If you are interested in monetizing your photography at all, portraiture is one of the best ways to enter the industry. Everyone needs a good photograph for one thing or another. You can find out how to increase your ability to offer more variety during portrait shoots in this article, but for a good baseline, keep reading this first.
A portrait can be something more practical, like a head shot for a business card, or less so, like an family photo that would be admired on a living room wall. There’s a wide spectrum of application for portraiture and all of them require you to have not only camera skills, but people skills, too.
Portraiture is taking picture of a person or people and it’s been a popular niche since the beginning of photography. People are interesting and original. Everyone has a story. The beautiful, the ugly, the rich, the poor, every person has a life, a story worth telling. Portraiture is generally posed; when candid pictures are taken of an individual, the images may be more likely to be classified as documentary or photojournalism styled images.
There are three major compositions for a portrait: a headshot, 3/4 length, and full length. There’s no mystery here, a head shot is just of someone’s head and possibly shoulders, a 3/4 length includes down to a person’s waist or knees, and a full length is their full figure.
Seen above, there’s not much in the headshot. It’s a head. The trouble is, the fewer elements there are in a frame, the more important every little bit is. The parts of the face are on display with the headshot, and expression is, well, everything. Mouth closed above, the girl seems placid; mouth slightly open on this page, the girl below seems like she might be engaging us somehow, possibly in conversation. Eyes reflect the same natures: the girl on this page is squinting ever so slightly, giving the impression that she is thinking about something, the girl on the prior page has eyes that are contented, at peace. Notice that both have faces that are framed by accessories, hat and scarf. It’s not necessary that headgear be worn, but it is something to consider.
Headshots can be a real challenge for your interpersonal skills, more than anything. Many people are self-conscious (which applies to this whole chapter, not just head shots) and may have an exterior look that they put on or default to to hide their self-perceived deficiencies.
Taking good pictures of people who are not models takes some charm. A model will know how be comfortable in front of the lens and know how to position their body at the most flattering angles, the rest of us “normal” people do not. Don’t get me wrong, some people have an innate comfort with themselves and their bodies that just seems to ooze right into the camera, many more do not.
The “solution” is to build some trust. Let them get to know who you are and without saying so, that you’re on their team. When you take a good shot, show them the back of the camera and let them know you’re there to make them look their best.
A 3/4 shot adds in an element of body language that the headshot obviously lacks. Expression is a little lost in the image above, as the man’s face is in shadow for the most part, but we get the impression that he’s got confidence by his stance, leaning into the shot. Naturally, we also extrapolate that a guy who is comfortable singing on stage has some confidence.
Note that we don’t see a stage in the shot, we use the context clues like the mic stand and the fog to put the pieces together ourselves. Environment is going to be a bigger part as we move from headshot to 3/4 and likely even more as we move through 3/4 to full length.
Gesture is a compliment to expression. In this image, we have what I would call a gesture. Because we don’t see the entirety of the singer, I hesitate to call it a full-on pose. A gesture gives a hint of what the action is, and seems a little less committed than a pose. More on that soon.
This image also is starting to approach the gap between a portrait and a candid. I do not believe this is a candid because of the lack of a stage, namely, but it is certainly meant to look like one and that’s ok. It’s pretty convincingly done if you don’t stop and pick it apart. My guess is that this is not a professional model, rather someone trying to further a music career. The image below, however, is clearly a model.
This 3/4 portrait is clearly in a highly controlled lighting environment. If you can’t tell by the softness of the light and how the tones on the model’s face and hair are so subtle, look at the reflections in the bubbles and you’ll see lighting umbrellas.
There’s nothing wrong with that, this picture looks like it could be the cover of a magazine, it’s a heck of a portrait. He’s got that “thinking squint” going on I pointed out earlier and his straight expression makes this look like a fashion shoot more than some personal project – and the bubbles scream fashion, besides.
Even though we don’t have much to go on in terms of gesture, I think his gesture matches his expression, pretty straight. The lighting is the real hero here.
The image above is yer typical full length. Typical in composition, anyway. It’s not typical to shoot a woman squarely to the camera because it tends to make a body look wider. This particular woman isn’t suffering too terribly from the pose.
And speaking of pose, here we have something to work with. She is the first I’ve put in here who’s distinctly looking away from the camera. My fashion-detector is a little off the charts on this one, as well – because you always find a curvaceous bombshell standing in front of rusty farm equipment or whatever that is… back to the pose. In a background of pattern and symmetry, not to mention the mostly-symmetrical human body, her arms give the image that little bit of asymmetry, a shade of imbalance. There’s also a shade of imbalance in the little “horizons” that machinery creates. About that machinery, you’ll have a lot more environment to consider in a full length shot, as there’s a lot more unused space in the frame.
