Quick Tips For Portrait Photography

Have you ever wonder what makes the perfect portrait photography?

I personally like candid pictures. I like to take pictures when people are drinking, eating, laughing and especially when they are thinking. If you look at the people around you, you see that there are a lot of interesting thinking faces. And these faces vary among people. They almost are like a trademark to the thinkers.

Sometime it is fun to snap the picture only to have the thinker to look at you in shock. It seems that they suddenly woke up from a trance and is embarrassed that you caught them in deep thinking. But that is OK, you just go up and show them the picture. Of course you need to ask them whether you can keep the picture and whether they want a copy of it. If they refuse, you must delete the picture in front of them. But with my personal experience, my subjects rarely ask me to delete the pictures. I even made some friends when I showed them their thinking faces. :-)

And if you are in any photography business, I think this can be a good way to increase your contacts and to get some job later. I am not sure how successful this can be but I think it is a worth a try.

People sometime do ask me what I like about candid photography. I can hardly answer that. Maybe is because I just like the natural side of people. I think that is the purest and most spontaneous moment of one can be. That is the time when you take your guard down and let your emotion roam free. I don't have picture of people crying though. It feels a bit wrong to take picture when people are crying. Well. That is just me. :-)

Another tip for you to good portrait pictures is to give instruction to your subjects. It is common for people to pose as they like but that doesn't mean that their poses are good for pictures.

So, it is your duty to tell the subjects that there is a better way to pose for the pictures. And if you are serious about portrait photography, sometime you have to take both pictures (one is your subjects comfortable pose and one if pose under your direction) to your subjects that you are right. Don't be afraid to give instruction because you have the same objective as your subjects. You too want to show the best of your subjects.

Also, if you are making money with portrait photography, you have to learn to give instruction to ease your job. But before you start pointing your subjects around, it is important that you established a clear understanding about what your subjects want and how you are going to do that. When both of you understand each other, you will save a lot of time and energy making the photography session a success.

Besides that, please remember to be gentle when you are directing your subjects. They are your customers after all.

Happy taking pictures,

Michael Wong. :-)