Creative Portrait
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ia910
Welcome
The practical stuff
What’s in my photo bag (for portraits)
Different point of view
Background
Bokeh
Styling and photo props
Framing
Reflections
Multiexposure
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© Monika Pixien Banas. All rights reserved. Please be fair and don’t copy or share this material. It’s illegal and what’s more – it’s not nice. "And so I fall in love just a little ol' little bit Every day with someone new I fall in love just a little ol' little bit Every day with someone new I fall in love just a little ol' little bit Every day with someone new I fall in love just a little ol' little bit Every day with someone new..."
Hozier - Someone new
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of their faces quite absorbing, fascinating… Freckles, missing front tooth, garish hair color, different eye color, unusual hair style, bold make-up, tattoo, piercing… and their emotions!
The beginning of my journey to a portrait photography was I simply love portraits and don’t get me wrong – I also love the quite dramatic … One beautiful morning, while wondering simple ones, clean ones, without any props, special effects or around Paris, I walked into one super famous portrait techniques… those that have nothing in it but a human face and photographer, who was sitting on the steps under the Eiffel that’s where their strength and power is and their appeal. But I Tower. We started chatting and he offered me to join his photo also love to experiment, invent new ways and try them out. I shoot with a model he was just waiting for. I had never held a love to photograph or see somebody else to photograph camera in my hands before, but of course, I eagerly agreed. something really innovative and creative. And beside all that I When we sat in a cozy Parisian café later that evening, he was so also believe that shooting should always be fun - enjoyable and charmed by the fantastic portraits I took that he made me fulfilling. And that everybody should inject a bit of his own promise to keep shooting portraits forever. And that’s how my personality, vision, invention, execution into each picture and wonderful career of a portrait photographer started! portrait… simply his own unique style! That’s why I chose a part of this particular song at the beginning of this course, even Ok, now seriously. My journey to portrait photography started… though it’s not about portraits. This is how I feel about it – I love well, by photographing everything else. I always felt more photographing portraits and I kind of fall in love with each face comfortable and “safer” when the photographed subject was in front of my camera… again and again, every day with not moving, running away, talking, criticizing, opinionating, someone new. So, this is exactly the content of this course – join scrutinizing, thinking… and when it simply just existed and me on this creative journey of photographing portraits! cooperated and MAINLY - had no expectations of me! It was simply… simplier. Eventually, however, I realized that I seemed to specifically notice faces around me. I was fascinated by their diversity and drawn to them more and more that I became a sort of a “voyeur”. I enjoyed watching people, noticing their eye color, hair style, accessories they were wearing… and eventually I found all the “imperfections” that constituted the uniqueness
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publish the resulting photos – list how you intend to do so (website, blog, social networks, a photography course…).
You will need a lot of willing faces as models for this course. Start looking for them straight away, ask your partner, siblings, All photographs presented in this course were shot with non- parents, grandparents, get your kids, buy a beer to your professional models, with people like me or you with no neighbors, ask your friends or distant relatives, use social modeling experience that are all around us. Among them, you networks … it doesn’t matter. Don’t let the first “no” discourage would find my clients, nieces, nephews, god-sons, my friends’ you! Explain, plead, niggle! I’ll be honest with you, I don’t like kids, but also a lot of strangers that just somehow happened to complaints “I have nobody to photograph” - you don’t want me stand in front of my camera, either because I approached them to count how many people there are in your country ;-) or they approached me. It is, of course, a lot easier to work with a professional model who knows how to pose, what to do with The above should create a large enough source of faces. If not, their hands and so and you can try it if you like - contacting a you can find many “Photographing TFP” groups on FB (trade for modeling agency and choosing a model from their portfolio is pictures/prints, which means they will be ready to pose for you not difficult and surprisingly it might be not that expensive in exchange for photographs). There you can find models, but either… In many portrait courses I know, workshops, YouTube be aware that they might not turn up as they are not always that videos I can see semi-professional or professional models. It is, motivated (personal experience)… don’t let that damp your of course, a lot easier for the photographer when the person in motivation and try again! It’s still a good source of new faces front of the camera knows what to do without having to be told and you will find someone who will want to be in front of the so, but, in reality, who can afford that (and if so, how often)? camera. I also recommend having a short, written agreement That’s why I don’t usually do that, I had a professional model in between you and the model – something along the lines of you front of my camera only few times (during some workshops at committing to create a certain number of pictures free of charge the very beginning when I was learning). But if you want, go in a certain time-frame, in an agreed resolution and in specified ahead and get a professional model… in any case, I hope that form (email, online gallery, USB…). The model commits to turn some of the photographs in this course will inspire you and up, cooperates choosing outfits and main of all will let you show you what can be done with a friend or a person “from next door” ;-)
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There are many photographers shooting portraits these days The course should simply activate your ability to experiment and it’s more and more difficult to stand out. In this course, you and think outside the box and stimulate your creative senses so will discover many methods and techniques how to shoot that the final images will be amazing and striking. Embark on a portraits in a new and unexpected way. We will take it easy at journey of creative portrait shooting, experimenting, the beginning – in the first lesson we will go through tips and improvisation and drawing new inspiration with us! techniques that are really simple, I would even call them basic, but they still influence the final image greatly. And it’s worth trying them in new ways too – you will learn how these simple techniques can dramatically change your shots for the better and how easily you can achieve superb results. During the course, we will get to some less obvious and more challenging stuff, you will be able to try more difficult methods (some of them you perhaps always wanted to try, but never really found the time or courage)… or methods, that you didn’t know even existed. You will also find camera settings for every image and many stories and shots from behind the scenes - I believe you can learn a lot from that as well. And since I am convinced that shooting should be fun and great experience, I hope that this course will leave you with great portraits and also a feeling of satisfaction and joy.
