Jo Blogz: Portrait Session

It was time to get back into the studio and use our cameras. This time with real live models. One of my fellow students invited a couple of friends along to pose for us, and we had the job of taking photo's of them.

Before we heading down to the studio we has a quick briefing.

Posing do's and don'ts:

Don't turn the face away from the main light source
Turn the shoulders, waist and hips at a slight angle. Square on makes the body look wide
Align models chin to remove the appearance of a double chin
Look at the expression - wear a smile
Tilt the head
Use a catchlight - angle the lights to enhance a catchlight
Use long hair to fill an empty area

Camera settings

Don't use a wide angle lens. Use a medium telephoto. 105 is perfect for head and shoulders
Set shutter speed not below 1/60th second. 125 is perfect.
If in studio setting (as we were) set the camera to daylight on the White Balance setting.
Aperture will vary but usually F8 - F11 is good.
Keep ISO as low as you can to minimise grain. However depends on lighting you are using. I found I needed to increase the ISO, especially for the low key portraits (see below)
Try to focus on the eyes

We had two different types of backdrop set up. One was High Key. This means lots of bright lights and a very white background. The key to this type of portrait setting is EVEN lighting. The second was Low Key. This is using minimal lights to create a very different effect. Here you are looking to use the shadows cast by the Key Light to reveal texture, modelling and detail in the subject. Low Key photographs are much moodier than high-key, and usually have dark or black backgrounds.