How To Capture Your Perfect Portrait Photograph

By William Stevens

Faces of people have always been the cherished subjects of photographers. Portrait photography focuses on showing a person or a group with all their individual characteristics.

A good portrait photograph goes against the convention and is able to capture moods and angles of the subject like never seen before. However, regular family or one-person portraits are also done and they are fit for family albums.

A proper close up bringing the individual's face into prominence differentiates a truly expert portrait photograph from an amateur one. This can be achieved by making use of a setting in the camera that makes the background fuzzy and faint so as to place the face more in focus. A camera with a wider aperture can achieve this perfect tuning between the background and the foreground image. However, in some portrait photographs where the individual wants to be seen along with the background, especially in images taken out in the open, a normal aperture serves the objective better.

Photography is all about falling of light into the photographic medium; thus insufficient light has always been a photographer's cause of worry. But a good portrait photograph is simpler to take if certain ground rules are followed. If the subject is made to sit near a window in a position in which sunlight falls only partially on the face, then the image generally ends up looking splendid. The other side of the face can be lighted up by using something reflective like a white piece of sheet or board. However, Studio lighting can also be tuned to suit the light needs for high quality portrait photographs, and therefore a lot of photographers prefer to click such photographs inside studios.

Another important factor that affects a portrait photograph is the comfort level of the subject when he or she poses for the photograph. The human factor in photography is so important that all technical details will fail to make it a nice portrait if the subject is cold and feeling awkward before the camera. - 30452

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