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everything that I would normally take – so, if there is a situation I have to decide on just one lens – then I take the 50 mm. You can use it to shoot outdoor and indoor, it fits everywhere, you can set a nice low depth of field and has a decent focus speed and sharpness.
This course is not about the basics of portrait photography and 85mm 1.4 – This is my darling, it has a beautiful style of blurred we will not get into the technical details – it’s a lot more about background and bokeh (we will talk about that later), it’s super- your creativity, thinking outside the box, the willingness to try fast and super sharp and simply fantastic. The disadvantage of something new, take risks, have fun and – even if it sounds as a this lens is its weight, you won’t be able to take it or fit with it cliché – simply enjoy photographing portraits. However, as I am everywhere, it’s almost impossible to use it “from above”… often asked about what equipment I use, here comes a small And, of course, its price. “technical insert” about what I use to do it ;-). 105mm 2.8 macro – This lens has been so far somehow missed Whenever I am leaving home to shoot portraits, there will or perhaps not discovered for photographing portraits, but you definitely be some of these in my photo bag: can make fantastic portraits with it and I know a couple of photographers for whom this is a favorite portrait lens (one of The body of a camera – in fact, the body of the camera is not them is Bryan Peterson). It has a uniquely blurred background that important, but I have always been a Nikon Girl and I and style of defocusing the background, you will have to deal currently use NIKON D810. with vignetting, but that can be sorted out during post processing or you can turn it into your own style. Lenses: 70-200mm 2.8 – A telephoto lens that is able to bring the 50mm 1.4 – The first lens we bought apart from the lens that photographed subject closer to you, isolate it from the came in a set with the camera. I can recommend this one to background and blur the background completely. It has the anybody who likes photographing portraits. It’s small, ability to “compress the background”, when the photographed lightweight, handy and with (still great) aperture 1.8 also subject, in our case a face, “comes out” from the background affordable! It’s my “only choice” lens, so I take it if I really want into the foreground. This is desirable and desired, since to go light or I am not sure what to expect and cannot take
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24-70mm 2.8 – I cannot imagine shooting portraits “from above” with any other lens, especially when I am not Other gear: particularly tall and definitely don’t always have a ladder or reflector (silver/gold) and a rounded diffuser, 90cm (3ft) in steps close by… it’s true that if shooting from above is required, diameter. I am able to climb a tree or a gutter, or my dearest one takes me on his shoulders, but as that is getting harder and harder, it’s better for everybody to deal with that by a better choice of the lens – and that’s when this one usually wins. If I should find one I always shoot RAW and I use ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) and disadvantage to point out, then it’s the fact that the lens is Photoshop for editing. somehow… well “boringly sharp”… it’s not out of focus but a tack sharp picture is not its best friend either.
16-35 mm 4 – More or less the same as above applies here too. My “babies”: To be honest, I gradually more and more prefer this one from these two options… simply because its aperture is sufficient for shooting from above and it’s just sharper!
Helios – Helios is my darling, my first one lens ever (and there is only one first love!). It’s a lens that falls into the category “old lens” now… Mine is Helios M44 and I got it with my first camera Zenit (made in Russia) as a gift from my daddy, when I was about 9 years old. Unfortunately, Zenit body doesn’t work
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(water surface) can work just as well. You can also create the background yourselves – a nice blanket, cover or a piece of textile can create miracles. As I use natural light for my shoots, I usually look for an open shade, because it ensures beautifully soft and evenly distributed light and it’s also pleasant for the photographed person, because – believe me or not (try it sometimes yourselves) – it is not easy to look up and have your - profile shots eyes wide open! For those who don’t know what the open shade - from above looking down is just a short recap (you can learn more in BPSOP course Eye to - looking up Eye: Capturing the Face): an open shade is a place in a shade, - not looking into the camera but right on the border with a sunny area – this gives you a really nice soft light all over the face. You can use a diffuser above your model to create an open shade and protect the face from harsh Let’s start with something really simple, although if it is so light. But, for the eyes, even in the open shade, or when it’s simple, I wonder why why why I see so few of these portraits? In overcast day, the light is still strong enough, especially when comparison to the traditional “eye-to-eye” portraits there are you look up towards the sky, because the sun is there, even if it’s only few of them. So next time you go shooting portraits, change behind the clouds… and it can be uncomfortable for the models your point of view! You can shoot from above looking down… or or even make it impossible to open their eyes. Be respectful and lying down and looking up! And, of course, don’t forget to shoot don’t forget to talk to them always make sure that they are from the profile! A few tips that could come handy for this kind comfortable! With this type of shooting I very often use diffuser of photography – first of all, safety first (!), you certainly don’t to diffuse the light even further. want the camera falling on somebody’s face - always make sure it’s secured by the strap around your neck or hand. If you are not For this type of shooting I usually choose a wider angle lens such super tall NBL player, a mini ladder or a step or sturdy wooden as 24–70mm, to get everything in the frame and also it is the one box can come handy. Think about what will the photographed easy to work with thanks to the zooming capability. Sometimes I person lies on, aka what will be your background. I personally use a 50mm lens though. Settings – in case I shoot with the 24- prefer for this type of photography a really lush nice lawn for 70 mm lens (wider angle), I use “who cares” aperture, f/8 or f/11, example, but sand or nice gravel or colorful leaves or even water since everything I want to photograph is practically on the same
