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Portrait Photography Cheat Sheet

The document discusses three essentials for portrait photography: eyes, lighting, and backgrounds. It recommends focusing on the subject's eyes, softening harsh shadows with diffusers and reflectors, and choosing interesting backgrounds even for headshots to make the portraits more engaging. Camera settings like a wide aperture, lower ISO, and fast shutter speed are also outlined to isolate the subject and avoid blur.

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atiwaras
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1K views

Portrait Photography Cheat Sheet

The document discusses three essentials for portrait photography: eyes, lighting, and backgrounds. It recommends focusing on the subject's eyes, softening harsh shadows with diffusers and reflectors, and choosing interesting backgrounds even for headshots to make the portraits more engaging. Camera settings like a wide aperture, lower ISO, and fast shutter speed are also outlined to isolate the subject and avoid blur.

Uploaded by

atiwaras
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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LIGHT STALKING

THE 3 ESSENTIALS

The Eyes

Getting the eyes of your


main subject in focus is
practically essential in
most traditional
portraiture. You can get
away with having a lot of
the rest of the image out
of focus, but if the eyes are blurry, you are
usually going to have a hard time.

If you can only get one eye in focus due to


using a narrow depth of field, make sure it
is the eye closest to the camera.

Softly Softly

One of the most

PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY
common issues with
portrait photographs is
that there are harsh
shadows across the face
of the subject. This can
be caused by harsh
CHEAT SHEET
sunlight or harsh artificial light (often from a
built-in-flash) among other sources (and if
that was the intention of the photographer,
then that is fine). Think about using difusers
and reflectors to soften the light and
Camera Settings
shadows.
These are very general guidelines and will vary depending on your specific shooting
conditions and your own style.

Backgrounds Aperture
Traditionally, portrait photographers shoot with a wide aperture (f1.8
to f5.6) to throw the background out of focus and isolate the subject.
Even in portrait
LIGHT STALKING
photography,
backgrounds are of ISO
huge importance.
Sometimes you might There is no hard and fast rule, but lower ISO settings (ISO 100 to ISO
be forced to use a plain 400) are usually preferred to avoid noise.
background (head shots
for an actor for example), but if you have
any leeway, then get creative. Indoor, that
might mean getting your subject in front of Shutter Speed
something interesting (curtains, material,
textured walls or a contextual background Most often you will want to avoid any blur from motion. That means
for environmental portraits for example) a shutter speed faster than the focal length of your lens. If you are
and outdoors it can be anything from a shooting with a 50mm for example, then 1/50th second would be
brick wall to a stunning sunset. the slowest shutter speed to use. (1/80th sec for 80mm etc)

LIGHT STALKING

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