The art of portraits is a game played by two people, the photographer and the model. The relationship between them is important and it’s the key point in the process to obtain the best expressions from our model. I remember that the first time I tried to take a portrait many feelings passed through my mind. I was nervous, I was shy and I was always afraid to make my model feel uncomfortable. The model as well perceived my feelings and at the end a whole uncomfortable environment got created. After that, I learned one important lesson: connect with your model.

Follow these recommendations and you will notice a huge difference in your portraits:

1. Get in touch with your model. If you will prepare a long photoshot, it’s better to meet first, and take a coffee. In that way, you’ll know about your model’s personality and create a more comfortable environment for the photoshot’s day. If you cannot have any previous contact with the model, always try to understand her/his personality that day. It will help you a lot for capturing and anticipating expressions and angles related to each person.
2. Talk to your model. Let her to be free to create by herself. Improvisation is the main source of unbelievable expressions and feelings. Ask things, feelings, try to put her in different situations like asking questions that she wouldn’t expect. Make her laugh. All of this will finally bring both to one point: get relaxed.
3. Try always to think that the model is looking at a lens and probably a huge peace of gear moving around her. Try to imagine yourself in her place, posing in front of a camera with a stranger in front of you moving around, asking you to put in that position, move your head, touch your hair and so forth. Some people get literally blocked. So, it’s your work, as a photographer, to relax and make the model feel just fine. It’s like a game.
4. Never and ever try to force your model to adopt a particular pose or to do something that she won’t feel comfortable doing. You want her to give to you the best of her talent. So always try to make her feel good.
5. Don’t be in a hurry. Take your time even if you have few. It’s better to have few good shots than 500 crappy pictures.
6. Don’t get stocked to some fixed ideas. Take different angles, different details of the face, the hands, everything. It’s a whole where each element plays a role in the final image. Relax about rules of photography and composition, try to brake them with harmony.

This is a fluid process, let it be. Portraits involve human communication and this is all about experience dealing with people. You can find a perfect portrait from a stranger in a street that accepts to pose for you. Even in that few seconds, try to imagine what kind of person she/he is. If you can, just exchange a few words. You will always learn something from others in this process.

Also remember that every person has a different color of skin, different shape. Some people are really expressive and others are just like a plain wall. Just try to adapt to them. At the end, they are the source of information for the stories in your picture. Try to catch it instead to force them to send the message that you want.
The art of portrait is like hunting feelings hidden in people faces and bodies. Everybody is unique and everybody has something to give. Print that in your film is your work :-)

Please share your experiences as a model or photographer.

So white balance is just a method to find the right color balance. That means “understand when white is white” and from that point, understand the real color of things in the image. The automatic white balance (AWB) in almost every digital camera, does not match 100% the colors and sometimes we have to specify what kind of light we are exposing the picture.

What kind of light? Light is just light! Different light sources produce different temperature lights. For example, the light in a cloudy day is totally different from the direct light of a sunny day or from the light of an electric neon tube. The colors render differently and our eyes and brain adjust automatically to that light to show us colors as much close as possible to the original.

An image will clarify this better.

These two images have been taken the same day, at the same time. I just changed the white balance. The first one, told the camera to adjust to a light temperature that didn’t match with the light in that moment. Let’s think about light from a non-technical point of view. Light comes from one or multiple sources and it reflects all around. Objects absorbed some portion of that light and reflect some other portion of it. The reflected light is the color of the objects. Depending on the light source, that irradiates the scene, the reflected light, it means the colors, will be different as well. That’s why white balance is so important in color photography. In monochrome or black and white it is not a mayor issue, specially in digital photography, because we can adjust the final image to match the tones of grays that we want.

How to use the white balance.

To understand the process, just imagine the light at dusk. Objects under that light get an orange tone. Our brain doesn’t try to render them with their real colors. The color of dusk light overcomes the rest, and all the image has that special orange-gold color. We can try to force that image to match as close as possible the real colors, but depending on the situation, this effort might be a waste of time.
Don’t confuse white balance as a way to render always the real color of things. Think about it as a way to render the image as real as the one we are seeing with our eyes.

These are the common symbols that you can find in any digital camera. They represent different kind of lights.

Usually it’s more comfortable to set the white balance in automatic (AWB), so in case of a hurry to shot, we don’t have to think about the light and set it manually. Just let the camera sensors decide for us. In case of low light environment, specially in closed locals with different kind of lights, the pictures tend to have a reddish color. To avoid this is not easy. It also depends on the camera.
Usually DSRL cameras and also some compact cameras, let you set the white balance based on the light temperature in Kelvin degrees. Just think that light can be expressed in temperature, the sun is the highest and the blue of a gas fire in the kitchen is one of the lowest. Based on this, setting the temperature as low as possible, will help to overcome that reddish light.

