Back in the day I would have missed this all together. Back in the day, had I decided to leave my heavy old 35mm home when going on a field trip with the kids since I have more “happy kid on crappy field trip” pictures than I can count, I would have nothing to show for my experiment. 

But these days, I have a backup in my pocket. And while its’ mere 2mp is nothing compared to my “good camera” It’ll do. It’ll do because back in the day, there would have been nothing, no image, and technically speaking no memory since what the eye sees in this situation is not what the lens sees in this situation. 

Its only 2mp, but when compared to pinhole cameras, sun prints, polaroids, cyanotypes, and many other groundbreaking types of photography, the quality can’t be considered bad. In fact, I was fairly impressed. Now this isn’t what it would have looked like had I had my good camera with me. But the whole point of  the Holga movement is to strip the photography down to the creative, remove all the decades of technological advancement and rely solely on the creativity of the taker, or the maker, depending on how you look like it. 

I would have LOVED to have my big camera with me, but shockingly, I wasn’t disappointed by what I did have. Shocking.

A friend of mine recently had an impromptu family reunion photo shoot come up. Her background, like mine, is traditionally more of an artistic type of photography. She indicated that she had trouble switching to photographer from artist and wanted to know how I managed it.

I was a bit taken aback by this, as I don’t really see myself as being good at the portrait thing (although people are loving Megan’s senior pics - the photo above is one of them). But that isn’t very helpful to anyone, so I thought about it and gave her my gut reaction. I have since thought about it more, and my gut reaction is the same, so here it is.

The focus of a portrait should be the person/ people/ animal that the portrait is supposed to be of. This might sound obvious, but it isn’t always that way, especially in post processing. It is easy for creative people to start saying “what if I cropped here, what if I applied sepia there?” and pretty much forget about what it is they are there to do. When I was doing the processing of the Senior Pictures for my daughter Megan, I had to look at it from my view as a parent. I want a tasteful image that reflects who she is, and where she is the focus.

Another reality with portraits is that people are going to be less likely to have any custom framing done. As such, any cropping you do should have a resultant image in a standard “frameable” size. Not to say some people won’t do the custom thing, but since portraits get sent to a larger audience (parents, grandparents, etc.), it is more helpful if you can keep it standard.

One of the cool things I love about Adobe Lightroom is the easy ability to create and work with virtual copies of an image. This is great for portraits. If I see a shot that might look better with a certain crop, displayed in black and white or sepia, or any other artistic variation, I can apply it to the copy, and upload that with the original and let the buyer choose which they like better. These people are the art directors, not you, and you need to give them all the options. Some might sell, some might not, but at least they will know the options. And if they like it, they will buy it from you instead of trying to do it themselves with whatever photo site they like.

I do still think there is room for being artistic in a portrait situation. I think the example above highlights one such opportunity. As Megan was climbing out into the stream, I saw this shot in my mind. So I stayed put on the banks of the stream and took this shot from further out. Then I clambered into the stream and did the up-close shots before we called it a day.

So in a nutshell, I guess the answer to my friend’s question is “don’t forget that it is about the people and what they want, not necessarily your vision.” But if you offer options, you are that much more ahead of the game.

I read a lot. I am one of those types who actually learns from reading…I know, odd in this day in age. Occasionally I will pick up books that seem to offer something for me to learn in their pages, sometimes it’s just because of a recommendation…and other times its on a whim.

I grabbed 100 Ways to Take Better Portrait Photographs on a whim while waiting for a friend to show up at Borders one day a few months back. I figured if nothing else it would be good to have something in the car to read when I had downtime.

Well the book wasn’t as full of learnable (is that a word?) knowledge as I had hoped, but it was full of page after page of inspirational images and techniques. On first glance the book is an easy paced guide to how to make beautiful people more beautiful in photographs. The models on ever page are simply gorgeous…from the women to the men to adorable children. I was very easily drawn in to the images and forgot the words.

But on each page you find an image and a technique that image shows.

I didn’t get a lot of technical know how from this book, but I did get a ton of inspiration from it. I honestly picked up my camera and started shooting anyone who would let me to try out some of the ideas from the book.

I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars, mainly for the inspirational images found inside and many of the clever techniques the book covers.

Originally posted on 2*3 Photos