Photography

Portrait photography is a personal favorite of mine, both to look at and to shoot. Theses types of images can either turn out really amazing, or really horrible, with very little in between. A pretty frequently used pose with portraits is that one where the subject is looking just off to the side of the camera. Those are usually pretty amazing however, "one thing that ruins a lot of portraits where the subject is not looking directly at the camera is when you see too much of the whites of the eyes" (Kelby 87). For some reason showing too much of the whites makes the subject look a little creepy, which is not what we want. A way to fix this it to have them look just off to the side of the camera. That way they still aren't looking at it directly, but you see more of the iris of the eye rather than the whites. I did this by holding my hand out and having my sister look right at my hand rather than at the camera like she would usually do.

 

Another little trick the book talked about was how to deal with the lighting when shooting portraits outside. You should always shoot in the shade rather than in sunlight. When you shoot the portraits in the sunlight it causes the subject to look more shiny an it casts more shadows. If you shoot in the shade you get just the right amount of shadows and the lighting looks a lot more flattering (Kelby 89). 

Question: Do you take more pictures indoors or outdoors?