![]()
Today portrait photographer Christina N Dickson shares tips on how to shoot engagement portraits. Christina’s work can be found at www.ChristinaNicholePhotography.com.
Shooting engagement portraits are perhaps some of the most enjoyable for photographers. Most often, they are taken before the whirlwind of wedding planning is fully underway, and the couple is still quite enamored with one another. How do you take advantage of this time and produce incredible images? Follow these few steps to achieve real and vibrant engagement portraits.
1. Be involved!
As a photographer, you must keep your people skills sharp. With engagement photos, you have to do your research on the couple you are photographing. What are they like as a couple? What are they like as individuals? What is their wedding going to be like? How did they meet? This is going to affect the way you want to build your images and portray them.
2. Encourage affection!
Rather than posing each shot, ie, “okay, now you kiss her cheek!” encourage your couple to show as much affection as possible. Every couple does certain things to show one another love. If you want to capture them accurately, you will urge this type of interaction.
3. Be observant!
A couple is most natural when they are focusing on one another. Try to direct the shoot by suggesting they talk to one another, telling one another most embarrassing moments, or 5 things they love about each other– topics that will pull out expression, interaction, and affection.
Read the rest of this entry »
I’m really enjoying the videos in this series on outdoor portrait photography from pro photo life. Here’s another one - this one focuses upon group portraits - with some good
Read the rest of this entry »
![]()
Photo by rentoholic 17
In this post we want to give you 12 tips for taking great group photos.
One of the most common types of digital photographs is the ‘group photo‘.
They happen everywhere from weddings, to camps, to parties, to sporting teams, to school etc.
There must be thousands of group photos taken each day around the world - however unfortunately many of the group photos that I see in my friendship group and on Flickr would leave their photographers disappointed with the results for a variety of reasons.
Common group photo mistakes and problems include:
one or more subjects always seem to be looking away or in different directions (ie at different photographers)
subjects blinking (there’s always one)
someone being missing from the photo
different moods in the group (some smiling, some serious, some playing up to the camera etc)
the group being too far away or not all fitting into the shot
While there will always be such challenges with Group Photos there are a number of things you can do to help improve your chances of getting the shot you’re after:
1. Prepare
There is nothing that will make of people posing for a photograph turn upon you faster than you not being prepared. People don’t like to be kept waiting so think ahead about some of the following aspects of your photo:
scope out the location of your shot before hand
think ahead about how you will pose people and frame your shot
one of the group’s head hiding behind another person
make sure everyone you want in the shot knows you want them a few minutes ahead of time
make your your camera is on and has charged batteries
Read the rest of this entry »
Time for a little weekend video tutorial - this time it’s on the topic of outdoor portraits and is from our friends at Pro Photo Life.
Learn more about Portrait Photography
Read the rest of this entry »
Christina Dickson is a portrait photographer and instructor for the Institute in Photographic Studies. Her work can be viewed at Christina Nichole Photogrpahy
As we discussed previously in Portrait Photography Power Posing Part I, posing is no simple matter. It requires great attention to detail in subject’s personality and artistic use of body language. A pose will speak for itself, but remember, facial expression also will give character to the pose.
The following are examples of basic poses that will work for a large variety of masculine personalities and body types and between both sexes.
Pose I - Standing Tall: Give an air of confident ability and self-assurance.
a. Shoulders Square
b. Feet shoulder width apart
c. Thumbs in pocket or on hip
d. Head slightly tipped back
Read the rest of this entry »
![]()
Do you want to improve your portrait photography?
Today I spent time digging through the Digital Photography School archives (there are now over 600 tutorials and articles) and noticed that we’ve covered the topic of Portrait Photography from a large variety of angles. I thought it would be useful to list some of the more popular portrait photography tips all in the one place.
I’ve chosen 19 of our most popular portrait photography articles and have assembled them below.
So if you’re interested in improving your portrait photography - grab a cup of coffee, set aside a little time and enjoy. If you enjoy these make sure you subscribe to get more via email or RSS.
How to Take Portraits - 19 Portrait Photography Tutorials from Our Archives
1. 10 Tips to Take Stunning Portraits
This recent post (one of the most popular that we’ve ever published on DPS) gives 10 fairly general tips on how to take portraits with the ‘wow factor’.
It’s all about adding variety to your portraits by doing things like altering your perspective, adding a prop, experimenting with eye contact and getting your subject out of their comfort zone (to name just a few).
It picks up ideas found in many of the following tutorials and would make a great place to start if you’re looking for an introduction to the topic.
2. 10 More Tips for Stunning Portrait Photography
In this followup to the last tutorial we extend the idea of adding variety to your shots.
It explores framing, wide angle lenses, backgrounds and experimenting with focusing.
All in all this post takes this mini series to 20 portrait photography techniques that have been read by hundreds of thousands.
I’d love to hear any thoughts you’d have on other techniques that you use to add variety to portraits in the comments on this post.
3. Give Your Subject Space to Look Into
This technique is basic but can have a real impact upon your shots.
Framing your portraits so that your subject has room to look into gives a shot balance and helps draw the eye of those viewing the image into the image.
Try it for yourself - but don’t forget, sometimes ‘rules’ like this one can be broken with great effect also - so experiment with that too!
4. 4 Quick Tips for Portraits
I Love picking the brains of professional photographers and this is what I did in this post in which a portrait photographer shared with me four parts of his shooting workflow.
The tips are simple yet effective - I particularly like the way that he shoots from slightly under the eye line of your subject - a technique that causes a little interesting debate in the comments of this post.
Drop by and tell us what you think!
Read the rest of this entry »
