How to make good people? Portrait theme has always been a hot field, but also a very challenging photography subject. Portrait shooting needs a long time of practice to improve the quality of shooting, in order to master the essence of portrait photography and shoot smart works. In this paper, the author summarizes the problems of five portrait photography in beginners. If we can overcome them one by one, we can not only shoot more excellent works, but also make photography more powerful.
1. The subject's eyes are not in focus
As the saying goes, "the eyes are the windows of the mind.". The eyes are undoubtedly the soul of human beings, and if you want to shoot such portraits with souls, you should first ensure that the "window of mind" is clear and sharp. When shooting portraits, it is recommended to focus on the human eye. Novices who use the entry-level machine can choose to focus on the center and take pictures by focusing first and then composition. If the focus is not correct, try manual focusing to solve the problem. In addition, if the camera has real-time view function, it can be used together to increase the success rate of manual focusing.
Eyes are the key point of portrait creation, which is very important for both the subject and the photographer!
2. Red eye phenomenon
Now many cameras have red eye protection function, which can pre flash the light during the formal shooting, so that the pupil of the subject can be reduced in advance to slow down the occurrence of red eye phenomenon. If you have to use the built-in flash, you can also ask the subject to look at the light source for 2 seconds before shooting, and let the pupil contract before shooting. If the external flash can adjust the angle, it can also use the way of flashing to fill the light. In addition, the use of off camera flash to keep it away from the camera lens can also reduce the possibility of red eye. The phenomenon of red eye can also be corrected by later stage.
3. Deformation of wide angle portrait
Although it is often said that the best focal length of portrait shooting is about 75-105mm, different effects can be obtained by using wide-angle lens. For the APS-C frame with suit zoom lens commonly used by novice friends, the wide-angle end focus mostly falls in the range of 24-28mm, which is not only the entry point for learning landscape composition, but also a starting point for practicing wide-angle portrait shooting.
When shooting people with a wide-angle lens, we should pay attention to the characteristics of the portrait creation in each focal section. For example, 24-28mm is suitable for the creation of integration of human and landscape. If we can grasp the angle and composition, we can fully present the perspective of the scene and make the picture more tension. If we don't pay attention to the characteristics of wide-angle shooting, we may also take a miserable image due to the deformation of the wide-angle lens.
4. Unclear subject
In portrait shooting, we should pay attention to properly highlight the main body of the characters, otherwise it is easy to cause confusion in the picture, making people unclear whether the focus of the picture is the person, the flowers behind it, or the car next to it. To overcome this problem, we should not only start from the composition of the picture, but also create the effect of shallow depth of field to highlight the subject. When you feel that the subject is about to merge with the background, you may as well ask him to approach the camera to "get out of the background", or use the large aperture to create a shallow depth of field effect to blur the background and make the subject more clear.
Appropriate shallow depth of field can emphasize the effect of the subject.
5. Unnatural light and shadow
Appropriate light and shadow presentation and portrait creation can create different styles of atmosphere, but if they are not used properly, they can also destroy the works. Generally speaking, soft light is easier to shoot for novices. For example, scattered light in cloudy days will not leave too hard light shadow on the subject's face. However, the sunlight in sunny noon is too strong, which can easily cause the contrast between the brightness and darkness of the subject's face. It can be used with a soft light board to slow down some over exposure and under exposure. If the flash is used in indoor shooting, it can also be used with a soft light mask to soften the light.
Five things to grasp in portrait photography
1. Instant
Capture a decisive moment in a character's expression or action. The decisive moment is not an accident. You can expect it to happen under certain conditions, and then you are ready for everything else and press the shutter button as soon as you trigger it.
2. Eyes
Eyes are an important part in portrait photography. Eye contact plays a role in communicating with the audience, and eye light is a more subtle detail.
It is ideal to be able to take a picture of a character's eyes passing through the other end of the lens. If you use a 50 mm focal length to shoot the scene, it may also increase the visual sense.
3. Color
The atmosphere that a photograph conveys can be influenced by color. If you want to take pictures of happy atmosphere, bright, colorful, warm color will be more direct and effective than low saturation, monotonous, partial cold color.
When you plan what colors should appear in the picture, you should avoid or even eliminate all interference and unnecessary color objects when you go to the shooting scene.
That's why some photos look textured and some look a bit vulgar. If you want people to start praising your photos, it's a direct and effective choice to start with understanding the colors.
4. Light
The same place, the same character, can be shot in the light or against the light, but the feeling is completely different.
I prefer to shoot against the light. On the one hand, the details of the character's skin can be modified. On the other hand, because of the flash of the lens, the image will feel like "an extra layer" between the character and the photo. Some people describe it as "air feeling.".
There is nothing wrong with downlight shooting. Good use can increase the stereoscopic sense of the picture. But pay attention that if the light hits the side of the face close to the camera, it will make people fat. If you want to modify the face shape, you should pay special attention and ask the subject to change the angle.
5. Scenarios
Most of the time, there is no need to deliberately pose as a model. After all, we aim to photograph the characters themselves, not to emphasize certain commodities. If we're not trying to show a product, we can actually focus on the subject.
If you spend two or three hours photographing a person and you don't know anything about the other person, it's hard to get a deeper insight into the character.
