[Photographic Notes] Moment of Light and Shadow —— Training Guide for Portrait Photography of Warm and Aesthetic Department (unfinished)

Photographers can capture a different side of a person, and even some tiny expressions can be magnified by the lens. You are you in real life, but you in the photo can be literary, retro and handsome. ...

All this is achieved through the photographer's conception, shooting and post-production. Portrait creation also has various possibilities. Photographers can take beautiful photos anytime and anywhere as long as they have enough preparation and skills.

I was a simple amateur at first, ignoring the theory and foundation of photography, following my inner love for photography and understanding of life, insisting on aesthetics from my own perspective and taking pictures in my own way.

From hobbies to having my own independent studio, what supported me all the way was not strong theory and technology, but my yearning and persistence for love and beauty, and my yearning and persistence for warm and beautiful things. Perhaps because of this, I formed my own set of shooting ideas.

I will travel thousands of miles to a place to take a beautiful photo, and I will repeatedly design and consider light and shadow, clothing and makeup for an image in my mind.

There are two kinds of photographs that are the most attractive, one is the most authentic and the other is the most beautiful.

Good portrait photography should also be the externalization of the photographer's inner world. Any expression is based on the photographer's feelings about life. No matter what the content is, as long as the audience can feel the photographer's world and use photos to narrow the distance between the two sides, the work will be successful.

As for whether the audience can resonate and like your work, I believe that every style will naturally have loved people.

Photography is just an expression. What matters is what you express, what perspective you use to observe the world, and what way you use to understand and feel what is happening around you. Photography has changed my life, changed the way I see the world, and gradually found my own value, so that I can work hard towards my desired life goals. Therefore, before you pick up the camera, you should learn to observe and feel, so that your feelings are delicate and rich.

At the same time, photography is also an excellent art. If you want to get the best works, you need to keep improving.

The process of improving the photography level is actually the spiral process of the photographer's aesthetic level. If photography encounters a bottleneck, it is often not the photography technology that hinders your improvement, but your aesthetic level.

So what we need to do at this time is to put down the camera, look at the works of other photographers, look at the world famous paintings, and look at the classic movies, which is helpful for the improvement of aesthetics.

From a business point of view, when customers choose photographers, they actually choose not the photographer's works, but the photographer's aesthetics. Every photographer's previous work, even if you like it again, can't be copied exactly. So you should choose to trust the photographer's aesthetics and believe that he or she will create better memories for you.

The real learning of photography lies in expressing the photographer's aesthetic view, even his outlook on life and world through shooting. In this process, experience and understanding are more important than learning and memory. The learning process of photography is more from practice and perception, which accumulates over time.

A good photo from a flash of inspiration to the final film, including conception, costume props preparation, early communication, venue layout, makeup modeling, and then shooting, followed by later retouching, typesetting, publishing, network communication or marketing. Shooting is just a step. What really determines the quality of the work is what the photographer does before and after pressing the shutter.

The most important thing for an attractive portrait photography is to have feelings and the photographer's own aesthetics and ideas, which is also the decisive factor to determine whether your photo has a distinctive style and is different from other similar photos.

Style refers to a certain unified feature of a work of art through external expression. We can classify photos into a certain style by their surface information, and what really determines the style is actually the inner part of the work and the photographer's unique and distinctive expression of aesthetics.

Aesthetics is simply what you like and what you hate. Whether you like portraits with accurate exposure, rich details, sharp focus and Jiao Wai oil, or photos with dim and soft backlight and light and shadow, it depends on your heart, not others. To find your own style, you must first abandon the herd mentality.

Pick up the camera and take a picture. It's a life record photo. Aesthetic portrait photography requires photographers to do a lot of thinking and self-criticism before shooting. What are you shooting, what do you want to express through photos, and how to express your thoughts? Before each shoot, you should have a clear definition in your mind.

Even if there is a gap between the film and imagination, we should learn to analyze the reasons for this gap. Only after countless times of practice can we feel ourselves from it. Thinking, practicing and rethinking, the style will gradually become clear in this cycle.

Even if you can't describe your style in fixed words, at least you will know what you want to shoot and why before the next shoot.

As for photography style, I believe everyone will go through a long period of time to establish a vague definition. It has been more than four years since I picked up the camera, and I still find it difficult to define myself.

But what I hope is that my style is clear enough for people to know that I took it at a glance.

