Conventional techniques such as tone, tone and structure of portrait photography.

Lead: Photography is an art, which will go through three stages, one is to see the mountain, the other is to see whether the mountain is a mountain or not, and the third is to see the mountain or not. To put it bluntly, it is the process of breaking the concept. The following is a conceptual turning point in my portrait shooting for your taste.

Tone and hue of portrait photography

Tone affects vision and mood. Portrait photography can be divided into five tones: high-key, low-key, one tone, soft tone and hard tone. In addition, it can be processed into different tones. It is necessary to master the composition methods of various shades.

First, the influence of mood on vision.

Tone in portrait photography is the general term of tone and tone. The change of dark parts in photos is the change of color tone, which is formed by the amount of light received by the subject and his own reflectivity. Whether it is black-and-white photography or color photography, there is such a change in tone. For example, if a red dress is irradiated by reverse light, the light-receiving surface and non-light-receiving surface of the dress will form different tones. Although they are all red, the color of the light-receiving surface is brighter, and the color of the non-light-receiving surface is darker. This is the change of hue in color pictures. Tone refers to the change of color, such as whether the photo is the tone of the Red Chamber or the tone of Lan Qing, which is the difference of color. A portrait photography, if it is black and white, only changes in tone, no changes in tone; If it is colored, there are both tonal changes and tonal changes.

Portrait photography works, from the perspective of color, can have high-profile portraits, low-key portraits, and middle-tone portraits. Soft-tone portraits and hard-tone portraits; From the perspective of tone composition, it can be warm tone, cold tone, contrast, harmony, heavy color, light color and so on. These different shades and tones affect the overall visual impression to the audience, and also affect the audience's thoughts and feelings. For example, a high-profile black-and-white or color photo gives the audience a bright and fresh feeling; Low-key black-and-white or color photos can give viewers a dignified and profound association; Warm-colored portraits can often arouse excitement and pleasure; People with cool colors have a symbol of solemnity and quietness. Therefore, when we are engaged in portrait photography, we should not only consider its composition and light consumption, but also pay attention to the visual effect of its tone. The following is a summary of several commonly used tone processing technologies.

Second, the color composition of portrait photography

People usually divide portrait photography into high-key, low-key and medium-key. Actually, what did everyone say? Midtone? It's not that the photos are composed of gray tones that are not too deep or too light, but there are still a series of shades of black, white and gray compared with high-profile and low-key photos. In addition, the author also believes that when talking about the tone of portrait photography, in addition to the difference between light and shade, there are also differences between soft and hard tones. In fact, many portrait photography works are shot in Russian soft tones, and of course there are also hard tone photographers with great contrast. Therefore, when describing the tone composition of portrait photography in this section, the classification is as follows:

People usually divide portrait photography into high-key, low-key and medium-key. Actually, what did everyone say? Midtone? It's not that the photos are composed of gray tones that are not too deep or too light, but there are still a series of shades of black, white and gray compared with high-profile and low-key photos. In addition, the author also believes that when talking about the tone of portrait photography, in addition to the difference between light and shade, there are also differences between soft and hard tones. In fact, many portrait photography works are shot in Russian soft tones, and of course there are also hard tone photographers with great contrast. Therefore, when describing the tone composition of portrait photography in this section, the classification is as follows:

1, high-profile portrait

High-profile portraits are characterized by bright colors. Try to avoid or use less dark colors. Specifically, the tone composition of black and white portraits should be mainly white, light gray and medium gray; The tone composition of color portraits should be mainly white, light color with high lightness and color with medium lightness. As for the darker tone, whether it is black-and-white portrait or color portrait, we should try to avoid or use it less, so that the image of the subject is bright, without obvious shadows and projections, and looks clean, clear and soft.

When shooting a high-profile portrait in a photography room, the lighting should be smooth except that the subject should wear white or light-colored clothes and use a light-colored background. Put a lamp directly behind the camera, or use two lamps with the same power near both sides of the camera to project light from the camera direction to the subject. In this way, shadows and projections generated by illumination light can be reduced to a minimum. After doing this, it is often inevitable that the tone on both sides of the subject is too dark. Two low-power astigmatism lamps should be placed at the position of 90 degrees from the camera on both sides of the subject to illuminate the parts with too deep tone, so as to make the brightness of each part of the subject more uniform. However, the profile of the side of the subject is slightly darker than the tone of the front of the subject, showing the edge of the subject. At the same time, you can also arrange a lamp above the subject? Light? To modify the tone or upward contour of the object's hair.

The background of high-profile portrait photos should be bright, clean and uniform, but it is best to keep a little light level to set off the brighter part of the subject. The background can be evenly illuminated from the left and right sides by two astigmatism lamps, and its brightness can be controlled to be two to two and a half levels higher than the brightness of the subject's face. Exposure should be based on the brightness of the subject's face, so that the face is exposed for more than half a level and reproduced as a lighter tone.

If you take high-definition photos under outdoor natural light, you should make use of the scattered light on cloudy or foggy days, and deliberately increase the first exposure to make the negative density slightly higher.

2. Low-key portrait

The characteristics and requirements of low-key portraits are just the opposite of high-profile portraits. Its tone composition is mainly dark, and try to avoid the moon tone. The tone composition of black and white portraits should be mainly black, dark gray and medium gray; Color portraits are mainly composed of black, low brightness, dark and medium brightness. Low-key portrait photos can make the image of the subject look deep and dignified.