| 11 level and I don’t really care about the depth of field – I want laying down yourselves, the point of view can be changed in everything sharp and it will be sharp. An exception is when I other ways too (see the examples). shoot from above a close-up portrait, when a lower depth of field can become evident (if I want to) and I will use a low aperture number (for example 50mm lens and an aperture f/1.4) PROFILE PORTRAITS – when focusing on eyes these will be perfectly sharp, but hair will be slightly out of focus and the resulting shot will be I have discovered this most beautiful, lush and (dark) greenest beautifully dreamy. I would shoot this standing astride above ivy I ever saw in a corner of a garden of an old farm. My gorgeous the model. A small reminder – when using wider angle at short model was willing to lie down in it even though there were all distance from the face be careful about face distortion! And a sorts of bugs crawling underneath the leaves. I shot from a small tip – I usually put something small underneath model’s ladder and used a double “different point of view” – a view from head, just a folded t-shirt or a shawl is enough, of course it above and a portrait from the profile. needs to be invisible – you will get a more natural position of their head and face, when it’s not bent too far backwards (stretched neck and up-facing nostrils), or forward (double chin). When shooting from above, I often use Live View – that NIKON D810, Nikkor 24-70mm @ 27mm , f/2.8, 1/640s, +0.33, ISO way I can have the camera right above the model. Creative ideas 640 have no limits in this course, you will soon get used to that I hope ;-), but I personally like to use some prop in model’s long hair - small flowers (a lot of them), colorful leaves, one big flower or anything similar and photogenic as a prop – feel free to come with other ideas!
To wrap this chapter up I would like to challenge your creative thinking – these photographs look beautiful with side lighting as well (sun rise and sun set), especially when the model is laying on its side facing the light… and also you don’t need to shoot
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As you can see, this girl has beautiful freckles (see also a picture of her in color on page 5) and that’s something that shouldn’t be missed when shooting portraits. During a family photo shoot she sat on the side for a while, thinking, and I had a chance to catch this un- stylized pose and moment thanks to my telephoto lens. A black and white conversion seemed to fit well with her broody mood.
NIKON D810, Nikkor 70- 200mm @ 140mm, f/2.8, 1/125s, +0.33, ISO 800
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FROM ABOVE – LOOKING DOWN
I have loads of these pictures in my portfolio – I really like shooting this way! So here are a couple of pictures to illustrate it and you will find more examples in the course materials later too.
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LOOKING UP
Bara has beautiful, long, thick and wavy hair in the color of chestnut and we have decided to try shooting from the bottom up. We went to a nearby underpass, because I didn’t want an over lit, expressionless sky as my background – think ahead what will be your background, especially when you need to overexpose the photograph – the hair takes quite a big portion of the light that falls on the face and that would not help a grey-whitish sky that is not doing much anyway. In the underpass I lay down and asked Bara to stride above me and look down at me, while I was shooting upwards. We had a really good laugh, because in most pictures her face was obscured by blurry hair and I was showing her some funny pics I took. That’s also why she has this amused expression in the final photograph - we really had fun! At the end, we came up with a plan that she would throw her hair up with her hands and I will be “shooting like mad” (mode C H – Continuous High) to catch her face at least a few times.
NIKON D810, Nikkor 50mm, f/1.4, 1/60s, +0.33, ISO 1000
A video “Behind the scenes – Barbora – looking up” can be found in the Lesson 1 course materials.
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- background around us - create your own background
I know that the title of this chapter doesn’t sound very creative and exciting and that we all know that background is important when photographing portraits, but I am still convinced that this chapter has its place at the beginning of this course. Unusual and interesting background is something I always look out for or I even create myself… you should do that too! When looking for a background, photographers’ eyes usually get caught by the "proven” stuff like a brick wall, a wall with graffiti, peeling tin door, old wood, the wall of an old cottage or an interesting façade or backlit tree branches where we can capture a beautiful bokeh (more about bokeh is coming soon). With a bit of luck, we can find some other and truly unique backgrounds – a festive arch made of colorful balloons for a supermarket opening, a wall covered with torn, bold posters, unusual shop window full of old records … Simply don’t stop looking around yourself and don’t stop searching for unusual background for your portraits!
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BACKGROUND AROUND US
I have a special relationship with the young lady on this photograph, because I have been photographing her every year for the last 7 – 8 years. I therefore had a chance to see how a little girl grew into a beautiful young lady, beautiful not only by her face and name Otilia, but also by her personality. This particular photo shoot almost didn’t happen – I was supposed to travel a day before she was coming back to town. At the end we changed our itineraries so that we would be able to meet as we really wanted to see each other (and shoot) – she came directly from the airport on her way from London, new sunglasses (which I loved) on her face and a thick yellow sweatshirt in her backpack, because I asked her to bring something yellow and this was the only thing she had. I shouldn’t even mention that it was month of August and over 30°C (90° F) outside… The most important impulse for me was her modern street look – as soon as I’ve seen it, I knew that I wanted to underline that with some accentuated “street” background and so we chose some old garage location, which I knew had a lot of graffiti. By a happy coincidence, one of the walls was purple and yellow! Pointing at her outfit I don’t need to explain why it was perfect… and I am convinced that this background significantly enhanced the appeal of the photograph and that no other background would be as good as this one.
