Experimenting with Light

 

Using light in different ways can really lift a portrait or give it mood if there are deep cast shadows. Also it can ruin a portrait if the lighting is bad and makes the person sitting for the photo appear worse, you always want to make sure the light flatters their face unless you are specifically trying to put across a certain idea.

I used my mum and a work friend to try out some different ideas just to illustrate how lighting helps with portraits. I would really like to get more involved with studio lighting and gels etc to achieve more artistic results.

In this shot I liked the way the light from outside is over exposed and creates highlights down the sides of the face and body, I metered for the light inside so that it would create the over exposed area behind, it also creates an area of negative space so that the subject stands out clearer. There is a nice eye line between my mum and our budgie she is feeding.

 

 

 

 

This shot worked well in the position my friend was in because she was facing directly into the sun so it catches her hair and makes it look really vibrant. It may have been slightly over exposed but that makes the colours pop against the plain white walls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The issues was that as soon as she turned her head 45 degrees to look at the camera, the sun was so bright for that time of day that it cast ugly shadows across the eyes and cheeks. Panda eyes is not a look most people will be grateful for! It’s a lesson in always checking where the lighting is falling on your subject and if it is flattering or not. The post would have worked well had we readjusted around to the right a little more to eliminate the shadows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Again for this photo I metered for the light outside and made the subject inside under exposed as I wanted to try something a little darker. I like the contrast of the obvious blue sky outside and the moody expression, it looks as though my friend is either really depressed its so nice outside or wishing she could get through the bars to it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I changed position slightly so that most of the sky was hidden as I wanted more even tones within the picture. This time I shot for the light inside the stairwell we were in, and what worked really well is the fact the glass diffused the light very softly over Monique’s face, illuminating it in all the right places and making her facial expression the centre of attention. I’m really pleased with this shot for how well the shadows and highlights are very well balanced. Even though the external part of the building is over exposed, the tones match well with the lighting inside and the slight blur over it really makes my subject stand out. A true portrait where the image is all about the person in the image and their expression and feeling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I would really have liked to tried out a few more techniques with some professional lighting but currently have no space to set up my kit! I’m working on it though! I want to try some very shadowy work in low light conditions to see if I can over come the challenges that would throw at me such as having to use a very slow shutter speed and high ISO yet still keep noise in the image to a minimum.

I can also now really appreciate where the use of a diffuser is so important to professional looking portraits, but it doesn't have to be an expensive affair as you can see the window did a really great job! Light can be used in such a variety of ways, but you also have to be careful of its pitfalls, but once you see these its easy to adjust either yourself, the model or the lighting if you have control over it and can get some great shots.

Varying Pose

Pose is very important to an image, and how the subject will look in their portrait. I found a really useful book that i bought in light of the weddings I have been asked to shoot this year; Wedding Photograph: A Guide To Posing, by David Pearce. Even though it is tailored for weddings, the theory behind its lessons applies to all portraits. By adjusting the limbs even slightly, or getting your subject to place their weight on a different leg improves their overall appearance greatly. For example shooting slightly higher gets your model to left their face to you so that you end up with a slimmer looking neck line and no double chins, or if there is an arm dangling around the shoulder of someone, asking them to place it gently on a hip makes a much more dramatic connection rather than something out of place or left out. I took some photos for a group of friends how wanted to dress up and have a play around in there portraits. I found it much easier to think of more poses based on a 'character' they were playing as it opened up different ideas on what they should be doing with props and how to interact with the camera. It was a little easier than when they were standing alone together as they had a role to play!

To start with I got the subject sitting on a chair in a very basic pose, but with the legs and hands crossed so it looked a little less rigid. The direct eye contact in conjunction with the forward facing pose looked a little intimidating to me.

By twisting at an angle made the pose a little softer and placing the hands on the hat and the back of the chair creates a loop around the photos from the eyes and around the arms keeping you focused on the expression in the middle of the frame. By giving the hands something to hold it feels more relaxed.

Using the chair as a prop meant we could create something a little more dynamic than just a standard seated position. It makes the image more interesting by her unusual choice of pose, and the fact that she is not looking at the camera makes it appear quite dreamy.

