There are certain special moments as a photographer, such as when you plug your memory card into your computer and start to look through a set of portraits, and you come across one that perfectly captures your subject. It’s a wonderful feeling, like catching stardust. But equally there’s often disappointment. Little mistakes in lighting, focusing or framing can undo all your hard work. Over the next few pages we’ll explore a host of techniques for people photos. Whether you’re interested in natural light portraits or vibrant flash-lit photos, low-key images or bold black and whites, you’ll find advice that will help you cut out the frustration and take beautifully polished portraits.
Portraiture is unique to photography in that – as long as our subject is amenable – we can move them into position, pose them, light them how we want, just as if arranging objects in a still life photo. There’s a level of control to it, things we can plan out, techniques we can hone. But no matter how prepared we are, there’s always that unknowable X-factor – how our subject will react to the camera and to us. Form a connection and we stand a much better chance of conveying their character, creating a story around the shot, or capturing them at their best.