Top Five Tips For Better Portraits:

1. Prep The Subject - Prepare your subject. Have a coffee together, talk about what you want to accomplish. Expose the subject to the equipment you’ll be using. Load film, load memory, heat up the flash unit, clean lenses, etc. Many people are intimidated by all the equipment involved, give them a chance to absorb it before they are in front of it.

2. Lie To Your Subject - The first roll of film when shooting a portrait will almost never produce anything worth looking at. Your subject needs some time to feel at ease in front of the camera. Lie to your subject and burn through 30 frames with no film (or memory) in the camera. When they start to loosen up, bring out the film.

3. Intimidate Your Subject - Move in way to close your subject, just to the edge of that personal space bubble that we all have. Then slowly move back, frame by frame. The sitter will gradually become more at ease as you move away and that invisible barrier between subject and photographer will start to fade.

4. Fill The Frame - Fill the frame with relevant information. There is nothing worse than a loosely shot portrait with too much clutter in the background. If the environment plays an important role in the photograph be selective in what you include. The focus should always be the subject.

5. Less Is More - When it comes to portraits, less is almost always more. Less styling, less environment, less equipment, less distractions. It is the sitter that we are after, focus on the subject, not the ancillary details.

Tags: Top Five Friday