How to take good-looking photos of people

First of all, we have to understand a truth. If we want to take good pictures of people, we must look alike. If we insist on taking a beautiful picture of an ugly person, what we need is not photography skills, but ps skills.

When taking pictures of people, we need to know three elements. The first is the golden ratio. How to shoot the most suitable proportion of the human body from a good angle can make the characters in the photo very beautiful.

The second element is light. Good light on a person's face will make him look energetic, while bad light will not only reflect the light, but also expose all the shortcomings on his face. Therefore, we must find a good position to take pictures, so as to make good use of the light and take good-looking photos of people.

The third factor is angle. When we take pictures of people, we should take pictures from different angles in the face of different backgrounds. If there is a building in the back, lower the position slightly when taking pictures. If there is an endless grassland or ocean behind, you should raise the angle appropriately when taking pictures, so as to present the most perfect posture in the picture.

In addition to these three elements, the most important point is the ability of the equipment. Some good equipment can soften photos and make every point stand out, while bad equipment is slightly weak in these aspects, and the photos taken are not satisfactory.

This can be understood as frame composition or foreground. Shooting people with the foreground will form a space with a certain depth, and the foreground will focus on the subject more easily. What kind of foreground, frame, or even hand on face.

Shooting a scene has some limitations, because the scene is still or the shooting angle is limited. But portraits are different. Photographers or models can change the shooting angle anytime and anywhere, so everyone tries to choose different angles when shooting.

Horizontal shooting is a common shooting angle for many people. Sometimes, you can also try to shoot down, up, sideways and so on. Different angles will bring you different effects.

It is essential to shoot portraits at night, when the light source is in the same direction as the lens; Then there won't be too many shadows on the characters' faces, but the photos don't seem to have a strong three-dimensional sense. If the flash is moved away from the camera, the off-camera flash (commonly known as flying light) can produce side light, backlight and other light sources, creating a three-dimensional flash effect.

Flash lamp can not only play a lighting role in weak light environment, but also be used in sunshine environment with excellent lighting conditions, and it can also produce the effect of darkening the background and highlighting the main body. This is the calendering skill of the flash.

The principle of calendering is simple. Use manual mode (M mode) to reduce ISO. First measure the background light, reduce the exposure (the aperture is as small as f/ 16, the shutter is set to 1/250 seconds, and the background becomes dark), and then illuminate the subject with a flash.

It is best not to shoot portraits in direct sunlight at noon. Try to choose the prime time of sunrise or sunset. When the angle of the sun is relatively low, the backlight often brings strong shadow contrast to the photographed object, resulting in great difference in light ratio.

The basic characteristics of backlit portraits are: from the position of light, all backlit faces the camera, also called "backlit"; Side backlight refers to the light that shines on the object from the left and right rear sides of the camera at 135. The light receiving surface of the main body accounts for 1/3 and the backlight surface accounts for 2/3.

1. Portrait photography is a form of photography with people as the main creative object. Portrait photography is different from ordinary portrait photography: portrait photography takes the description and expression of the specific appearance and expression of the subject as its primary creative task. Although some portrait photography works also contain certain plots, they still focus on the appearance of the subject.

2. An excellent portrait photography is the sum of many successful factors: expression, posture, composition, lighting, exposure and production must reach a higher level, and they are all components of a whole.

1) What kind of lens is best for shooting people? Zoom lens or medium telephoto fixed focus lens can be competent. A shorter focal length usually exaggerates people's facial features, and sometimes makes the nose look bigger than it really is. When the 85- 135mm lens is called portrait lens, the five senses will show the correct proportion. Too long focal length will flatten the face. 2) The shooting distance should be as close as possible. If your character is very small in the picture, his face can't see the expression center in the picture at a glance, and the effect will of course be poor. The solution is simple, that is, close to the subject. Robert capa, a famous war photographer, said: If your photos are not good enough, it is because you are not close enough. In addition, try to keep your head in the top half of the picture when composing, so as to coordinate the proportion of the picture! 3) Simple clothes, colorful clothes, tell the audience to divert the attention of the main body, try to use simple design and quiet colors. Many portrait photographers only let their subjects wear clothes with coordinated colors when shooting. Instead, it makes the whole picture clearer and fresher. Give people a feeling of returning to nature! In addition, we should pay attention to color matching, and reasonable color matching will make the shooting theme more prominent. Generally, the complementary colors of red, blue and green are yellow, magenta and cyan, and they do not pursue special artistic purposes. 4) Using a large aperture will make the depth of field shallower, make the subject more prominent, and make the character the only subject and focus. But a large aperture will make the depth of field too shallow. If one eye of the character is farther than the other eye, it will cause the eyes on the screen to be out of focus or blurred. You can abandon the background and use a smaller aperture when you remedy it. 5) Try to use vertical and horizontal diagrams. It is better to shoot group images, but in the case of shooting only one person, the shooting effect of vertical images is better than that of horizontal images. The vertical width adapts to the "rectangular" shape of people, making the main body stand out. At the same time, the vertical picture reduces the background and makes the main body more prominent. 6) When shooting people with reasonable light, the most taboo way to use light is to shoot directly from the top of the head. This light will produce shadows around the eye sockets, nose and chin. Direct flashing (facial expressions often produce shadows) and plenty of sunshine outside (eyes can't be opened). These occasions are not suitable for shooting. We can shoot in some cool places, under a big tree on a sunny day. It will be very helpful for us to use auxiliary equipment such as flash lamp, reflector and reflective umbrella reasonably and skillfully. In addition, as the saying goes, the eyes are the windows to the soul. I think the key to people's photography is their eyes. But for a beginner, this problem is often ignored. Or I don't know how to shoot.

Look at the characters! Outdoor, we often use flash to fill the light and shoot the eyes! In fact, there are many methods, such as showing the subject a luminous object ... which need to be discussed separately. The above is my experience. But if you want to shoot really good works, you need photographers to observe life deeply and record life from an artistic point of view. Capture every bright spot in life, record beautiful moments, love life, enjoy life, pursue beauty and create beauty ... this is photography! Finally, I wish everyone can make good works! Let's enjoy the fun that photography can bring us!