NIKON D810, Nikkor 85mm, f/1.4, 1/2500s, +0.67, ISO 200
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For me, this background is quite unusual and fantastic – a wall of an old uninhabited house with a mirror in a gold frame. I would never have taken pictures of this background before ... but times have changed!
A video “Behind the scenes – Background in the old house” can be found in the Lesson 1 course materials.
NIKON D810, Nikkor 50mm, f/1.6, 1/200s, -0.33, ISO 1600
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Nature sometimes offers the most beautiful background. Shot in a public park, the lawn was mown short, but a wise man with scythe, I mean lawn mower, left this lovely patch with purple flowers unmown. That was the right place! I asked Isabela to lie on the ground and shooting from above here is the result.
NIKON D810, Nikkor 24-70mm @ 48mm, f/5, 1/125s, ISO 200
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This must be the ugliest background that I ever photographed – a pile of old tires in the garage yard. We went there because I wanted to shoot a monochromatic portrait of Zuzana (more in the lesson about colors) in front of its red tin gate, but then I got this spontaneous idea to use the pile of tires too – as a background! As you can see, Zuzana had a truly great look, but it was the tires in the background, that gave the picture a certain provocative flair.
NIKON D810, Nikkor 50mm, f/2.5, 1/250s, -0.33, ISO 100
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A nice and creative background is also something you can relatively easily, quickly and cheaply make on your own – and that’s fantastic!
CREATE YOUR OWN BACKGROUNG
- newspapers - magazine covers - book pages (and illustrations) - ribbons and laces - textile torn or cut into strips - carelessly painted old boards - song lyrics/poems written on a white photographic background - old wall paper - walls painted with vintage paint roller - things on a thread (paper hearts, feathers, apples) - picture frames - floral wall - paper flowers - inflated colorful balloons - (Christmas) lights (=bokeh) - old records - and more and more and more!
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This is Ema and the photograph could just as well be in the Nevertheless, we tried for a while, I took pictures, my husband chapter about a different point of view, because (as it’s probably Patrik was covering Ema with a diffuser as an umbrella and Ema clear) it was taken from above… I put it here though, to the was modelling, but after about 5 minutes it was raining so chapter about creating your own background, because I believe heavily that we had to run into the car. I only made a few shots it would be more useful here. While I was picking ferns that I and if I had the time and a chance to check things over during wanted to use in a way shown in the picture, I met a really old the shoot on the display, I would certainly adjust her hair, but I man and during all this time (looking for nice, young and am still happy that I could add this picture to my portrait undamaged leaves and picking them took quite some time) he portfolio. told me about all the things ferns can be used for (he didn’t mention photographic background though ;-)). When I finally collected all the ferns, put it on the ground so that the soil would not be visible, Ema got dressed in the vintage dress (which was too big for her, but it didn’t matter when lying), and NIKON D810, Nikkor 50mm, f/4.5, 1/320s, +0.33, ISO 400 we were finally ready to shoot… it started to rain!
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effect alone, but in reality, it’s not limited to only the bright parts – bokeh in the sense of the word “blur” is everywhere on the photograph, where things are not in the plane of sharpness, BUT “circles” are considered most effective and valuable.
- bokeh Bokeh depends on the lens, which you use, because each lens - shaped bokeh has its own style and a certain way how it blurs the background – that’s why sometimes we don’t even notice bokeh (bad bad
bokeh!) and sometimes we shout out loud “what a beautiful BOKEH bokeh” (really good bokeh)!
What does this strange and at the same time magic word mean You can learn a lot more about the definition of bokeh by and how to pronounce it? The word comes from Japanese, in looking it up on Wikipedia. which “boke” means something blurred and is pronounced in How to use something like bokeh in our photographs? You can different ways. I heard it pronounced as “boke” without the H at find bokeh outdoors, indoors or you can create it yourselves – the end, also “boka” or in English most commonly used “boh- just look for sun shining through something (tree branches for kay”. However, this is not as important as what this word means example), lights in a shop window or in the streets and so on. for photographers. And then you just need a low aperture, photogenic subject and a Simply put, bokeh is an esthetical quality and style of a blur, in distance of the subject from the background. other words, how and how nicely are parts of the photograph, that are not in the plane of sharpness (usually the background), blurred.
