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| 17 Oct 2006 03:04:42 am |
 What makes a good portrait? |
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It seems everyone has an opinion about this. Traditionally I believe it has been about how well the artist captures the 'likeness' of the person being portrayed. Other traditionalists would say to make an exceptional portrait, you have to not only capture the likeness, but the personality. Today with contemporary photojournalists, you hear a lot about capturing the 'essence' of the subject.
I don't know that there is a right or wrong answer. I believe art is subjective so it's unnecessary to come to an agreement. However, if you're learning to create photographic portraits, you probably want a little more direction than that.
My view from a classic portrait standpoint leans more towards capturing the likeness and personality of the subject. I found it helpful to study good portraits that were created not only by fine photographers but also painters. It seems like portrait artists ( painters ) are always trying to emulate photographs and fine portrait photographers are always trying to emulate painters. But what they're both trying to do is emulate real life. And that's what makes a good portrait - how accurately you've captured real life.
When you look at a good portrait, whether it's a painting or a photograph, you'll notice you feel like you can get up and walk around the person in the portrait. It has a 3D quality to it. A photographer achieves the look with proper lighting. A painter emulates the lighting effects by using various color shades.
So, proper portrait lighting involves creating different light levels ( shades ) across the subject. You're not going to get this with a big flash on your camera pointed at the subject. Positioning your light to the side will help. There are many other light modifiers such as softboxes, reflectors, bouncing light, etc that will help light wash across your subject in progressively lower light levels, creating an illusion of depth. Other lights that help this effect is a background light and a hairlight, both of which help to build separation of the subject from the background.
Now, there is much more to creating an exceptional or even good portrait than this, but I believe this is where you start. If you want to make good portraits, you need to understand the effect you're trying to create. Once you've mastered that, then you can move on to 'capturing the personality' or 'getting that expression'. |
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Category : General
| Posted By : Marcy |  Comments [0] |  Trackbacks [0] |
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