as few lighting tools as possible because the less time you spend fiddling with equipment, the more time you can spend putting your subject at ease. For my indoor window light portraits, I like using a reflector, such as Westcott’s 30-Inch 5-In-1 reflector that collapses to the size of a large pizza.
Watch the background. It’s so easy to become so enthralled by the person you’re photographing that you forget about where you’ve placed them. If you watch the background, the foreground will take care of itself.
Talk to your subject. I’ll never forget the advice my mentor gave me many years ago. When asked what was the worst thing I could do when photographing people, his answer surprised me: “If you don’t talk to the people you’re never going make a good picture.” I’ve never forgotten that advice and want to pass it along to you.
Photographing people combines elements of psychology as much as camera technology and how you personally interact with your subject will have more to do with the success of your session than the camera or lens you decide to use. For a detailed discussion on this subject, check out the Holiday Edition of the Pixels, Grain and Cookies podcast where Barry Staver and I discuss this topic in some depth, with some surprises along the way.
If you enjoyed today’s blog post and would like to treat me to a cup of Earl Grey tea ($2.50), please click here. And if you do, thanks so much.
My book Joe Farace’s Glamour Photography is full of tips, tools and techniques for glamour and boudoir photography and includes information on all of the cameras used as well as the complete exposure data for each image. New books are available for $22.26 with used copies available from Amazon starting around ten bucks.as I write this. Kindle version is $19.99 for those preferring a digital format.