When shooting a low-key portrait in the studio, the subject should wear dark clothes and use a dark background. Backlight or side light is generally used when lighting, so that the shadow of the subject's face becomes larger, and the light ratio can be controlled at 1: 4- 1: 6. According to the brightness exposure of the bright face of the subject, the bright face is reproduced as a medium bright tone, or a tone slightly darker than the medium bright tone, and the shadow part is reproduced as a dark tone. Individual low-key portraits can also be photographed along the light, but with less exposure, so as to reproduce the face as a dark tone.

The low-key portrait background is not illuminated by lights, so the background is all black.

3, general tone portrait

The characteristics and requirements of general shadow portraits are familiar to everyone. Unlike high-profile portraits, it is not dominated by light tones, nor is it like a low-key portrait, which is dominated by dark tones. But can contain the dark, medium and light tones in the photo. Therefore, its timbre composition is neither inclined nor dark, but the overall impression; The visual experience is neither light nor dignified. In general, the portrait photos we take all belong to this tone.

4. Soft portraits

Soft-toned portraits are characterized by the hazy tone configuration of the picture, mostly with medium light and dark tones (gray tones in black and white photos; In color photos, it is medium light and dark tones) to describe the image of the subject, with less bright tones and less or no dark tones. It gives people a relatively light and bright visual feeling and a light and pleasant feeling.

The shooting skill of this soft portrait is to use scattered soft light as much as possible, and the light ratio is small to avoid obvious dark tone in the picture. It is necessary to align the middle tone measurement light and expose it according to its reflected brightness. At the same time, in the process of shooting, camera lenses often add soft light lenses. Soft lens can not only soften the tone of the picture, but also further dilute the tone.

5. Hard portrait

The characteristics of hard-tone portraits are just the opposite of those of soft-tone portraits. Mainly use the depth of light and shade (such as black and white tones in black-and-white photos) to form images, with large light ratio and few intermediate tones. This tone processing method is often used to show that the object is in bright lighting, or to show a feeling of summer heat when shooting in the sun. In terms of exposure skills, we should measure the brightness of bright face and shadow of the subject separately, and then compromise the exposure. Or according to the combined brightness of bright face and shadow.

Although the hard-tone portrait has the above modeling effect, it is generally not used except for special needs because it does not fully show the texture of the subject's skin.

Third, the tone design of portrait photography

Portrait photography, in addition to color tone, can also have different processing schemes, and color tone can also be designed by photographers to make photos present a certain color tone and infect the audience with the emotional effect of color on people. Here, the outdoor portrait and the portrait in the photo studio are expounded respectively.

For shooting outdoor portraits, it seems that it is not as convenient as the portraits in the photo studio to design the tone of the photos, but there is no way. First of all, the color tone of the photographer's clothes can be chosen by the photographer himself. For example, do you want warm or cold clothes, or clothes of other colors? Secondly, the color of the background can be selected by the photographer. For example, should the background be in contrast with the clothing or in harmony with the clothing? Thirdly, if necessary, you can also choose low-angle warm sunlight to illuminate the outline of the character or subject. In short, as long as you use your head, there are various ways to deal with it.

If you take portraits in the studio, it is more convenient to design colors. You can choose not only the color of clothes, but also the color of the background. You can also add colored paper to the lamps, change the color of the light source, and even decorate a painting with different colors, which can greatly enrich the means of color expression.

1, warm adjustment design

In chromatics, colors are divided into warm colors, cool colors and intermediate colors. Red, orange, yellow and those colors with red, orange and yellow as the main components are called warm colors; Blue, cyan and those colors that mainly contain blue and cyan components are called cool colors; Green and purple are called intermediate colors. Therefore, if you want the color design effect of warm colors, you can use warm colors such as red, orange and yellow or colors mainly containing these color components to give the audience emotional associations such as enthusiasm and pleasure.

2. Cold adjustment design

Portrait pictures are composed of blue, green or mainly blue and cyan. It will get a cool effect and give people emotional associations such as quiet and leisure.

3. Midtone design

Green and purple are intermediate colors, and black, white and gray are called? Slightly colored? , also called what? Non-color 、? Achromatic color? , they only have? Concentration? , no? Chromaticity? .

4. Contrast color design

There are many forms of color contrast, such as cold and warm contrast, complementary color contrast (red and cyan, green and wine color, blue and yellow are complementary colors), fresh and dull contrast and so on. All colors with contrast habits appear together in a portrait photography, which will inevitably give the audience a strong color effect and leave a deep visual impression.

5. Harmonious color design

Instead of contrasting colors, arrange some adjacent colors in a picture, or use black, white and gray? Fade? Harmonizing some colors will get the effect of color harmony, making the audience feel stretched, serene and calm, which is also a common color tone design method in portrait photography.

6. Strong color design

Emphasis on color design is to use high-purity halls and bright colors to form a picture, so that the audience is strongly stimulated by color and leaves a deep color impression. This design method is suitable for heavy color system to receive heavy color effect.

7. Light color design

Contrary to color design, light color design should use simple and high brightness colors to form a picture, such as light yellow, light red, light blue, etc., giving the audience a light and elegant feeling. The light color picture is a little high-profile, but it is slightly heavier than the high-profile color picture.