This is the menu to set the light temperature in a Nikon D200. The showed temperature, 2500K is the lowest and the highest is 10000K

Some cameras, like the Canon G11, have a superb automatic white balance based on the environment. This let you set the white balance in really hard situations with low light conditions.

Anyway, in case the white balance was not properly set, if you shot in RAW and you use a good edition software like Lightroom or Aperture, this can be easily fixed to match it as close as possible to the real colors.

Just remember. White balance has a direct relationship with the way colors are rendered in the picture. So before you shot in an environment with artificial light or if you are going to use a flash, think about the white balance.

For example do this simple experiment:

With one hand close one eye and put your finger just in front of you but don’t cover the background, just move it a little bit to the right or left side, depending on which eye you had closed.
Now focus on your finger, just look at it and, don’t move your view from it! Try to see the background without moving your view from the eye. You can see that it’s blurred and your finger focused.
Now try the opposite, focus on the background and see at your finger without moving your view from the background. It should be blurred.
You have two fast prime lenses in your head! :)

We are used to see the world through our eyes, which behave approximately like a fast 50mm lens. That means that when we see a picture with a good bokeh our attention will point immediately to the subject and then we have the opportunity to admire the soft and nice texture of a blurred background.
Think about it, we are not able to see that background with our own eyes. Well, actually we are, but we cannot see it directly, we can only perceive it from the external borders or our vision.

To understand the technical details of the Bokeh, you need to understand the depth of field. For a technical explanation check the wiki. Anyway you don’t need to understand to go so deep into technical explanations to be able to use it. Let’s discuss here the practical (and funny) part of it.

The depth of field is directly related with the aperture. That is the amount of light that your lens let pass through it. The wider the aperture, and the bigger the blur. The narrower the aperture, the smaller the blur. Don’t get confused with the f/stop number. Check out the aperture controls in your camera.

Left: Wide aperture Right: Narrowed aperture

The number used to indicate the aperture is called the f-number or f/stop. There is not a concrete definition of the term stop in this context. Think about it as an attempt to say “something that stops light to enter!”. If we narrow the aperture, in some way we are stopping light to enter. The lack of a concrete context for the term “stops” could lead some confusion. Let’s focus on the practical matter: the f-number has a direct relationship with the diameter of the circle that we saw in the previous pics. Remember a big f-number indicates a narrowed aperture and a small f-number indicates a wide aperture. So don’t get confused. If somebody tells you “increase the aperture!!” what do you understand by that? Increase the f-number, “stops” light to enter or increase the diameter of the diaphragm?

Remember:

The smaller the number, the wider the aperture and the bigger the amount of light that will enter through the lens.

To obtain a good bokeh we need a wide aperture, that means a small f-number.
The best lenses to obtain this are the fast prime lens, the most common ones are the 50mm and 85mm at 1.2, 1.4 or 1.8F. Anyway, any lens that could be set to an aperture less than 2 or 2.5 is enough.

With this kind of photography we have to be specially careful of two things:

- It’s really hard to focus with such a small depth of field. We cannot rely 100% on the autofocus. Sometimes it’s necessary to deal directly with manual focus.

- In well illuminated environments we have the camera to shot at a huge speed. Depending on the equipment, sometimes the camera cannot afford the required speed. In such cases we can use an ND filter

ND FILTER (Neutral Density)

Check these three pictures that will show the meaning of the depth of field

If we narrow the aperture, the depth of field also changes and the sharped zone increases as well.

Also, the depth of field could be used to bring to focus the subject that we are interested to show. For example, in these two pictures, the second one shows the doll in the back giving a sense of depth. If we compare the second pic with the first one, we can see how we increase that sense of depth focusing subjects that are not in the first plane.

In this video, you have the depth of field in action.

Direct link here

The depth of field is a powerful concept that we can use for many different creative purposes. From a basic understanding, it’s used to put in evidence a particular subject and to catch our attention to the sharp point. From a generic point of view, depth of field is just an art, so let’s talk about it a later post.

Check some bokeh in Flickr

To shot portraits do we need a studio? do we need a special high quality gear?
Of course if we have a studio, the knowledge, the time and the equipment we can do almost anything! But usually we lack of the necessary tools when we find the right person and the right moment to shot a good portrait.

This little Howto will explain how to do it with a DSRL, a small flash, an extension cable and a white sheet.
All this stuff can be easily carried in a bag.

