May 6th Meeting Recap

Tonight the camera club met and discussed portrait photography and how to take successful portraits.  That led to an interesting discussion on lighting, with Becky using photographs to illustrate various light situations, which led to an inevitable conversation on meter.  We found a useful metering mode cheat sheet and decided that for the month of May, we will attempt to better understand METERING and try taking photographs in creative lighting situations such as back lit, silhouettes, etc.  Here is a backlighting tutorial that you may find helpful.

Excellent portraits submitted by everyone!  It was wonderful to see a large array of subjects, compositions, and lighting!  Can't wait to see what you come up with this month!

3 Steps To Taking A Better Portrait

1.  Lighting.  The usual rule of thumb is for you to turn your subject so the light is reflecting in his/her eyes, creating catchlight and lessening your chance of your subject having "dead" or "panda" eyes, such as in my post here.  This is not always the case if you are trying to achieve a certain effect, but it is a good place to start.  If you are taking photos outside on a bright day, there should be plenty of light around, but still be aware of your positioning and maintain even, indirect light. 

2.  Focus.  You can only do this in certain modes, but by choosing your focal point, you are in charge of your shot.  This will give you the most precise and accurate focus, which is important in portraits, especially with shallow depth of field.  Keep your composition and rule of thirds in mind.

3.  Composition.  Rule of thirds, filling your frame, negative space, framing your subject, leading lines, perspective, and depth of field are just some of the elements of composition, but once you have your light and focus correct, they are what can take a picture and elevate it to a photograph.

There are so many ways to manipulate light, focus, and composition to make a photograph a work of art, but this is a great launching point from which to grow!

Don't forget you can sign up for my portraiture workshop coming up in July!

Make The Light Work For You

Remember that in a perfect world your subject will be facing your light source (unless otherwise desired) and will be posed in even, indirect light.  Sometimes, though, you have to make the light work for you.

A great example of how important metering can be!

portraits

Birthday Portraits

 Happy 15th!

Happy 75th!

Beach Portraits

Selfie

I'm having trouble taking other people's portraits, so I learned how to use the tripod and  the timer on my camera

Cousin Portrait

 My cousin had previously told me he was going to invent a restaurant that turns vegetables into yummy food that was still healthy and I was going to run it for him while he was off inventing solutions to world problems like pollution. He was asking why I was learning photography and right as I took this photo he was asking how I was going to be a photographer and run his restaurant.

5 Going On 15

I think I just got a glimpse of what my life is going to look like in 10 years. 

Portrait

I only had a minute to take a few photos of my grandmother so in hindsight I wish that I had positioned myself differently such as gotten lower and moved closer to the window.