New portraits, please c&c

[prepboy54]

 

[lalalala<3life]

the lighting is nice in all of them. what did u use? flash? all natural?

 

[tissa]

i like them

 

[prepboy54]

they're all natural. any suggestions on how to make them look more of a "portrait" and less of a snap shot? I thought of opening up the aperture more for a blurrier background. do you think that would help?

 

[Steve Reddin]

Hi,

The second and third do have that look of someone who's ran out of the office to have a press shot taken, rather than someone who is posing for a proper shot.

I'm not sure opening the aperture up will make that much of a difference as the background in all of them is fairly close. What I would suggest is:

* lower the position of the camera, they look to me like you are shooting down at the subject slightly, perhaps you are taller than him (excluding the third one where you obviously were). For classic portrait format, waist high camera level for full body shots and head height for half body or head shots, and that's measured from the subject, not your height

* have the subject faced away from the wall in the second, and not into it, the current pose in the second photograph creates a very closed off feeling in the photograph

* ironically smiling is not great in a portrait, unless it's a domestic shot. If you pick up any fashion magazine you will see that the subject doesn't smile that much, if at all.

* on the third photograph it looks like you zoomed out using your lens, sometimes this works in a portrait, sometimes not, in this case I think not as there is not enough in the background to make the effect obvious, you've just made the subject look like they have an abnormally big head...

* finally, introduce a bit more background whilst keeping the subject the focal point of the frame. There is no advantage to shooting outdoors really unless you are going to use the surroundings to add to the photograph, in the cases above, it's more like you just couldn't' get rid of them so they had to be there....hope that makes sense

Steve