Portrait Photography breakdown

In this post i will be discussing three examples of portraits photography which i found online, i have chosen different kinds of portraits photos so i can break them down and show what sort of techniques the photographers used to create such an image.


Case one: extreme close up (prime)

Here we have a very interesting image of an older individual. This picture is in color and has very rich contrasts in many regions that bring out certain aspects of the individual for example the mustache and eyes. This was probably altered slightly on Photoshop. Being an extreme close up the photographer must have used a special lens, for this the photographer used a prime lens, you can tell this by the sharpness in the regions that matter like the mans face and expressions and the dreamy blurred background which can only be achieved using a prime lens. in this photo the photographer must have focused on the eyes as they seem to be the aspect which is in the greatest focus. This is effective because the eyes tend to always show a depth of emotion whether it be sadness, happiness, anger, or frustration.

Case two: studio portrait (black and white)

Here is another portrait which i found interesting. Unlike the previous photo this photo is not an extreme close up and this one is in black and white. The good effect of using black and white is that there is no region of the picture which plainly dominates any other part of the image, black and white tends to work great when the picture is in the correct amount of exposure. For example this image has great soft lighting which is level through out all parts of the photo, the reason why the lighting is so clean is because this photo was taken in a studio where the lighting can easily be controlled. As well as this the backing light makes the subjects hair glow out and creates an illuminous outline around the subject. due to this the black and white filter works great because nothing is over exposed and nothing is under exposed.
just like before the photographer plainly focused on the face and eyes in particular just so more of the emotion is highlighted.


Case 3: studio portrait (colour)

This photo above shares aspects from both the two photos previous, it shares the color and intensity of the first image and is also taken in an interior setting or studio just like the second image. Here at Aperture we studied this photo and tried to replicate it as accurate as we could from scratch. First of all we looked at the angle and distance the image was taken at, being a portrait photo the camera was very close to the subject. We concentrated greatly on angles and positioning of the camera in our replica to get it as accurate as possible. Another aspect was the lighting, in the original you can see the subject is well lit with soft lighting; in our image we used lighting to highlight the area’s most important such as the face and clothing.

The main aspect we wanted to capture here at aperture was the nature of the subject, therefore we went got a baby matching the age and size as the baby in the original image. We then dressed the baby in a similar way to how the original, once we had set up the subject and lighting we used a normal Canon EOS 550D to take the image. One problem was that we did not have a prime lens, to overcome this problem us but the F number as low as possible. In portrait photography the aperture setting is very important, knowing the right setting for your situation will allow you to take the best images all the time. For beginners it may be hard to get the right ratios in the settings but with a little practice you will notice which settings work well in certain environments.