After we had finished with the chair, my subject felt a little uncomfortable just standing to pose, so I got her to place her hand on her hips,and twist her should towards me to that her stomach was pulled in, chest out and the chin was raised. It made for a very flattering pose, and gave an impression of confidence. It even promotes the idea of slight movement as though she about to lean in towards you, so you are drawn into her portrait.

This image was one of my favourites of hers from the shoot. The curve of the chair back is echoed in her arms over the top of it, and the facial expression just looks so happy. The subtlety of her eyes looking off to someone to her right really highlights her expression giving it depth. I edited the image in Aperture and applied the black and white filter and played with contrast settings so that the facial features were emphasised.

Finally for a really fun image, and to practice my photoshop skills I chose one of the standing poses and put it against a 'Wild West' background! Again the positioning of her arms and legs creates a imaginary loop around the body so that she becomes the focus.

What i've learnt so far is that if something bends - bend it, if there is light, use it to emphasise the shape of your subject or features that are important. The pose is very important in showing how the person feels in the image - relaxed, thoughtful, happy, subdued, upset etc. Positioning hands in certain places gives focus to that object or leads the eye to other important parts of the image, and the way arms and legs are bent can be useful in framing the expression of the face or amplifying the emotion.

The Best of a Sequence

Its important to realise that at the time of shooting, what you thought worked might come back and look awful and yet shots you thought were terrible can actually be rescued and are sometimes even better than you first thought.

Taking a sequence of shots helps to unfold ideas as the more you progress with the shots, the further your ideas can go. As you can see in this series of photos the ideas grew between different poses, and the subjects became more relaxed and willing to try different things with each other as a group.

As I was taking the photos, the ones that I originally thought worked well were the very first ones, and the ones of all four of them sitting on the floor.

This is still true for the first three images, although I was at the time most keen on the very first one, yet when I reviewed them it was actually the 3rd image which seemed to have the best composition; there faces were less squashed into each others bodies and the fact you can see the hands clasped at the front between the mum and daughter link them all in nicely.

I liked this image while I was shooting and still do, but after examining it on the monitor have realised that some of the shadows on the faces are a little too dark and I could have adjust there positioning slightly better at the time to eliminate them.

This was one of the images that at the time of taking the photo I thought looked really naff! I had been to a personal photo shoot a few years ago and to get us all laughing together they had asked us to start a tickle fight and I thought I might try the idea and see what happened. Initially I thought the fact one subject was not facing the camera and one was pulling away had ruined the image, but when I viewed it again later the slight bit of action actually made the family appear like they really were having fun, rather than a very static image of them all smiling. It changes there expressions slightly too and it becomes a much more pronounced smile breaking into a laugh, which feels more believable.

At the time I thought the above two images had gone really well and the composition looked interesting, unfortunately the second one is too crowded and the 2 subjects furthest away are almost lost in the background, and to top it off my aperture was set far too wide to capture the very back subject clearly enough. I had set it to a small aperture to let enough light in as the even though I was using a flash head and softbox, and there was also the addition of a large window to the left of the shot, it was still a little dark at times. It was nice to experiment though, I think possibley with some more thought he pose could work well with other people in a slightly different setting with more space and a different vantage point.

So you can see that with a sequence, sometimes it helps to take all the shots home, even the ones you thought were not good enough as after you have reviewed them there may be some that have elements you had not seen to begin with. If I had deleted everything I thought at the time was not particularly brilliant, I may have been left with not many good shots at all!

Eye Contact and Expression

Eye contact in a portrait can really change the look and feel of an image. It can give it mood and depth if the person looks right at you through the lens, or if they look away it can be a more personal and intimate portrait that might capture an instance that you would not normally be able to see.

In this shot the couple are looking directly at the camera, which shows there features well but can look a little unnatural, even though they are happy and smiling.

By asking the couple to look away and chat with there friends standing close by you can see that there expression instantly changes and the photo looks more relaxed. it can also add more depth as you cant tell who or what they are looking at.

When eye contact is between two subjects it also creates a very strong bond between them, and in the case of this wedding photo it really emphasises how the couple were feeling on the day.

Eye contact is purely down to what the viewer feels is more atmospheric or enhances there image, depending on if the subject is one that you want to be discrete about or not. Eye contact between subject is always a strong visual aide, but when there is a hidden meaning behind eyes that are looking else where this can also be just as strong an image as it has a hidden amount of depth to the story behind the image.