Hello and welcome back! I hope you have been doing well. In this article, I'd like to talk about portrait photography and share my experience with trying it out as a beginner so far. To me, photographing people meant capturing the emotions on their faces, what they signify and what is the deeper meaning behind the picture. On the more technical side, I'm quite inexperienced in this field and am still learning, but I do still look out for a few things.
Mostly while photographing people, for me, the main appeal were the eyes. I have experimented and clicked pictures where the eyes of the subject are not visible though, and some are on my portfolio. I mostly capture pictures of people not without the eyes. The eyes are said to be the gateway to the soul and can convey many things. They can talk and show a lot of emotion. For example, the picture above shows an individual staring outside a window. The emotion I wanted to portray was sombreness and the emotion of waiting; waiting for the good days to come. There is a blank look on the subject's face, but the eyes show a bit of optimism as well as sombreness, a lot of tiredness, and sadness. There is a little squint in the eyes as well that can be seen, which is the subject's eyes reacting to the bright light outside. It can also portray and display this subconscious thought that the individual has gotten so used to living in a sad dark atmosphere physically and mentally, that now the light is a bit blinding to them. The darkness on the other half of the subject's face also adds to this fact. I'd say eyes should be the focus of a picture if one is trying to click a traditional close-up portrait photo.
There are different types and styles of portrait photography and the ones that I am mostly trying to explore and share are traditional but also lifestyle and environmental portraits. Lifestyle and environmental portraits are portraits that not only highlight the subject but also their surroundings and the background, which can reflect their personality, living environment, mindset and/or thoughts at the time. It is a completely new field for me and I do try to experiment around with it and have tried to capture some environmental portraits, like these -
The pictures above show a subject in nature with peaceful surroundings. The fact that he is spending time in nature and is worry-free soothes his brain and clears it of any waste and worrisome thoughts. This fact is reflected and also shown through the surroundings, which are clear, peaceful and do not contain waste. I'm still trying to capture more and more environmental and lifestyle portraits and will be sharing them on my portfolio.
Going back to traditional portrait photography, something I recommend doing is keeping the subject in focus way more than the background. Messing around with the Aperture can help you achieve this. As I've mentioned in my basics article before, a lower aperture number as a setting will help you achieve that. It will create a blurred background, automatically taking the audience's focus to the subject's face, its details, the eyes, and also help the audience understand more clearly what emotion is being portrayed. I have tried experimenting and having a higher aperture number and less blurred background while clicking pictures like these, but I can say I do prefer the pictures with the blurred background. This is just my preference, though. You might have a different opinion, and that's a good thing. It's what makes us unique. I strongly encourage freedom and experimentation.
Lighting makes a big difference as well. It's a factor that can add to the meaningfulness of a picture. Talking about the first picture on the article again, I kept the lighting like that on purpose and it's also stated why. I, as I have stated before in the previous article, choose to work with natural lighting for all my pictures. I just like the effect it gives. I shoot all of my pictures in normal life everyday surroundings and have never shot in a studio. It is something I would love to try out though, artificial lighting and everything else amongst the feel of practising the art in a proper studio. Talking about my preferences, something I do while clicking pictures of people is present them in black and white. There is not a very big reason and intention behind this, rather it's quite simple. It gives a more dramatic look compared to its coloured alternatives, and again, I just like the way it ends up looking.
You can go check out my portfolio and see how I've used these techniques I talked about in more of my own photography. If you have any tips for me or want to see anything, you can tell me by contacting me or filling out the feedback form. I would really appreciate it.
I'd just like to end by saying again that experimentation and trying new things is key. Never lose that curiosity, that feeling when the brain pokes at you to search for answers to your questions. Never be afraid to ask questions, either. Well, that's it.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you ever need to! Thank you so much for checking out this article. My next one will be coming out on the 11th of September which will talk about long exposure photography.
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