I want to announce my next workshop “Autumn in France” to be next October 2nd. It will be in Bordeaux, Dordogne, and Toulouse. If you go to the top of my blog and click on the link, you can read the description. Join me for a great visual experience, seeing places that few people won’t ever be able to.
I have a six month mentoring program, and I recently finished one with a woman living in Spain.
First of all, over the course of the six-months she has become an excellent photographer. Not only can she “make pictures” but she can now see with the right side of her brain, the creative side.
The last area we worked on and had just finished was portraits…environmental portraiture to be exact.
The one area where she was having the biggest difficulty was in making sure the background matched the exposure with the person. She just didn’t remember to do it.
To digress a moment, I have similar issues with photographers that not only take my online classes with the BPSOP , but also in my workshops I conduct all over our round planet.
Ok, here’s the analogy I will share with all my fellow photographers. Imagine you’re in the kitchen about to begin a new recipe that you’ve been dying to try. To make the dish, the directions call for several ingredients from different herbs, fresh and dried, spices, kosher salt, ground pepper, flour, eggs, etc., etc.
Now it’s probably ok to leave out maybe one if the store’s don’t carry it…or you have to buy a pound for 1/2 of a teaspoon. But, that said, if you want to taste it the way it’s suppose to taste, then it’s important to follow the recipe.
When taking pictures of people, there’s also a recipe to follow. I don’t mean there’s a certain way to photograph people, not at all. In fact, Ansel Adams once said,” There are no rules for good photographs, there’s just good photographs.
What I do mean is that there’s a checklist (recipe) that I follow and when everything is checked off in my mind (which takes less than a second)I click the shutter.
One of the main ingredients is exposure. On a late afternoon day when the sun has reached the time when I like to shoot, the Golden Hour, it’s important to pay attention to the exposure on the face as well as the background. If your subject is in shadow and everything else is in sunlight, your not going to get them both lit the same.
If they are indoors and you’re showing part of the outdoors, remember the importance of knowing about the Dynamic Range.
Another important ingredient is to check to see if there’s anything growing out of their head. Forget about that silly ‘Rule of Thirds’, unless you’re going for a mediocre less remembered photo. Try placing them close to the edge of the frame to create visual tension.
Keep some contrast between what they’re wearing and what’s behind them.
These are some of the most important things to remember. Create your own recipe that fits your comfort level and your approach to portraiture.
Visit my website at www.joebaraban.com, and follow me on Instagram. Come shoot with me sometime.
JoeB