Some people say that "each other is born from the heart." Objectively speaking, the world is unchangeable, but everyone has his own world view. As a photographer, I feel the objective world from my subjective perspective, and what I have experienced is expressed in the form of photographic works. At this time, the photo is a reflection of my inner feelings.

(1) warm and beautiful

Warm and beautiful, this is the first feeling I want the whole photo to present. It's easy to understand. The style and tone of the picture are warm and delicate, and the theme of the photo is a beautiful thing to express the specific image.

2 quiet and powerful.

Quiet here means that the picture is simple and low-key without strong visual impact. Power refers to the ability to arouse or make the audience think about things beyond the surface of the photo. It can also be understood as attraction, simple but extraordinary, and there is a deeper meaning behind simplicity.

What I expect is that my photos are not only warm and beautiful on the surface, not only the model's face value, but also exquisite and beautiful shapes. What I pursue is that when the audience looks at this photo, they can feel the feelings and thoughts of the photographer. When they see the photo, they will know that it is not a photo that is pressed at random, but a carefully conceived work.

3 nature is not artificial.

Natural unpretentious mainly refers to the state of the main characters in the picture. What proportion the character occupies in the picture, what relationship it has with other components in the picture, and the shape, makeup, movements and expressions of the character and what he or she does in the picture can achieve a natural and unpretentious effect.

If you want to touch others, you must first touch yourself.

By the time I put pen to paper to write this passage, my photography studio had been established for more than two years. In the past two years, I have also made many guest films. And every guest film I have made, from consultation and quotation, to communication and deposit, early fitting, interview, preparation of flower props, to shooting, late retouching, typesetting, making photo albums and so on. I did it myself.

I always think that these processes are the secret to keep me passionate about every shot. Not for anything else, just because I enjoy such a complete process and enjoy this personal touch. While moving myself with my own efforts, I also believe that all my efforts can be felt by the audience through photos and will be moved by my heart.

Man is the soul of portrait photography, and the photographer is the shaper of the soul. Remember, when you take a portrait, you not only take a picture of the person at that time, but also his (her) past, every book he (she) has read, every place he (she) has walked, and everyone he (she) has loved. These past seemingly insignificant, but left him (her) a certain impression, a small expression, a habitual action. A song only needs a prelude.

Many newcomers will carefully organize the information and send it to me. After reading their short stories, you can often get some good shooting inspiration.

But when we say that we should know the subject and shoot according to the characteristics of the subject, we don't mean that we should blindly follow the preferences of models or customers. Photographers should still be in a dominant position in the whole shooting process, and have clear guidance on the emotional actions of models or customers.

For example, tell your subject before shooting, the feeling we want to shoot in this group of photos, how the clothing and modeling will probably cooperate, whether the action is exaggerated or elegant convergence, and so on. The action adjustment in the shooting process also needs to use clear and understandable language.

I believe that every girl who asks me to take a wedding photo or photo should love herself very much and have high requirements for beauty. So I try to put aside the photographer's identity and thinking mode, and simply explore some gentle and beautiful aspects of women from the perspective of a girl who loves herself, such as some tiny movements, some fleeting eyes and some cute little details.

On the one hand, the emotion in the photo is reflected in the expression and action of the model, on the other hand, it is also reflected in the emotion between the photographer and the model. This emotion is based on mutual appreciation and trust.

At the beginning of portrait shooting, if time permits, I usually write a shooting script before shooting, including specific scenes, clothes and accessories needed, shooting ideas and skills, as well as designing actions and emotions for the model, finding many proofs and even drawing some shooting sketches. This job is just to help you clear your mind and ensure that the preparation before shooting can be carried out in an orderly way, but after the real shooting, I will put the script aside and let myself perform it. True artistic creation is always subjective and emotional, which is what makes it fascinating.

Details determine success or failure, and this sentence also applies to photography. Photographers need to learn to conceive and prepare for shooting from a macro perspective, such as whether the small headdress, props and clothes fit, whether the makeup is clean, and whether there is no false eyelashes or heavy makeup, gorgeous nail color and so on. Even if you decide to use flowers as props, you should also pay attention to whether the varieties of flowers match the shooting theme.

Every customer who asks me to take a wedding photo should be very clear. Before shooting, we will spend half a day choosing clothing styles and agreeing on shooting details. Whether the collar, waistline and pattern of the wedding dress are suitable or not, I will consider them one by one for the bride and find the most suitable dress. These details will give the photo a well-designed and just right visual effect.

