{"id":32747,"date":"2017-05-22T11:15:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-22T15:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adorama.mom\/alc\/?p=32747"},"modified":"2022-06-20T10:15:06","modified_gmt":"2022-06-20T14:15:06","slug":"the-art-of-portraiture-part-1-composition-depth-of-field-background","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adorama.mom\/alc\/the-art-of-portraiture-part-1-composition-depth-of-field-background\/","title":{"rendered":"The Art of Portraiture Part 1: Composition, Depth of Field & Background"},"content":{"rendered":"

Creating a portrait of a person isn\u2019t always an easy task. A portrait should represent its subject, his or her character, likes and dislikes, feelings, mood and more. I love portraiture. I love to capture people with their raw, naked emotion and to show my subject an image of their true self. <\/span><\/p>\n

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An outdoor portrait of a model\/actress – with a lucky tailwind to boot!<\/em><\/p>\n

Model\/Actress: Valery Lessard<\/em><\/p>\n

They are always moved in what they see, when showing them the reflection of what I captured of who they are. I also like to manipulate emotions and get my subject to step outside of their comfort zones such as in the image below.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Good boy turned bad.<\/em><\/p>\n

Model: Baron Jackson<\/em><\/p>\n

It was really tough to get my subject above to play a bad boy as he was a sweet kid with a crazy positive attitude, but he was thrilled to see a different side of him that I was able to bring out with a little coaxing.<\/span><\/p>\n

COMPOSITION<\/b><\/h3>\n

Composition can make or break an image. There are many techniques to gaining a great composition in portraiture. The first, most commonly known guideline is the Rule of Thirds.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rule of Thirds<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve all heard of it: The Rule of Thirds. The term \u201crule\u201d, though, sounds like there is no room for deviation. As an educator, I prefer to think of it as more like \u201cguideline\u201d for composition as it then becomes much less dreadful and a little more beneficial.  The Rule of Thirds is taking a frame and dividing it equally into three sections horizontally and equally into three sections vertically using two lines each resulting in nine equal-sized boxes (imagine a tic-tac-toe box…) Composing your frame so that your focus point of your subject falls on one or more of the four intersecting points, tends to make an image more naturally appealing for a viewer to engage.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The subject\u2019s eye falls on one of the four intersecting points.<\/em><\/p>\n

Model: Sietzka Wiersma<\/em><\/p>\n

While you may not always get your subject perfectly on one of the four intersecting points, aligning your subject along any one of those four lines still makes for a more balanced image.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alter Perspectives and Angles<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

I once had a mentor mention that if you want your images to be better than 80% of the rest of the images out there in the world, change your perspective! This means, get down low and shoot upward…<\/span><\/p>\n

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Self-portrait shot from below.<\/em><\/p>\n

Or get up high and shoot downward…<\/span><\/p>\n

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Self-portrait shot from above.<\/em><\/p>\n

Use Negative Space<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

The use of negative space can also be appealing when shooting a portrait. I\u2019ve always been a huge fan of shooting my portraits and headshots horizontally when most people shoot them portrait-oriented\u2026 I never knew why it was more appealing to me until I realized that I was turned on by the use of negative space, which is also a big turn-on of famous photographer, Peter Hurley.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The use of negative space.<\/em><\/p>\n

Model: Andy Mizerek<\/em><\/p>\n

Framing Your Subject<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

You can also make your portraits more interesting by framing your subject, whether it is by using the nook of a tree, an arch of a doorway or even some faux leaves, as I have done in the image below.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Framing my subject\u2019s face using vines.<\/em><\/p>\n

Model: Kathryn Hopkins<\/em><\/p>\n

Orientation<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes the orientation of an image can make all the difference. Once upon a time, a very wise mentor once taught me, \u201cWhat\u2019s the first thing you do after you take a picture\u2026? You turn the camera 90 degrees.\u201d Basically meaning, if you take a landscape-oriented image to turn the camera and take the same image portrait-oriented directly after or vice-versa.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Here my model is tall and I captured much more of the scene in the image portrait-oriented.<\/em><\/p>\n

Model: Daria Komarkova<\/em><\/p>\n

This tip works well with ANY type of photograph that you capture as you may find after returning to your computer or laptop to process your images that an image worked better vertically than horizontally or vice-versa..<\/span><\/p>\n

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In this image, I was able to crop in closer to focus more on the model and her expression than on the scene.<\/em><\/p>\n

Model: Daria Komarkova<\/em><\/p>\n

DEPTH OF FIELD<\/b><\/h3>\n

Shallow Depth of Field<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n