Volumes have been written on posing. For our purposes, let’s leave posing at the idea that body language must be consistent with expression to be convincing. Another popular (read: ancient) rule of thumb for posing the body is, “if it bends, bend it.”
Individuals are one thing and groups are a whole other approach.
When taking portraits, you may be working with an individual, or a group. In one sense, groups are just a lot of individual portraits in the same frame, in another, putting individuals together creates relationships, and that can be shown through positioning and posing.
Just like with individuals, unless you are going for something more artistic like the silhouette above, lighting the face is going to be the highest priority for groups as well. The challenge that arises is that it may be difficult to get all the faces lit well with the same light source.
Take for example, the former presidents. We’ve got one light source for this image, the sun. I’m assuming that based on the fact that I don’t know of any manufacturers that make a flash for that big a subject.
Who is best lit? Lincoln and Washington are lit similarly from the side, which isn’t awful but a little dramatic. Teddy has an unfortunate shadow across his face from Lincoln, and Jefferson looks pretty good because he is facing the light most directly. What we see here is that with this light source, they aren’t all consistently well-lit.
What this image does have going for it (the rock face, really, because the guys never move) is a nice group composition.
The secret ingredient to composing group portraits is the humble triangle. Drawing invisible triangles between heads of your group members is a nice way to achieve balance and leading lines, giving the eye a comfortable path to follow through the frame.
As with many of the composition “rules” previously discussed, rules can often be broken, but the triangles are a safe bet for beginning.
Look below to see how using a triangle to compose the guys gives your eye a reason to move across the frame. For larger groups, multiple triangles are appropriate.
Portraits also shine when there is a clear action. In the image below, the guys may not be doing much, but we get the impression that they’ve been living out of this van. There is an implication that we are in a moment of rest on a long, active journey, and that is enough to give the essence of action. If one of them was holding a guitar or something, that would only add to the sense of action.
Another tip is to keep in mind that hands speak just like expressions do. Below, all subjects are looking in different directions, and their hands keep to themselves as well. In a family portrait, a hand on a shoulder or hands holding hands indicate closeness and comfort, which is a good vibe to send off in that situation.
Another serious consideration to make when doing portraiture is lens choice.
Choosing a lens for portraiture is important because of a factor called image compression. A quick google of that term will bring you a gif or a series of images that displays how image compression changes through focal length, but believe me when I say that some lenses are more flattering than others.
Take dear grandma above, for instance. Her expression is fantastic. She looks stern in her mouth, but a little confused in her eyes. Her eyebrows are twisted and her wrinkles have character.
One thing grandma doesn’t have, is ears. Well, she has them – I trust that her glasses are sitting on them, at least, but we can’t see them because the wide angle lens that is being used is distorting her face. Her nose is more pronounced in the image than it probably is in real life. Anything closer to a lens will appear larger, no matter what lens you’re using.
Wide angles accentuate distance, and most people want you to do any favors you can in terms of shrinking their noses. A midrange or telephoto lens compresses depth and is more flattering to the human form.
Look at the two images above, can you tell which of them was taken with a wide angle lens and which was taken with a longer lens that has some compression? Don’t read on until you make up your mind.
I let the fella have it, here, the lady has been taken with a longer lens and the guy has been photographed with a wider angle lens. See the difference in noses? You feel like you could reach out and tweak the guy’s nose, whereas the girl’s nose seems more proportional to her face.
There is something kind of engaging about a wider angle, though. For that reason, my usual choice of lens for an individual is usually 50mm, which I do consider on the wider side of the portraiture spectrum. I find it a nice balance of closeness and compression. For groups, I like to shoot 85mm, which may seem counterintuitive to narrow my focal length with a larger subject, but shooting telephoto gives off great bokeh if you’ve got some space between subject and background, and all I need to do is back up to make up the difference for the framing.
Lens choice is important while shooting portraits, but depending on what you’re going for, there may be no wrong answer.
This is the technical end of my first series of learning posts, but keep on reading and searching the site, I’ve got all kinds of asynchronous information for you to learn from and grow your skills and/or business.
**If you’re interested in treating these posts as a self-study with assignments, you can get our Assignment Series 1 question pack to help you learn these ideas through real, targeted, hands-on practice. The Assignment Series 1 question pack is included with enrollment in our beginner’s course.**
