When you first learn about portrait photography, shutter speed may be the last thing on your mind since it does not seem as important as in something like action or night photography.
In this article I will explain why shutter speed is important in portrait photography and what the correct shutter speed should be.
… Continue reading What Shutter Speed Is Best for Portraits?
Whether you are shooting outdoor family portraits as paid work for your client as a photographer, or capturing family portraits on your vacation trip, you need to get the lighting correct on the subjects to create the best image.
In this guide, I will share the different lighting types that you can use for your outdoor family shoots. I will also share some tips and tricks that you can use to get the best outdoor family portraits in all lighting conditions.
… Continue reading Lighting for Outdoor Family Portraits- Types and Tips
Good weather is when amateur photographers get out and spend time taking photos outdoors. But how can they stop taking casual photos and start creating professional portraits?
This article gives you a lot of recommendations on how to create art photo portraits.
Focus in photography is about a lot more than simply sharpness or being able to see what you are looking at. Focus can enhance a subject by making it stand out from or blend into its surroundings, focus can draw you in, and the right focus can create an emotional connection with the viewer.
No matter what style of photography you enjoy, focus can work for you or against you.
… Continue reading The Importance of Focus and Quick Tips on How to Get it Right
Continuing on my journey towards total photo snobbery, I’ve come to realize that my friends and family and I have different ideas about what makes a “good” photo. I’ve actually gotten exasperated requests at Christmas to “just send regular pictures.”
I prefer a documentary style approach to photographing my family and friends. I prefer more reality in my photos, capturing people doing stuff besides posing, looking natural and relaxed. But many people prefer smiling mug shots. I don’t go all prima donna and refuse to take requests. No, I just bury my pain deep inside of me where it can fester and create raging internal conflict and turmoil useful for artistic endeavors, smile, and say, “Say cheese!”
They like 
but I prefer 
They like 
but I prefer 
They like 
but I prefer 
They like 
but I prefer 
I give them both. Once in a while,
Last night, as she tucked our son into bed, my lovely and talented wife came into the office in search of the camera. Our conversation went something like this:
Wife: “Where’s the camera? I need to take a picture of your son. How do you get this thing off the tripod?”
Me: “Wait a second. You’re going to need some light.”
Wife: “This is supposed to just be a quick snapshot.”
Me: “Do you want a blurry mess or do you want to be able to see what’s in the photo?” (Set flash to TTL BL, +1 EV, on-camera, oriented to bounce off ceiling and adjacent wall. Camera set to ISO 200, P mode, +0.7 EV)
Me: “Oops, you’re going to need some film.”
Wife: Grrr.
Me: “There you go.”
Wife: *Click!*
Me: “Hey, presto!”
Scene and composition: The Lovely and Talented Wife
Camera setup: Me
… Continue reading The making of a “simple” snapshot: a photo essay in four frames
Despite all that has been written about keeping the background of your photos simple, that goal is not always achievable. Sometimes your subject is in a place with a busy background everywhere. Or perhaps the subject is doing something that you don’t want to interrupt by walking around the person or requesting that she or he move to a different location.
I have found a very quick solution for such cases. Take the picture you want and then work on the background in Photoshop or another image editing program. First, I crop such images to remove part of the background. That alone makes the background somewhat less intrusive. But often I don’t want to eliminate it entirely; I merely want to de-emphasize it. One quick fix is first to blur the background slightly and then to adjust the saturation of both background and subject.
Recently, my brother came to visit. He and another friend of mine had an animated conversation in my kitchen. These were two very large guys and their expansive gestures and expressions really captured my interest. I grabbed a camera and took a whole series of pictures of them holding their conversation in my cluttered kitchen.
Self-portrait shooters usually rely on the trial-and-error method of focusing. Shoot, shoot, and shoot again until the perfect combination of pose, exposure, and focus are achieved. But there is a better way (several, in fact)! All of these methods are quick and easy and will give you accurate focusing without a lot of frustrating trial and error.
Before you begin, you’ll just need to acquaint yourself with how to put your camera into manual focus mode. You won’t actually use manual focus for focusing—you’ll just use it to keep the focus once you’ve got it set just the way you want. For each of the methods below (except the last one), you’ll auto-focus first and then set the camera to manual focus so that it won’t attempt to re-focus when you take the shot. You’ll also find that having a remote shutter release helps immensely.
… Continue reading I’m ready for my closeup: 6 methods for perfectly focused self-portraits
For years, I was too shy to ask to take a stranger’s picture. Normally, I’m not at all shy. I’ll talk to anyone. But stick a camera in my hand and I would become horribly self-conscious. I thought it a bit presumptuous to ask to take someone’s picture. After all, I wasn’t a “real” photographer but only a hobbyist.
I did take photographs of people who were unaware. Some were interesting pictures, I thought, that captured moments or moods. They were small slices of real, unrehearsed and unself-conscious life. I think such pictures have an important place in any photographer’s repertoire, but I am not discussing those here.
Then I read up on various ways that street photographers took pictures without being noticed. These surreptitious shots did not appeal to me, though, because they seemed a bit sneaky. I wanted either pictures of people completely unaware, or pictures of people who were totally aware. I did not want to furtively snap images of people who did not want their pictures taken.
One of my favorite photo locations right now is our upstairs bathroom. The tub and toilet are separated from the rest of the bathroom by a door which can be opened or closed to let in varying amounts of sunlight from the window in the outer room. Combine that with a small flash and you get perfect portraits every time:
If you’ve got a window, a little investigating may reveal that you get perfect light in your bathroom (or some other small room in your home) at certain times of the day just from that. Sure, it’s a little cramped but you can’t beat the price and you can’t argue with the results.
… Continue reading Quick tip: did you know you have a photo studio in your house?
