Close-up shooting skills in portrait photography

Close-ups of people are mostly close-ups of head and face, as well as close-ups of hands and legs. Close-ups are often used to show the depth of characters. Mainly to highlight the facial expressions of the characters and convey emotional information such as happiness, sadness, anger, depression and excitement to the audience. The following are the close-up shooting techniques I carefully recommend for you, hoping to help you.

Close-up shooting skills 1, communicate with the model before shooting.

Before the official shooting begins, we must first confirm the purpose of the photo and what style the customer wants to present. We can choose to communicate with customers by phone or face to face, but either way is more effective than just contacting by email. Because it can make customers relax as much as possible and understand their expectations, so as to prepare for shooting.

The client's occupation may affect the actual shooting, for example, a company lawyer may prefer to use clean white as the shooting background; Yoga teachers may prefer to use bright backgrounds and even want to shoot outdoors.

2. Help the model choose the right clothes.

As the saying goes, clothes make the man, but gold doesn't change Buddha's clothes. Generally speaking, a simple neutral color suit can make the avatar get better results. We need to avoid using complicated styles or colors and other elements that will distract people from the model's face. If you want the film to look more formal, then we need to remind customers what to wear or bring a formal suit for their personal use. In addition, careless male friends may forget to bring their coats. In order to cope with this situation, we'd better have a spare one at hand. Finally, if we need customers to bring their own clothes, don't forget to remind them to iron them. Here are some examples of correct clothing collocation:

Remember to separate the subject from the background.

If you are shooting in a photography studio, make sure your model doesn't stand too close to the background when shooting, otherwise the model's shadow may be projected on the wall, which will make the photo look unprofessional. For outdoor shooting, I suggest separating the subject from the background as much as possible. At this time, you can choose large aperture shooting to blur the background. Usually, I suggest f/4 aperture for outdoor natural light shooting and f/8 aperture for shooting in studio environment.

4. You can exchange a few pleasantries before the official shooting.

When everything is ready, we can start shooting. Whether we take a close-up of a single head portrait or a close-up of a team, you need to communicate with each subject and try to help them relax when shooting. This process doesn't take much time, some of which include shaking hands or? How are you doing? Such greetings can also play a similar role. People usually feel nervous when taking pictures, and proper conversation can help them get into the state quickly and feel comfortable during shooting.

Step 5 try to make a face

In addition to some basic communication, there is another way to make your customers more relaxed in front of the camera. If you can't communicate with customers more because of limited time, you can ask customers to make some faces and then take a picture of them. This has two advantages. On the one hand, we can make adjustments such as photometry. On the other hand, grimacing can enliven the atmosphere, and few people will refuse to be funny in the process of taking pictures. Once your client has done this, the next official shoot will be much easier.

6. Pay attention to the lighting and shooting position

When I take special portraits of business people and actors' heads, I tend to set a relatively uniform lighting environment. A classic portrait lighting is still very useful here. We need two light sources, including a main light source and an auxiliary light source in front of the model. Of course, we can also add a reflector below. When shooting, I will make sure that the model is 45? The angle is facing the camera and the main light source, but the model's face is still facing the camera. In addition, you may need to guide the model to look directly under the lens.

7. Let the model sit down and shoot.

People may feel more comfortable when they sit down to take pictures, so that their hands can be naturally placed on their legs. In addition, sitting posture shooting also helps the model to adjust the angle and position according to the photographer's instructions for the actual shooting situation.

8. A small adjustment can have a great effect.

How can I make my avatar stand out from many works with the same theme? Sometimes even a small change can produce unexpected effects, such as tilting your head slightly or leaking an elegant and charming smile. As photographers, we shouldn't be afraid to make demands on our customers until we find the right shooting location and expression.

What problems should we pay attention to? 1. Face close-up, try to choose a medium telephoto lens, and use a wide-angle lens carefully to avoid facial distortion caused by lens distortion. The choice of focus should be based on the eyes, the depth of field control should be reasonable and appropriate, and the parts to be displayed must be clear and prominent.

2. Pay attention to guide and adjust the mood of the subject, encourage the subject, and make the subject feel relaxed and natural through communication and encouragement to achieve the ideal shooting purpose.

3. Pay attention to the direction of your eyes when shooting to avoid a lot of white eyes.

4. Pay attention to the face size and facial features when shooting close-ups, pay attention to defects such as double chins and scars, and adjust them in time by means of beauty, lighting, airplane seats, hands or props to achieve an ideal state.

5, facial close-up portrait composition cutting flexible, but avoid cutting hairline, temples, eyes and other parts.

6. The opportunity to take a close-up of the face is flush with the eyes of the subject.

7, hand close-up pay attention to the change of hand shape, the best fingers can appear patchy. The hand shape faces the camera as much as possible, which looks very delicate.

8. Avoid cutting wrist, elbow and knuckles when making close-up composition of hands.

9. Try to avoid the smoothness and flatness of the light when using it, so that the characters lose their three-dimensional sense and sense of space. More front metering and backlight are used to make the picture more detailed.

The choice of focal length is not suitable for wide-angle close-ups.

When shooting portraits, we should first consider whether we need more background. If the whole environment is very distinctive at that time, consider using a wide-angle focal length, so that you can shoot models and more backgrounds at the same time. If you use a lower shooting angle at the same time, it will show a better sense of perspective and a greater visual impact than a horizontal shooting angle. If the model's hands and feet are placed closer to the camera, these parts will be more slender because of perspective. But the usual practice is to use a wide-angle lens? Stretch? Model legs? Stretch? The way the hand is shot needs to be combined with bold creativity.

It should be noted that novices should not take close-ups of the model's face with a wide-angle lens, because shooting too close to the model will form a face? Strong perspective? The distance between the five senses is pulled apart, and the face becomes wider and bigger, sometimes scary. On the other hand, when shooting with a wide-angle lens, try to avoid shooting at a higher angle than the model to avoid taking pictures? Big head and small body? . When shooting at a low angle, we should also pay attention to the fact that the model's head can't be raised to avoid the chin and neck becoming hypertrophy.

The telephoto helps to simplify the background.