portrait photography tips for beginners

Portrait photographers commonly come home from a shoot with thousands of photos, which usually means that more than one memory card is being used. If you aren t very careful, you might slip a card with photos from the shoot back into your camera, format it, and re write on top of it. Get a system in place of where you store your blank cards, and where you store your full cards that need to be transferred to the computer.

Nothing is worse than a great expression on the model with a lousy telephone wire or power pole distracting the viewer.

Putting a flash or the sun behind the subject is perfect for making the model pop of the background. This is especially true when the subject has dark hair and the background is also dark.

Especially for portraits where tiny things like where the model s eyes are looking and if any strands of hair are out of place make a big difference, it would be crazy to delete photos by judging the shot on the LCD. Just wait until you can put the photo on the computer before deciding what photos to keep and what photos to obliterate.

I m not talking about when you had the flash on so bright that your neighbors complained, but if the flash was a little too hot, then use the brightness setting in Camera Raw or Lightroom to help take the edge off the lighting. Many people try to do this by changing the exposure or recovery settings, but I usually get much better results by adjusting the brightness.

It s an incredible lens for $100! Enough said well, not really. I always have more to say. If you don t own one, you re crazy. Here s a link to theCanon 50mm, and here s a link to theNikon 50mm(Caution Nikon users, this 50mm doesn t have a focus motor, so if you use a D3100 or D5100, it won t autofocus.This is the 50mm f/1.8 that has a built in motor. Tip by Eric Brundige, saying to get a fast lens.

To get the light even softer, you can hang a frosted plastic shower curtain over the window as adiffuser. It s PERFECT light for those who don t have fancy flash gear!

Candid portraits are tough to get unless you can act quickly when just the right expression or action is taken by the model. One way to predict when the right moment will happen is to pay attention what the person is doing. The person on the sidewalk will raise his hand and yell when the taxi cab drives by, the groom will smile when the bride walks up the isle, the opposing team will look devastated when the game ends and they lose. Predicting what will happen can help you to get candid photos with dramatic expressions.

Group photos never look good when the people are lined up in perfect rows. Next time you shoot a small group like a family, try to vary the heights of their heads to get a more interesting and natural composition. I like to do this by finding some large boulders or a hill for the group to sit on so they are uneven.

It would be almost impossible to get the people in a group portraittooclose together. The people will feel more comfortable with more space between them, but the photo always seems to improve when the group is tight together.