Bokeh is most visible in small illuminated parts of the background (so called “circles”), in which case each bright point in the background take the shape of the aperture, so it becomes more or less round (a circle). Bokeh is often connected with this
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This is a great example of a bokeh in nature – shot in a backlight, * be poppy is a brand that has been successfully built by my friend there are trees behind my model and behind the trees is the sun, Michaela, who lives in Paris. All products are hand made by her, its rays are shining through the leaves and creating perfect flowers and headbands are made from manually cut circles of bokeh as I used low depth of field. It wasn’t completely flawless satin (and that’s a lot of work!). She also makes beautiful tutu though – there was plain white spot in one corner of the skirts and I am a proud owner of be poppy tutu skirt #1, because I photograph, because there were no trees, just a white once convinced her to make it for me for a photoshoot… and since overexposed sky … so I had to add this part in a Photoshop. The then she keeps making this beauty ;-) … she has more to offer - photograph is over exposed by whole one degree (see the you can see it in her Etsy boutique. settings of the camera), because otherwise the face, and in fact also the background, would be too dark, as is often the case when photographing in the backlight, and I didn’t have a reflector with me. Fortunately, the dark leaves of the tree were able to sustain the over exposure and her face benefited from it. As a prop – a headband from be poppy.*
NIKON D810, Nikkor 85mm, f/1.4, 1/800s, +1.00, ISO 400
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This photo was taken during my photo workshop “Creative BOKEH IN A CERTAIN SHAPE (SHAPED) Portrait”, it was in June and it was hot ;-). In any case, we wanted to imitate winter and streets lit by lights so I came up As I mentioned at the beginning while describing what bokeh is with this styling. I ordered some Christmas lights at Aliexpress, – each small illuminated spot in the background will assume the you can find a plethora of different kinds and lengths and shape of the aperture, so it becomes more or less round spot (a usually two types – cool blue-white and warm yellow-white. I circle). But it doesn’t have to be like that, we can make it into a chose the cool lights, but it’s possible that the warmer lights different shape, for example a heart, a star or a moon and so on. might feel more welcoming. The picture was photographed The way it works is that we create another “aperture” – in the indoors, the lights were attached to a pole placed between two middle of a square or a circle of a black sheet of paper (big photographic stands (don’t forget to always stabilize them, enough to cover the lens) we can cut (with a sharpener, razor ideally with the original ballast – heavy bags filled with sand) blade or curving knife) the required shape (of course - be and the model stood about 1,5 m in front of the lights. There careful!), it should be quite small – the smaller it is and the was no additional light source, the model was lit by natural light sharper the edges are, the better the bokeh – it will be clearer from the window and we also used a silver reflector. The rest and more defined. And when you shoot the portrait, you place was achieved by winter accessories – sweater and a winter this piece of paper on or in front of the lens and behind the cap… and a low depth of field. This shot is a good example that photographed subject you place the lights or something shiny. a nice bokeh can be created at home as well. Or you can find a place outdoors where there are small spots of light in the background – for example a tree with backlit leaves. As a result, you get a background with bokeh in shape that you have cut out from the paper. Instead of cutting the paper, you NIKON D810, 50mm, f/1.4, 1/160s, +0.67, ISO 640 can use a puncher for special shapes. The next step is fastening the paper “aperture” in front of the lens, you can use a thick adhesive tape or you can insert the paper into the filter holder.
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A bit of a technical aspect – your subject should stand at a certain distance from the background, as that will of course help blurring it and achieving better bokeh. Choosing the right lens is also important – the lower the aperture number, the better the bokeh (of course) and that applies when we want to create particular shape, too. So, using a regular lens from a set with the lowest aperture number let’s say 5.6 is not going to work I am afraid. The best lens for this purpose seems to be 50 mm 1.8 or 1.4 or something similar.
Just a small example what it can look like – I cut a small star into a piece of black paper and attached it to the lens with an adhesive tape. I draped a black blanket over a stand and hung up the same Christmas lights we used in the previous photograph and started to shoot. This is definitely not an easy techniques and it certainly requires more (or in fact a lot of) shots, it’s difficult to focus, the shape of the bokeh is sometimes indistinctive or the portrait itself is not good… but one of the shots will be great, just do not give it up! It was shot at night; the boy’s face was lit by a small spot light.
NIKON D810, Nikkor 85mm, f/1.4, 1/125s, +0.67, ISO 3200
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markets, garage or charity sales. I, however, feel like a fish in the water and each new catch brings up a surge of endorphins. It impacts adversely our own household as well as the households of our relatives (around the world) as it is very storage-intense, because some stuff is bought with a certain idea, which I then carry around in my head for years before it gets realized. My sister blames me for years now because of a big, heavy, old wooden door that leans against a wall in her cellar, waiting for STYLING my great photographic idea to be realized. Well, I got side-
tracked a bit, let’s go back to styling - I would like to encourage The word styling is obviously related to style and has several you to experiment! Visit few second-hand shops, a flea market meanings, however when it comes to photography it means a sale or an online one or even Aliexpres… don’t be afraid, find process or an effort to achieve a certain look and to match things and be original with your styling and accessories! And of things (and I don’t mean just clothes). This is where you can be course – you don’t have to buy tons of props if you do not want really creative and where you can differentiate yourselves from to, you can find them around you and nature offers an infinite the others (it really makes a difference if a girl in a photo holds a array of them too. notoriously known tin lantern from an unnamed Swedish furniture chain that is used by each and every photographer, or My accessory destinations: an old and unique one – vintage piece). It seems that it takes a bit of good taste and some flair. I am sure you came across - mostly second-hand shops, flea markets, goodwill (and photographs that you felt impartial about or even didn’t like alike) stores them because the things somehow didn’t fit together or felt - etsy.com even trashy. I personally love styling almost as much as taking - be poppy photos, although I am not a professional and I have no - aliexpress “education” it this field, no courses or anything like that. I simply enjoy it and it has got so bad that everybody except my sweet “mother in law” (she hates the word hence the commas ;- )) refuse to join me in my trips to second hands, junk sales, flea
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COMMON PHOTO PROPS...