You can try to increase the sense of art from the perspective of light and shadow composition, or you can start from the aspects of clothing, hairstyle, scene selection, props selection and so on when preparing a group of photos.

Real and natural artistic effects are often not so easy to achieve. A little carelessness may turn into overexertion.

Therefore, the topic of adding artistic sense to photos should go back to the issue of cultivating and improving aesthetics that we talked about before. At this time, the photographer can try to think in the opposite direction and focus on which elements you want to exclude, instead of considering which elements you want to include in the photo.

If conditions permit, I will give priority to the fixed-focus lens. When shooting at fixed focus, the photographer should move back and forth according to the required composition, and sometimes he needs to move with the model.

Constantly moving, changing positions and thinking about composition, although the shooting speed is slow, it also gives me more time and more opportunities to find different light and angles. Moving the camera often makes my subjects feel my sense of participation and actively cooperate with my shooting ideas.

A beautiful photo is far more attractive than ten ordinary photos. Sometimes it takes us a long time to get into the shooting state and find the most suitable light and perfect angle. Sometimes, however, taking a good photo is just an instant inspiration and discovery.

In the face of beauty, I won't spare the shutter to capture the moment I want most, but I also hope to slow down and think, so that I can get better light and composition every time I press the shutter.

Learning and imitation are very important stages for photographers to improve their level.

Here, the author lists the steps of observation and thinking when she looks at the work.

① Observe color matching and composition.

② Observe the model's clothing modeling or makeup, as well as the posture and mood of the characters. These are the information on the surface of the photo, which can be directly referenced.

③ Analysis of focal length and visual angle.

Such as telephoto, 85mm or 135mm, or 70-200 mm, the common method is to observe the degree of deformation, background compression and blur around the photo, so that the focal segment and position can be basically confirmed. This step can help you choose the focal length for future reference.

(4) Analysis of light source, light supplement method, etc.

Of course, many good works that make up light are hard to detect, but there are still some details that can show the photographer's idea of using up light. Through the angle and position of the shadow on the ground, we can observe the direction of the light source, so as to understand the light level used by the photographer in this photo.

When you first picked up the camera, you began to observe and understand the world from the photographer's point of view. Every photo you take is a further step before you take a photo.

Photography is a comprehensive subject, which is the result of the joint efforts of scenery, people, equipment and later stage. Simply improving one of them can't improve the overall level, so photographers need a peaceful mind and learn to accumulate and precipitate for a long time.

Photography is an art of creation and recording, but if you want to be a professional photographer, photography will also become a commercial activity. It's not enough to take good photos. You also need to deal with a lot of information, phone calls and consultations every day.

You need to learn to communicate with different customers and enterprises.

You need to know how to find your place in the market.

(3) It is necessary to complete the task as well as possible within a limited time.

You need to keep your passion and love for photography.

⑤ Maintain the best state and creativity.

Photography, like many professions, the most important thing for success is persistence and persistence. Maybe your efforts will not bear fruit immediately, but you should always remember that all your silent efforts now will eventually become the strongest cry one day in the future.

I often list the topics to be filmed in the near future in my notebook, and then plan, prepare and shoot in order.

I will also set some long-term goals for myself. For example, two years ago, I set myself the goal of a photo book.

Writing down these goals and putting them on your computer or desk can effectively improve your execution. Good execution has pushed me forward on this road and gradually approached my goal.

Many photographers should know that if you shoot a professional model, the photo you take for him (her) is just one of thousands of photos of him (her). But if you take photos of ordinary people, then these photos are probably one of the most beautiful moments in their lives. This is very important for me and my clients. I have always kept this in mind, and I deeply know the significance of taking pictures of my reception film.

I like to take a few minutes to observe the guests carefully after they put on their makeup and wedding dresses. It is often found that girls' eyes or certain facial features are so beautiful. If I hadn't photographed her, I might never have found her beauty. That's a real pity.

Photography is my livelihood, but I also hope to live in this favorite way and keep the rhythm and passion of shooting. I think as long as I have physical strength, I will keep shooting and taking pictures of ordinary people, which is one of the greatest pleasures as a photographer.

Powerful equipment can usually add a lot of color to photos, but this is not the decisive factor. Find a convenient camera and a suitable lens. What really determines the quality of photos is never the equipment, but the mind.

