Five shooting skills of portrait

Lead: I believe? The improvement of technology is always inseparable from communication, and sharing one's own experience is also an opportunity for self-growth? So I want to share some skills I used when shooting, hoping to learn from each other.

Part. 1 Start with the planning theme before taking pictures.

As an amateur photographer, I have been shooting for more than four years now, and I have experienced the confusion and pain that all beginners have experienced. When taking pictures, you often encounter many setbacks. I often regard every shot as the last chance to ensure that I will go all out every time and complete every job with a rigorous attitude.

Let's talk about the planning theme first.

Want to create a good portrait photography, not just press the shutter on the spot! Especially for Japanese small fresh photography, the planning and preparation work before the trip is no less than your own shooting skills. The choice of props and models is very important. Good props can often turn decay into magic, highlight good shooting themes, and make models not have no action to do when their expressions are stiff.

As for my practice, I set the theme in advance and then make a field survey, fully understand the situation of the shooting scene, choose a good shot, and shoot a sample film so that I can go back and choose clothes and design actions.

I can say responsibly that a successful shooting is inseparable from mature and adequate preparation. The designed scenes and actions can help the model quickly understand the photographer's intention and desired effect, and also facilitate comparison and improvement, which can help the photographer save a lot of time and improve the success rate.

Part.2 The novel composition will make your photos more colorful.

Small fresh photos are mostly taken in sunny suburbs. In many outdoor shooting occasions, how to make your work better, the first task is not to spend a lot of money on expensive camera lenses, but to calm down and observe the scene in front of you, find out the picture you need and keep moving your feet, and explore the possibility of every different angle before pressing the shutter! If you persist in this way, you will get something.

In the process of shooting, I often run around by myself if space permits. Even if the model stands at a point and keeps an action, I have changed more than ten angles, and the room for later selection will be greatly increased to obtain a higher film output rate.

Change a few more angles

The action is awkward, but it is also an interesting experience to throw caution to the wind for the photo.

Many beginners prefer to put the characters in the middle inadvertently, and the photos taken are very original. Although it is desirable to deliberately pursue the blurring of the large aperture background, it will still appear creative in many cases. At this time, the expressive force of the model is very important. My suggestion is that models must be asked to make some unusual gestures to avoid being stuck in stereotypes. Of course, I planned these actions in advance.

Be fully prepared to avoid the embarrassing situation of not knowing what to shoot. The photographer's panic will have a great influence on the model's psychology, produce distrust and greatly affect the expressive force.

A light summer

The first one is a good example, right? Shallow summer? In the second picture, I chose foreground focus to create different visual effects.

Of course, many times, it is not enough to focus only on the angle. Learn to find? Local beauty? . Many beginners will try to avoid cutting their hands, feet and other body parts when composing pictures, resulting in dull and conservative pictures. But for me, a good composition is to find the best first feeling. I will pay close attention to the change of the model's expression and find the stimulation point directly in the viewfinder. What is the photo taken like this? Live broadcast? Yes

Looking for? Local beauty?

The first one shows a little sexy taste by using the movements of lips and hands, and the second one directly selects the legs and rotating skirts of girls to create a dynamic effect.

Looking for? Local beauty?

The first is to choose half of the face to show the playful feeling of the girl, and the second is to cover the face with books to highlight the eyes and create a mysterious effect.

The third part is the shooting of bust and full-length portrait and the use of large aperture blur.

First of all, I want to focus on the shooting method of prone position, which is a very pleasing shooting method and easy to produce some novel visual effects. Generally, I choose to shoot a bust from above, and the model's expression and hand movements are the key to the photo. It is mainly a kind of artistic conception to express the theme of photos.

Cute shooting skills

In the first picture, a corner of the wharf is selected, with aquatic plants as the background and oblique composition; In the second picture, Lycra M3 is used as a prop to decorate the picture; In the third picture, the girl is allowed to cover her eyes with one hand, and the ginkgo leaves on the ground are used as decoration.

When you take this composition technique, you must ensure the normal exposure of your face.

For beginners, the blur of large aperture is a very magical thing. Lead us from the card era to the national SLR era. Indeed, it is undeniable that the shock brought by the large aperture is huge, but how to shoot a distinctive blurred bust and how to shoot new ideas is what we really should do.

1. Make rational use of the ambiguity of foreground and background.

Rational use of foreground and background blur

In fact, this is also a cliche and the most commonly used skill. I think it's important to add themes to set off scattered scenes, especially the rational use of the foreground, but one thing to pay attention to is the coordination of still life colors and model clothes, which mainly involves some knowledge of color matching.

2. Photo composition of characters (large scene)

Composition with people taking scenery.

