What makes a good portrait photo?
by james on Feb.03, 2012, under Tips & Tutorials
Like it or not, photographing people seems to be one of the hardest techniques although they make up a large portion of our photos. This is mainly because if you are taking portraits it is totally different from the snap and go type of photography which only require what they call the ‘Kodak moment’.
The worst feedback you can get from anyone is when they tell you that the photo you took of them did not look like them at all. A portrait as we see it is when you actually photograph someone who is motionless and sometimes expressionless and this would create the fallacy of a totally different person. You would by now be used to taking photos of people always in action, posing, smiling and all that. So if you are suddenly told to take a photo of the person in one motionless second, it would be quite a challenge.
A good portrait is one which tells you or gives you an angle of the character of the person. This is where you need to be able to derive and pull out the true character of the person, or at least that specific part of him or her using the correct and appropriate quality and intensity of lighting and such as well as the background and the choice of lens you are using.
The background of the photo plays an important role, and the portrait would essentially tell you a bit more about the person. He or she might be a stranger to you but it captures a specific moment of emotion that lets you judge him or her. While you might use the most appropriate equipments like lighting and lens, but you must also consider the right pose hence you need to take a many shots as possible which will then allow you to choose the most telling portraits.