As a photography fan, I have been learning taking photos from primary school. As far as I can see, photography is an art which combines time with space. If we human beings live to be a 100 years, we have 3 billion seconds. And how could we memorize our time? We use pictures. Photography is designed to record, beautify even create some of the most precious and classic seconds. In photography world, portrait is undoubtedly the most eye-catching topic. Today we are going to discuss about it.
Let me ask you one question-How could we take one classic portrait?Those pictures we could keep for life and show to our grandchildren but not just making 10 exact same pictures and never look back?
Let 's look at these 2 pictures. Which one do you like? The left one or the right one?
Actually, I like neither of them. Of course the right one,taking from the girl's boyfriend,is a total disaster. But the left one- a girl's selfie, cute but so basic that we could see one hundred same pictures in Wechat circle everyday.
Of course there are one million tips and tricks online for making a good portrait. And today I would rather share my own experience than talking about the boring technical parameters.
There are two aspects and each aspect has two factors. And the following examples are almost from my own practice.
First aspect is that your pictures must be vivid. And how could we make it？ 1st tips- Shoot things that's about to happen. Then capture the change around the corner. What is the change around the corner ? Something like the moment a bird take off. The moment a foot kick the football. It's dynamic between completeness and incompleteness.
It requires to increase the speed of shooting, for a slow running man，the speed usually exceed one over two hundred(1/200) seconds. If you don’t have a camera, double-clicking your phone is OK. And motions could be frozen in air.
Now here comes the 2nd tips to make pictures vivid- tell a story in your brain. Photography is a kind of static drama, so use your imagination. Look at the picture. It is inspired by the fiction The Legendary Swordsman(笑傲江湖).The swordswoman experience so much that her lonely face shows she is ready to quit.
The point is that we need to use the current environment and light of the scene to create a situation. Generally speaking, keep a little bit far away from your model. And encourage him/her interacting with the props，no matter it is a flute or anything else.
Now lets talk about the second part: Make your picture more natural. It is not so easy right? I am sure that some of you feel nervous in front of camera. But as the photographer, We should get over it not just during the shooting time but in post-editing process.
So the 3rd point is making natural expression . Looking straight at the camera isn’t a must. Find your models’s most beautiful angle and make their expression suitable for this environment at the same time. Here are one example. The baby enjoyed the environment, right?
Last but not the least, photoshop your pictures but control in natural degree. Don't use meituxiuxiu(美图秀秀) to repair your pics at one key,otherwise you will lose all the shadow and details,just like the movie star in left pictures. All the things will turn to be fake and people won't take your work seriously. They would say: “ Oh you fraud, you don't look like this at all!”
What is a good photoshop？First clean the messy part of background, second mitigate your model’s most obvious defects rather than hide them. For example, if your model has some moles or pimples on face, you need to keep the most distinctive ones. Which means It is still me but a better me.
In the end, I would share some pictures I like. They are all vivid and natural ,full of information-
1. Young couple under cherry tree. Look at their gesture-shy but warm，like puppy love.
2. At the moment of departure. The body and the dancing hair is heart breaking.
3. A aging body VS colorful cloth and tools. It shows vitality.
Now let's have a review.4 tips could make a classic portrait-Capturing changes around the corner and telling a story makes your pics vivid. Designing expressions and controlling photoshop create nature feellings.Imagine you are a movie director and keep practice, you could create more and more classic portrait for your loved ones.
