10 A simple way to shoot portraits

Lead: Portrait photography has been welcomed by many photographers from beginning to end. Many excellent portrait works are always unattainable to novices. In fact, as a novice, in the profound knowledge of portrait photography, there are still many tips that can narrow the distance between you and the master. Dear friends, study hard!

1. Avoid shooting in the sun overhead.

When shooting outdoors, photographers often avoid shooting at noon, because the sun is just above. Under strong light, the model's eyes, nose and chin will have strong shadows, and white spots will easily appear on the forehead and cheeks. So if you shoot at noon, you can find a shadow to shoot and set the white balance of the camera. When shooting in the shade, you can use the light from the leaves to form a backlight effect, and use the flash to fill the light for the model. This is a good shooting method.

Use a mirror

Reflecting plate is a shooting tool often used by portrait photographers. It provides great help for photographers to weaken or eliminate this aspect. There are many models of reflectors on the market now, but there are four general colors: white, silver, gold and black. The reflective performance of the white reflector is not very strong, and the effect is soft and natural. The silver reflector has a strong reflective effect, which is easy to reflect into the eyes of the subject, thus producing a big and bright eye. Golden reflector uses a golden reflector to fill the light in the sun. Like a silver reflector, it reflects light like a smooth mirror, but in contrast to a cold-tuned silver reflector, it produces light with a warmer hue. Gold reflector is a common main light. The function of black reflector is to absorb light. Generally speaking, the bigger the reflector, the better the effect and the more natural and uniform the light generated.

When shooting, many things can become reflectors, such as white cardboard, white sheets, wrinkled tin foil and so on.

3. Try not to use the built-in flash.

The built-in flash, like sunlight, is a point light source. The light it emits is hard, and the direction is on the same axis as the lens, so it is easy to form bright spots and red eyes on the model's face. If the model is close to the background, it will leave a heavy shadow on the background. Relatively speaking, external flash is very popular with photographers. Photographers usually use flashers to control the direction of flashers more effectively and avoid red eyes. If you want softer light, you can add a soft mask to the flash, or you can turn up the flash and illuminate the model with reflected light.

Shoot with a reasonable lens

As we all know, when shooting with a wide-angle lens, the picture will be deformed. But when taking portraits, human deformation is very terrible. So in general, don't shoot with a lens smaller than 35mm. When shooting portraits in large scenes, the basic problem of 50mm is not big, but the focal length of 50mm will be deformed when shooting close-ups. It is recommended to use a longer focal length, such as about 85mm, which is the most commonly used focal length. Of course, if APS frame is used, it can be converted according to the equivalent of 1.5 times.

5. Shoot more with a large aperture.

When shooting portraits, photographers often choose a lens with a larger maximum aperture value. Why? A small aperture increases the depth of field and makes your subject stand out. A larger aperture can make the subject more prominent, blur the foreground and background, and serve the subject. This is the principle.

Use a ladder

In portrait shooting, flat shooting is the most commonly used shooting method, however, flat shooting often occurs when cutting the model on the ground plane. At this point, we can try to use overhead shots, which can give you unexpected results. At this time, you need a small ladder. The ladder is in hand, I have it in the world, and the choice of background can be more diversified.

7. Communicate more with models

Good lighting and equipment, only at the beginning, plus the movements and expressions of the model in place, can make good portrait works. Communicate with your model, let Ta know what you think, and let the model have a good mood to accompany you to shoot. Therefore, we might as well chat with models, tell more jokes and play photography, that is, play together.

8. Use props correctly

Correct props play a very, very huge role in shooting. It can make the model's movements more relaxed and make the whole picture more coordinated. Props don't have to be complicated. Actually, props can be very simple. A hat, a pair of glasses, an umbrella, etc. Can be props. The most important thing is to cooperate with the shooting theme, the surrounding environment, the model's clothing and so on. Let the props play the role of finishing touch. On the contrary, if props are used improperly, it will ruin the whole picture.

9. Keep skin details in the later stage

Later, it has always occupied a very important position in the photography industry. In a group of photos, the photographer will make some post-adjustment more or less. With the function of post-production software becoming more and more powerful, post-production is much more convenient. For example, portrait processing, skin changing plug-ins and color matching plug-ins bring a lot of convenience to photographers, but at the same time, we should also pay attention to the post-processing of portrait skin, and don't overdo it and repair the skin like plastic surgery. Some defects can be repaired, but the details of the skin should be preserved.

10. brighten eyes and bleach teeth.

Eyes are the windows of the soul, a very old-fashioned sentence, but a very useful sentence. In the post-treatment, the treatment of eyes is very important. Here is a little trick to deal with eyes, you can try it. Using the dodge tool in PS, select the highlight and 6% exposure settings, and then polish your eyes. Teeth can also be treated in the above way.