What the photographer needs to do is to control the equipment, rather than let the characteristics of the equipment limit his own shooting ideas and level.

Small wide angle, f/ 1.4 large aperture, fresh portrait weapon; Especially when the space is not big enough, 35mm can give consideration to the environment.

Compared with 50mm and 85mm, the focus of 35mm will be relatively fast, which is suitable for capturing action. It is a good choice to use 35mm focal length for children's photography and outdoor shooting.

When traveling, 35mm is suitable for shooting people and scenery, which can reduce the burden. 35mm camera is easy to deform when taking close-ups or putting people on the edge of composition because of its small wide angle, so it should be avoided as much as possible.

The 50mm lens is close to the visual angle of human eyes, and there is no visual impact caused by wide angle or telephoto. It is the easiest focal segment to control and control, and it is easy to convey warm and beautiful feelings through photos.

Canon's 85mm medium telephoto lens is called the king of big-eye/portrait lens, and the large aperture of f/ 1.2 achieves oily Jiao Wai texture.

85mm is suitable for shooting close-ups of small scenes, which can focus on human eyes and blur other five senses, thus amplifying the emotions conveyed by people's eyes.

Medium telephoto shooting can also avoid underexposure of the face when backlighting or side backlighting, and the sense of transparency will be stronger than wide angle.

The disadvantage of 85mm focal length is that the visual angle is single and the composition changes little, which tests the photographer's ability of pre-planning, post-color matching and guiding the model's emotions.

85mm is easy to make people slightly fatter than the actual situation, and the liquefaction function can be used to slim down appropriately in the later stage.

24-70mm is a very practical lens. 24mm end wide angle and 70mm end medium telephoto, plus f/2.8 aperture, can meet the shooting needs in many conditions. When time is tight, choosing 24-70mm will save more time than focusing.

In photography, composition also means this. Learning composition is just like learning a language. You don't have to learn grammar by rote, but once you master it, it will enable you to express what you want to say clearly.

Harmonious and exquisite composition is the basis of determining the whole painting.

Composition can be said to be equivalent to the skeleton of a photo. The composition of a beautiful portrait does not need to be too precise, but it must make people feel balanced and comfortable. The balance mentioned here is the visual balance.

Jiugongge composition refers to putting people and things on the vertical or vertical bisector or intersection.

This composition brings a balanced and comfortable visual effect, and can also avoid the sense of singleness brought by symmetrical composition.

In the close-up of people, you can choose the human eye as the main body, put the human eye close to the camera at one intersection and put your hand or other props at another intersection when composing, so that the composition is balanced, comfortable and not monotonous.

Diagonal composition refers to drawing two diagonal lines in the picture, and the main body of the picture extends roughly along one of the lines.

This method can also be used to guide the movement of the model, such as hand or foot stretching.

This composition method can be used especially when shooting lying or prone.

The subject extending diagonally is not only people, but also the lines of clothes or other props can form the visual effect of diagonal composition when shooting.

Triangle is the most stable shape, and it is often used in landscape shooting.

Using triangle composition in portrait photography composition will also bring stability and harmony to the picture.

Triangular composition is widely used when shooting people sitting. The head, hands and feet (or knees and hips) are distributed in a triangle, which can make the posture more natural.

Focusing the theme of the picture on a triangular area is also an application method of triangular composition.

The monocular center method takes one eye of the protagonist as the focus of the picture, so that the audience's line of sight is attracted by the eye in the photo, and other parts can be skipped lightly.

This method is especially suitable for close-up shots. In a photo, the eyes will play a guiding role and guide the audience's line of sight, so when the characters in the photo look far away, it will bring a sense of extension to the whole picture.

The monocular center method can be combined with the composition method of nine squares mentioned above, and the human eye can be placed at the intersection of nine squares.

When shooting, the subject is cut and a part of the subject extends out of the picture. This component is usually called bleeding component.

This composition helps to guide the audience's line of sight, highlighting the eyebrows, eyelashes, eyes, subtle expressions and some small moves and details of the characters.

Close-range shooting, small flaws in skin and makeup are pulled into the lens, which is a test for the model's state, expressive force, photographer's composition ability and later level.

We take portraits, and people are the key. However, if your works appear in the form of group pictures, it will give us more room to play in the landscape. In addition to people-centered close-ups, close-ups, mid-shots, panoramas, and prospects, there can also be environmental parts and explanations.