… that you surely know about and use, for example:
- hats, caps - glasses and sunglasses - shawls, scarfs - flowers, wreaths - headbands - umbrellas, parasols - inflatable balloons - tattoos
RARE (LESS COMMON) PHOTO PROPS…
…everything possible or impossible that you can think of or even cannot think of – just look around yourselves:
- a huge paper flower - wigs, can also be colorful - clothes pegs - burdock, branches, leaves - a lollypop…
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Nikol and her pastel-pink styling – she loves berets and they really suit her, she brought one to the photo shoot together with matching shawl and earrings… we were shooting in winter, everything around us was brown-grey and with bright pink details she stood out beautifully. In one of the streets we found a wall covered in a climbing vines, which was leaf-less at this time of the year – Nikol drew aside the twigs and look out among them. The day was grey and overcast, the light was accordingly flat, but her accessories brightened up the whole shot beautifully.
NIKON D810, Nikkor 85mm, f/1.4, 1/1000s, -0.67, ISO 250
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A beautiful model that answered my model call and came to the shoot … The hair! And fantastic freckles … And as a prop she had sunglasses – I have been shooting with sunglasses a lot recently and I really like it, such a simple and yet magic thing, that really gives portraits something special! There are many many photographs in this course where I used sunglasses, here (since we talk about accessories) at least one to illustrate the point. I love the reflections in this case – they look like spider webs!
NIKON D810, Nikkor 50mm, f/1.4, 1/1000s, ISO 200
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I certainly didn’t go to this photo shoot with the intention to Eventually, we found a small spot with some burdocks and I photograph a little girl with a burdock leaf on her head – the realized that with a good lens and a low depth of field you can original idea was to photograph her sitting in burdocks and make magic even in a shabby place. But that’s a bit off our main holding one of them above her head, hiding from rain drops. For topic here. The important thing is that apart of the main idea, I about three years I had quite a clear idea about what I wanted to shot a few more and also had an idea that Kristina could put a do, but the realization eluded me. I knew about a “guaranteed” burdock leaf on her head as a hat – and voilà, here is her spot in the woods where there were always loads of burdock portrait! Always look around yourself when photographing and growing next to a stream (at least that’s what I remembered), so use what nature offers as unique photo prop! one summer I finally got to realizing the plan – I bought a cream- white cotton dress in a second-hand shop, I had a daughter of my good friend as a model, Patrik was in charge of a watering NIKON D810, Nikkor 85mm, f/1.4, 1/500s, +0.67, ISO 320 can with water (rain actually). I couldn’t really check the place up front as it was not easy to get there, but the burdocks really grew there every time – well, except this summer. When we got there, we were not happy to see that there were very few burdocks this year, they were not growing thickly and the few that were there, were run over by cars and tractors.
A video “Behind the scenes – Kristina with a burdock” can be found in the Lesson 1 materials.
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Ema. I bought these (quite tacky) butterflies in a small forgotten shop. Ema lay on the ground on some gravel next to a residential property and I photographed her from above looking down. Even though she had a blanket underneath her, she wasn’t very comfortable as the stones were quite hard and sharp. I only made a few pictures, this is one of them. Her skin got quite a brutal red-pink cast from the wall of the house and I had to deal with that during the editing (you can see a “behind the scenes” photo in the Lesson 1 course materials), the light was quite contrasting, her right-hand side was shaded by the house, while the left-hand side was fully lit.
NIKON D810, Nikkor 16-35mm @ 19mm, f/4, 1/800s, +0.67, ISO 400
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KUBÍK S LISTOM PRED TVÁROU
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Another example of using leaves as a prop – shot in the Fall, when there are lots of them everywhere and I am sure many of you use them as a prop – I liked its shape and color, the green merging into yellow, and since children are playful and often enjoy this, we played together with Kubik while shooting and that’s how this portrait came to life. It was overcast day – the photograph is taken in natural open shade.
NIKON D810, Nikkor 85mm, f/1.6, 1/800s, +0.33, ISO 200
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ALICKA BOBEKOVÁ S VEĽKÝM ČERVENOBIELYM TOČENÝM
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This beautiful girl’s name is Alicka and she is a daughter of my good friends. I wanted to use a big spiral lollypop as a photo prop for quite a long time so I asked my friends if Alicka would like to by a model – and she did. My original plan – to dress her in a white coat with a collar – did not work; it simply didn’t go together with the lollypop. As I realized, the lollypop wasn’t really white-red, it was more white-cyclamen-pink, which also happened to be exactly the color of her jacket she was wearing that day. The shot was taken in January, the day was cloudy, the sky overcast and grey, but also working as a natural light diffuser, so we were effectively shooting in an open shade. Since it was around noon, the sun (even though behind the clouds) as a source of light was somewhere up high above our heads and there wasn’t enough light in Alicka’s eyes, so we used a silver reflector to bounce some additional light to her face and catchlights to her eyes.
NIKON D810, Nikkor 85mm, f/1.4, 1/2000s, -1.00, ISO 500
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A neutral grey-blue façade of a family house, her beautiful eyes in an identical color, blond wavy hair slightly ruffled by the wind (yes, I waited for this moment!) and a small photo prop – a white butterfly that we found on the way in a flower pot and saved him from being a pot decoration. Those are small things that made a good portrait out of a quick snapshot, when we just went out without any planning. Open shade next to a house wall.
NIKON D810, Nikkor 85mm, f/3.5, 1/1250s, +0.33, ISO 400
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A TATTOO AS A PHOTO PROP
This beautiful couple was modeling me at one of my workshops I used a black and white conversion, because it stood out better and they were both absolutely great. How else to photograph and was more intense, almost as if it was a studio image, using a them when you know he has such an original tattoo at the back black background and a soft box – in truth, it was the exact of his neck? I posed them with his back towards me and her opposite. gazing over his shoulder directly at me with her piercing look.