I think this composition method is difficult to master in portrait photography, which requires photographers to be good at observation and have a lot of practical experience. Because the picture is full of many scenes, it is easy to lead to confusion and overall gloom. Therefore, when composing a composition, we must rationally allocate the relationship between still life and blank space. If the original film is messy, if you want to dilute the proportion of irrelevant factors (cutting, deformation correction, lightening tools, light and dark angle stretching) in the later stage, you must focus on the position of blank space.

If you want to have a better blur effect, you can choose a telephoto lens such as 85 or shoot directly with a telephoto lens such as 70-200. The blur effect is ideal, but it is necessary to consider whether the shooting site can pull out such a long focal length.

3. Close-up tension

Close-up tension

Close-ups of some props are interspersed in the series of photos, which plays a connecting role in the whole film and can make the finishing point. Therefore, in addition to setting off the characters and artistic conception, I also prefer to insert one or two close-ups of props in the theme photography. Of course, these are all done by a large aperture lens. This can make the series of photos have richer changes, make the shooting theme more complete, and let others feel substituted.

The fourth part is about backlighting.

Backlight photography is a key point of Xiao Qingxin's photography, which can often produce exciting works. However, many beginners should not be very good at using the optical characteristics of backlight, and a little carelessness will lead to the situation that the characters are too dark, which is a pity.

1. Backlight+low saturation

Using backlight+low saturation can create a hazy and dreamy beauty. In afternoon backlight shooting, flash and reflector are generally not used, and natural light spot is one of the composition elements.

Hazy and dreamy beauty

The important point is that in the case of backlight, when shooting with large aperture, if the model is exposed normally, the background will usually be overexposed to white, which will reduce the color saturation of the photo. Therefore, I choose a brighter background when backlighting, so that the picture will not be completely white, and the sky will only keep the area of the sun as much as possible, so it is not advisable to leave too much space, otherwise it may affect the luminosity value and lead to overall darkness.

In short, it is necessary to ensure the normal exposure of the face. It is strongly recommended that the raw format should have better margins in the later stage and correct the details of highlight overflow!

2. Backlight+Contour

This is also a common technique for small fresh shooting, mainly using the backlight in the early morning or sunset as the main light source. At this time, the light is weak, and if you use it well, you can shoot a large film. Do not use flash and reflector, let the characters present silhouette effect.

Photographic works in silhouette form

In silhouette photography, the simpler the background, the better the silhouette effect of the characters will be. At this time, the aperture can be appropriately reduced to allow the sky or water surface to be exposed normally. There is no flicker, the characters are outlined, and the effect is very ideal if used properly. Generally, in this form of light, I choose to let the model face me at a 90-degree angle to show the curve of the girl's face and body, which helps to make the picture more attractive and create a looming mysterious atmosphere.

Another thing to note is that it is not appropriate to darken the picture at this time, which will lead to overexposure of the face, loss of many details and reduction of the saturation of the picture. Unless it is necessary for some special occasions, I will choose to underexpose the face of the character for 2 files to ensure the details of the clothes and show the warm tone of the sun.

Part 5 Interaction with Model

It is difficult for two complete strangers to make a good film when they meet for the first time, especially girls. Therefore, before shooting, models and photographers should have a certain understanding of each other and the theme. I usually ask my assistant to have dinner or chat with girls before taking a group of photos, so as to get familiar with each other.

I can use hand-drawn pictures in the process of communication, or look for related photos, MV and other pictures as reference, so that both parties can establish the same picture in each other's hearts, which will be much more efficient than pointing at the scene. I'll draw a sketch first, the necessary props and the general action requirements.

Let both sides establish the same picture in each other's hearts.

In my experience, the average girl wants to enter a relatively ideal shooting state about 40 minutes after shooting-1 hour, so after shooting a work that she feels successful, she must share it with the model (even if it is only a big photo with a vague background) and give encouragement to the other party to help the girl get into the state quickly, build and strengthen mutual trust, and let the girl feel that you can rely on it, so that both parties can better participate in the subsequent shooting.

In Xiao Qingxin's thematic photography, you are both a photographer and a director. If you are the only one in photography, it is actually very hard. Because it takes a lot of energy to wear a lot of hats, watch the scenery, shoot, polish, hit the board and prepare props. So I generally suggest finding two or three like-minded friends, so that we can share some work and exchange and learn from each other. But it must be remembered that the main photographer must hold the scene, and the dominant position is still on himself, because after all, only he knows the main process of this shooting best, but the number of people should not exceed 5, too many will easily affect the shooting progress.

Finally, I still want to say: only if you shoot well will you have a chance to ask a girl out next time! ?