Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Portraits

Instead of boring you with more of these,
(and believe me, it's the last one for a while)

let's take a break from all that bokeh-filled macro thanks to my recent discovery of F2.7 (aperture), and see some people.
In my opinion, the most important thing when photographing people is to capture them in their natural state. Nobody likes fake smiles. But of course, we don't want pictures in which mouths are full of food or the mouth is open so wide that you start to wonder when the last time they brushed their teeth was.

There it is. Something very difficult to capture with some people, yet incredibly easy with others. Taking a decent picture in which your subject has a natural smile and nothing else in the picture distracts you from your subject's face. That's the reason I cropped out the blurry person on the right side, yet I tried to allow as much space on that side as possible since that is where she is looking, as a picture in which her eyes almost touch the border is nowhere near as interesting. When looking at this picture, you wonder, 'what is she looking at that is so funny?' which is why it's a good idea to leave some space in that direction and give some clues as to what exactly it is.

There's plenty of space for originality and creativity, though. You can explore different angles, settings, types of light, facial expressions:

2 comments:

A.J. said...

This post is awesome... really
people's faces are so interesting, especially Cristina's
GREAT JOB

Suzanne said...

Fantastic post! I love your photos and the tips are great :)