The image was taken outside in a natural light on a path in the NIKON D810, Nikkor 70-200mm @ 150mm , f/2.8, 1/500s, -0.67, woods, under the trees, just before the path left the woods, so ISO 400 the falling light illuminated her face and his tattoo, but behind them, there was a dark “tunnel” of the path shaded by trees and I also underexposed the picture this time.
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This Californian beauty answered my model call on Facebook. I was waiting for her at a car park, leaning against my car – when she walked towards me, tall, slender, with beautiful slightly wavy hair and a perfect face, I couldn’t believe who was coming for a photo shoot practically out of nowhere. I later found that she had a tattoo on her forearm – words “there is a beauty in the struggle” – you can’t resist using that! To show the tattoo off, I let her lift her arm and hold her hat (which she borrowed from her mom for the photo shoot). Photographed in a shade, underneath a roof of a small hut.
NIKON D810, Nikkor 85mm, f/2.2, 1/320s, +0.33, ISO 200
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I like using car windows and I can warmly recommend it to you too! This image of Livia in a car was taken in an open shade– it was cloudy, so the sky worked as a natural diffuser, but she was Framing is a super easy method for capturing more interesting right at the edge of “light and dark” with enough light on her portraits. Now, carefully concentrate to remember everything – face – and that’s exactly the place where I exposed! By metering when using framing, you actually need to frame the subject with from her well lit face, everything behind her is dark and something! Surprising, isn’t it! ;-) It really doesn’t matter if it’s a underexposed and in this case, I underexposed even slightly window frame, door frame, an old empty picture frame, some more to make sure there are no highlights on her face and the kind of an opening and so on – it’s always very effective! See the background is even darker. This is something (this type of light examples. at the edge and creation of dark background, when the face stands out), that I really like to use when photographing portraits.
The car was black and polished and reflected the blue sky – I have later emphasized the blue color even more in Photoshop simply because I liked it.
NIKON D810, Nikkor 85mm, f/18, 1/160s, -0.67, ISO 200
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So, you decide to take pictures by an old worn-out closed shop of the local gas station because it has yellow window frames and your model is wearing yellow dress, one car after the other driving by onto the main road (all of them black or at best grey) and you let out a sorry sigh “couldn’t there be a yellow one?!”. Well, you don’t even finish saying it when there is a yellow car coming from behind the corner with a handsome driver stopping right next to you, jumping out and yelling “hello”! As it turns out, he’s a distant cousin of my model’s mom and is happy to lend us the car to use for a few shots! I love these unexpected photo adventures and photographer’s luck! Natural light.
NIKON D810, Nikkor 85mm, f/1.4, 1/4000s, -0.33, ISO 200
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Framing that was invented by nature – you just need to push the model deeper into the leaves. We shot many different pics in the town with Zuzana (you will see some more of them later) and this is one of them. I have no idea what type of tree is it, but it grew in the town center and had about a zillion of these fruits – they were everywhere underneath the tree, but there were still many on the tree, too. I liked the way it went together with her dress – she was wearing that type of “Chinese” satin dress with green-yellow embroidery. You can find a “behind the scenes” shot in the Lesson 1 course materials. Natural light, open shade.
NIKON D810, Nikkor 85mm, f/1.8, 1/400s, +0.33, ISO 200
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You can use reflections of reflections – two mirrors, mirror prism and so on, reflections are simply fantastic additions to your photo experiments! If you would be focusing on eyes in the Naturally! Accessible and creative option how to make portrait reflection, you can have a problem to focus, because the camera look special. To do that, you need (practically any) shiny surface can be confused by the reflection – you might need more shots – whether it is a mirror, window/glass pane, water surface, shop to fire or use a manual focus. window, tin siding or polished table top. You can shoot the reflection only, or both the subject and its reflection, you can focus on the eyes in the reflection or the actual subject… simply, there are many options and as always – “work” your subject to the maximum and try different things and angles. The most perfect reflection will be in a mirror of course, but I know from experience that if you photograph only the reflection (without including the object in the frame of the shot) in a really Reflection in a window – shot in a long dark corridor with a view shiny clean mirror, it may not look like a reflection, it sometimes into an atrium – I liked the bokeh, which was caused by blurred looks like an ordinary portrait. In general, the shinier the surface lights, her thoughtful gaze out of the window, beautiful dark and the closer the subject is to the surface, the clearer the grey eyes that go well with the surroundings and also the reflection is. refreshing element of her red dress. Natural light from the window + artificial lighting in the corridor.
NIKON D810, Nikkor 50mm, f/1.4, -0.67, 1/800s, ISO 800
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A reflection in a mirror in a clothes store. Artificial light.
NIKON D810, Nikkor 85mm, f/1.8, +0.33, 1/400s, ISO 1000 | 65
Bara in a window reflection. I didn’t want to photograph reflections at first, Bara was standing on a street with brick walls and I thought it was a good place to shoot a few portraits, but when I looked to the right, I could see her reflection in one of the lower windows of one of the houses. So, I captured it – I liked the “doubling” effect, which happened quite naturally (without using multiexposure – more below in this lesson), and, in fact, the whole reflection including the neutral background of the blurred brick wall. Natural light.