Ok we are ready to shot portraits that looks like made in a studio.
Now the only thing we need to understand is the light.
Think about light as it was a high pressure water stream but without the damage that the water can produce. It’s easy to see the root source of a stream of water but it’s really hard to understand where the light comes from.
In a studio we can control light sources and direct it where we need. In case of an improvised portrait we have to minimize as much as we can non controlled light sources. That’s why we need a flash and a reflector, just to overcome environment lights.

Many other factors will come depending on the situation and the subject. For example, a cap, long hair, color of the skin and so forth. All of this can only be understood with practice and the practice is the funny part of this :)

How to make the background dark?

The darker the environment is the easier for this kind of portraits.
In case we have to take it in a well illuminated environment, we have to play with aperture and lights.
The flash light will be stronger than interior lights and this will help us.

For example, instead to bother a real model let’s take a drossel figma dool that will never complain to be tortured with the flash :)

This is the artificial illumination of a neon light at home. This is the illumination as perceived by a naked eye.

What we have to do is set the camera parameters so the background and the subject get totally dark without flash light. In this case I chose: aperture f/11 and speed 1/250.
Just increase the speed and reduce the aperture to minimize as much as possible the light that pass through the lens.

This picture still contain some information, if we increase exposure, brightness and fill light in Lightroom we can see that behind that dark square there is still something

So at this point we have to set our reflector as close as possible to the subject as well the flash. We don’t want that any light goes to the background, we want it dark.
This is the final result

Here you are, portraits everywhere and no need of studio or too expensive illumination equipment.

Finally this is the way to put the reflector and the flash.

In case the background don’t get totally dark, don’t worry, you can always use some post processing to make it dark :)

Check these pictures, they were made with the same technique in bars and streets:

So with these HowTo’s posts I want to explain how to develop that eye, and not how to understand that eye.
This makes a huge difference. Teaching how to develop something is nothing more than teaching one, of several paths, to reach the same point. So you don’t have to follow any path, you just have to see how other people feel and walk that path to get what you like for your own path. That’s why it’s not possible to explain the photographer eye, it’s only possible to show how people feel it. From that experience we can wake up our own one.

Let’s start with Composition. How important is to find the proportions and distance relationship between the elements in a photograph? There are some common rules called: Golden Rules If you don’t know them, please read about that first! Please don’t blame me because I told you before that no rule can explain how to develop the photography eye. These rules are related with the way humans perceive visual information. Of course, these rules can be broken to achieve the unachievable.

How can we put together the elements to have a good looking picture?

Every person, when seeing an image, has a different approach to it. Some people just see it as a whole, other people from one angle, because something called their attention, whatever.
So first of all, remember that it’s impossible to take a picture that everybody will love. Some people will consider it a crap and some of them may consider it a visual masterpiece.
Anyway, independently what people could think about the image, remember what a picture is, or one of it’s multiple definitions. It’s the art that captures that static moment in time, the real present. It can tell you a story.

Don’t try to think about this in the few instants before you shot it! Instead of that, try to get out with the proper attitude. You will notice how after some time, you will develop a better capacity to observe and see details that before just passed out unnoticed to your view. Take your time, see the things that surround you. Do those things tell something to you? Do you feel something when you see that moment that you thing it’s worth taking?

I got a good acceptance with this picture in flickr. It was taken with a Nikon D70, just a normal, entry level, old digital camera.
It was near one of the first places I lived in Tokyo, in Higashi Nakano.
To be honest, I didn’t feel really good that day. I started to live for a long term in Japan at the end of 2006, and at that time I was new here with almost no friends. I felt sometimes really alone.
So I decided to get out at night and do some photowalks until dawn was breaking in my lens.
So that picture tells a story, I still had a long path to do, starting my life in a new country, discover a new culture… It was dark, like my feelings of loneliness, and nobody was there, as my life was at that time.

So what I want to say is: if you shot your pictures and you just forget that you have a camera, try to feel the environment, smell the air, look at the simple things, like a street or a window, or a traffic light, or a taxi, whatever. Walk, see, feel, think, let yourself go… And in that moment, as an impulse, you will feel the need to share the whole moment with others. The only way to do it is using that camera in your hands!

So what about the composition???

So the secret is, when you see your story, when you feel that, when you are synchronized with the things you are seeing, in that moment try to see through the lens the same thing you are seeing with your eyes. Remember the basic rules and try, practice. After several shots you will realize the technical differences between the camera and your eyes. As a technical thing, you will be able to overdue these differences quickly and you will concentrate to develop that feeling, set your mind to the exploration and the harmony between you and the environment. You won’t have to worry what composition is anymore.

Try it and let me know your experience. Send me links of your pictures if you try to do this :)