A
large portion of everybody's photo collection
includes photos of people. There is no argument that
high quality people portrait photos are impressive
at
projecting emotions and feelings and capturing the
object's character forever. This article will
provide you with tips for achieving such high
quality portrait photos.
Although achieving true high quality portrait photos
is an art and requires experience there are some
simple guidelines that you can follow in order to
quickly improve your skills. Here are a few:
Background: A high quality portrait photo or
for that matter any photo that a person is in its
center of attention should have a passive background
that does not take away the attention from the
object. Specifically a portrait photo is all about
the object's face. Take your photos in a neutral
background. A background that is comprised of soft
solid colors is an example of a good background to
use. A busy street or people moving around are
examples of bad backgrounds to use.
Blurring: Another way to make sure that the
attention of the viewer is not divided between the
object and the background is to blur the background
details. Blurring the background will literally lift
the object out of the photo and make it standout.
The technique to blue the background is pretty
simple you will need to set your camera to a shallow
depth of field. You can do that by using a zoom lens
and shooting from a short distance or with a wide
aperture manual setting.
The eyes: A face has many details, nose, eyes
and so on. Which area of the face is important to
focus on? The answer is simple, the eyes. The eyes
tell a story they convey emotions, feelings, state
of mind and focusing on them will make the photo
better project all those feelings. Depending on the
emotions and story that you are trying to convey
through the photo guide your object to look straight
to the camera or to look sideways maybe focusing on
another object.
Lighting:
This is a pretty simple issue, whenever possible use
natural lighting. Natural lighting is much better in
capturing the full color range and warmth of the
skin. Take your photos outdoors during the day.
Position the object in a way that the sun light hits
it from the side. Do not take photos with the sun
behind the object as it will end up as a silhouette.
Do not take photos with the sun right in front of
the object as it will result in overexposure and
color distortion. You can use a fill-in flash to
compensate for some shadowing that might occur on
the face (for example in the nose area).
Experiment: It takes time to perfect your
portrait shooting abilities. With digital cameras
the cost of taking photos is literally zero.
Experiment as much as you need check out your
results and make the necessary adjustments until you
get a good sense of how to achieve those high
quality portrait shots.
To Conclude if you have a good camera and you are
willing to experiment with portrait photo shooting
you will be able to achieve the skills needed to
shoot high quality portrait photos and to impress
your friends with professionally looking portrait
photos.
About the Author
Ziv Haparnas is a technology veteran. Information
about photography and photo prints is on
printrates.com - your home for
digital prints This article can be published as
long as the resource box including the backlink is
included. Ziv Haparnas writes about practical
technology and science issues.
A
large portion of everybody's photo collection
includes photos of people. There is no argument that
high quality people portrait photos are impressive
at
projecting emotions and feelings and capturing the
object's character forever. This article will
provide you with tips for achieving such high
quality portrait photos.
Lighting:
This is a pretty simple issue, whenever possible use
natural lighting. Natural lighting is much better in
capturing the full color range and warmth of the
skin. Take your photos outdoors during the day.
Position the object in a way that the sun light hits
it from the side. Do not take photos with the sun
behind the object as it will end up as a silhouette.
Do not take photos with the sun right in front of
the object as it will result in overexposure and
color distortion. You can use a fill-in flash to
compensate for some shadowing that might occur on
the face (for example in the nose area). 