NIKON D810, Nikkor 85mm, f/1.8, 1/125s, ISO 250
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And another use of reflections when photographing portraits, The first thing (I don’t remember what it was) that we tried to this time reflections in sunglasses – and no, it really isn’t reflect, didn’t work very well, but when I took off the wall a Photoshop (!) - when it comes to the reflections, the shot was canvas with a painting of a female portrait, it worked great. taken as you see it. The model’s name is Erik (you will see him Erik’s mom Martina was holding the painting for me and I few more times in this course) and we were shooting indoors in navigated her how to move it so I would have the best a co-working place in Prague. Erik brought these round reflections of it in the sunglasses – and could capture this sunglasses to the photo shoot, and they were the “mirror” type, portrait. Natural light from the window opposite Erik’s face. so they reflected everything Erik looked at. I chose neutral dark grey wall as a background and at first shot a simple portraits of a boy in sunglasses. But, I’ve noticed immediately that the NIKON D810, Nikkor 50mm, f/1.4, +0.33, 1/2000s, ISO 1000 sunglasses had a great “reflective” potential, which should definitely be exploited!
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Activate the mode and set the number of shots to 2 to experiment – believe me, it’s enough for portraits. Shoot two This is a rarely used method of photographing portraits, I have pictures, one after the other, (at least one of them is the portrait seen and done only a few during my photo career (compared to of course) and your camera will put them together in no time other options) and still, it definitely belongs to the column “how and save them as one! Amazing isn’t it? There are unlimited creative!”. options to experiment with shooting multiple exposure portraits waiting for you! This method, however, is a “trial and error” You can imagine multi exposure as two (called double exposure) system. You need to consider what you want to put together or more shots taken together in one frame of a “film”. Long time and try several takes to see what it would look like – to avoid, for ago, when film was still used for photographs, multi exposition example, a stain on the wall ending up right on model’s eye. A meant that the film roll didn’t move (usually by mistake) and few tips for using this technique – you can change lenses two or more shots were taken on the same frame of the film. In between the first and the second shot, also change the settings today’s digital age it means inserting two layers on the top of of you want etc. – it will not influence the multi exposure as each other in Photoshop and joining them together while such. setting the transparency to 50%, so that you can see both photos “through each other”. However, between us, it’s better to shoot it like that straight away (especially if you don’t have PS or another program that could do that…). If you didn’t know A logical question to wrap it up – why I can’t shoot two (or more) that already, your camera (most probably) can create a individual pictures and then join them together in the photograph with more layers while you are taking the picture. Photoshop? You can, of course, but 1/ it’s not as much fun at all! To be more specific about “most probably” – 100% of Nikon And 2/ you can see the result directly while you shoot and you cameras can do it as well as all the newer Canon, Sony and other can try again, change your position, adjust something or change cameras – all the other manufacturers started offering this the position of some of the elements of the image. feature about 5 years later than Nikon. Look for Multiple Exposure or Multi Exposition mode in the menu.
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During our stroll through town with my model Bara we came The following setting is recorder with the photograph: NIKON across this pretty wall inscribed with a poem or something what D810, Nikkor 85 mm, f/2.2, 1/2500s, ISO 250 and if I’m right, it’s looked like hand writing. I decided to try multi exposure – I first always the technical setting of the second (last) photograph of photographed the wall, then Bara’s portrait in front of a neutral, the multi exposure. clean part of the same wall, and this is the result. I really like the way it worked out, the earthy tones of the photo and the red detail of her clothes.
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A bit different example of a multiple exposure – this time, both You can also use this technique for shooting beautifully “tacky” shots were taken at the same place, both as a portrait, but they photographs, for example of a newlywed couple – can you still were shifted a little bit and one was shot using sunglasses and remember the portrait of the bride inside a wine glass? You can one without them. To be honest, this photograph was a mistake, also shoot the same face from the front and from the side in one somehow, I confused the numbers (Unable to count to two? I shot etc. I am sure that you can come up with many creative know!) and I combined different shots than I originally intended. ideas how to use this technique in shooting portraits. At the end I really liked it, generally, as well as an example for this course. The model was, once again, the absolutely great Erik. Artificial light – hanging lamps with bulbs.
NIKON D810, Nikkor 50mm, f/1.4, 1/1600s, -2.33, ISO 320
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We made it to the end of the first lesson together – and I really hope that you enjoyed both, reading it and looking at the photos – but real fun is just about to begin – just take your camera out! I named this lesson “Ordinary things in extraordinary ways” and the aim was to make you walk around with your eyes wide open, to experiment, to make you use things that you find around you (and perhaps didn’t notice them till now or found them boring) or that can be easily obtained and will force you to “think out of the box” while taking portraits!
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Simply try to do as much as you can this week. To fulfill the assignment choose whatever you want from the lesson – anything you found most interesting – a different point of view, creative background, unusual photo prop, beautiful bokeh, framing, using reflections or multiexposure… or a combination of two or more of them in one shot - it’s up to you! But try to bring something really special, something you are really happy with, something you have never tried before! The only condition is that you will use a different technique(s) (choosing from those mentioned in this lesson) for each of your two assignment pictures. Please add some comment to the photos as a “behind the scene” story and describe how you made it and what you used to get the shot. Thanks!
You are welcome to share more images in QA forum if you want.
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LESSON 2 | ABOUT THE WEATHER…
Wind
Fog
Behind the glass/behind the window… rainy window
In the rain
Snow
Frost
Rainbow
Water everywhere
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