The combination of various scenes in the group picture can make the photo more rhythmic and story-telling.

In the film, the director uses complex and changeable scene scheduling and lens scheduling to use different scenes alternately, which can make the narrative of the film plot, the expression of the characters' thoughts and feelings, and the handling of the relationship between the characters more expressive, thus enhancing the artistic appeal of the film.

There is a saying in China's ancient paintings, "Close to its spirit, far from its potential". Therefore, the more close-up, the more prominent the expression of the characters, the less the photo is affected by the surrounding environmental factors, the simpler the light and shadow color and composition, and the close-up focuses on the face, even the part.

When the shooting environment is open and the scenery is beautiful, the proportion of characters in the picture can be reduced as much as possible, and the environmental atmosphere of people can be emphasized.

A group of portrait works with various landscapes alternately used, which I call "environmental portrait group map". The relationship between people and the environment and the proportion of people in the picture also directly affect the feelings conveyed by photos.

There is a very interesting phenomenon that the human eye can't identify whether the facial features of the reflected characters conform to the proportion of beauty.

When we see a person's handstand photo, our facial features and expressions will be ignored, even if the person's facial features in the photo are not exquisite and his expression is unnatural.

Looking down at the composition and taking close-ups, with the blur of large aperture, the audience can focus on the human eye and blur the parts outside the face, which is suitable for shooting the moment when the model looks directly at the camera. Eyes and expressions are highlighted and enlarged, and red lips are also a bright spot in the picture.

Looking up composition means that the plane is lower than the model's horizon, so that the model can stand in a higher position or the photographer can squat down.

When taking a composition, the model had better not look directly at the camera, which may cause the feeling that the face is not good enough or the neck is not stretched enough. At this time, asking the model to give the camera a side face or look far away will bring an extension or visual guidance to the composition, and also make the model's limbs look more slender and stretched.

Local close-ups can convey emotions and render atmosphere well in portrait photography, which can also be called "no-eye close-up composition".

In addition to girls' beautiful eyes and face, you can also pat your fingertips, collarbone, hair, lips, back and so on. There is no eye contact to convey emotions, and the emotional communication of local close-ups depends more on body language.

Capturing soft light and girls' little tricks, or using props and trinkets, you can take beautiful local close-ups. These local details tend to bring the audience into the artistic conception of photos more easily.

Even if only a part is filmed, this part still belongs to the whole character. Don't treat them separately. For example, to make your hands look good, your whole body should be comfortable and relaxed, and your expression should be soft.

Under the blur effect of lens with large aperture and shallow depth of field, many unexpected things will have a bright future.

Foreground can be divided into big foreground and small foreground according to size. Great prospects, such as ground, platform, large area glass, etc. Small prospects, such as props, flowers, clothes and so on.

According to the source, the prospect can also be divided into environmental prospect and artificial prospect. When there are no objects suitable as foreground in the scene, you can add foreground artificially, such as white gauze, transparent plastic paper, feathers, LED lights and so on.

Composition is a short action completed by the photographer at the moment of pressing the shutter. The moment you press the shutter, you may not have enough time to think about the composition, but the long-term accumulation and shooting experience will make the composition settle in your heart and become a subconscious action.

I have a hobby of collecting antique clothes and hats. Every antique orphan once shone on a girl many years ago. Those exquisite embroidery and beading, slightly yellowed traces of the years, sometimes seem to see its charm at a glance without any explanation, and every detail seems to be silently telling a moving story.

I like the feeling of this mysterious story, and these collections often become the source of my creative inspiration. Thinking and inspiration spread from an exquisite Victorian shirt, which can bring a group of beautiful portraits.

This love for photography began more than four years ago when I picked up my camera and took pictures. Maybe it will run through my life.

This book about photography is more about sharing my heart and feelings. It may make you firmly fall in love with photography, but it can also make you feel the long and heavy road of photography. For me, this seems to be a solemn task, for my friends who have been paying attention to and supporting me, and for myself who has been determined to move forward on this road for more than four years.

I firmly believe that there are endless stories behind every photo, which are the books I have read, the roads I have traveled and the people I have loved. They left traces in my memory, and formed this ordinary but unique me. I hope this book can also leave traces in your memory, become your past and become the story behind your photos.