Understanding Portraits

                  Understanding Portraits

With a smartphone or camera to their disposal, everyone can now take some sort of portrait, but like everything in life there is good and bad and what people think is good!!

All I seem to see these days is skin that is so soft it makes a new born baby skin look like sand paper and eyes so big that even E.T could find his way home without any help.

I know not everyone has access to photography studios/lights and everything else can, by following just a few simple steps, make your images so much better.

If you are outside and in harsh sun light move to shade this will give you a more even light, taking images outside in full sun will give you harsh shadows casting on the face and a lot of squinting. Shoot into the sun don't have your subject stand with their face facing the sun as you will burn their eyes out and in all your shots their eyes will be closed, use your exposer compensation dial bringing back the highlights on the skin, if you don't your subject will just be black.

Think about your timings, working with the light it is a massive gift if used at the right time, sunrise and sunset will give you the best light.  Using the sun at these times will give you a softer look for your portraits, even using the sun as a back light can give a nice rim light behind your subject. There is a brilliant app I use that shows me where the sun will rise and set, I use this on many shoots even at weddings for couple photos.

You can even introduce a speedlight [Flashlight] and a soft box to bring back more details back when using the sun as a rim light.

When using speedlight/strobes expose for your background first before putting your subject in the frame because all you will do is blow out all the highlight and you will not be able to recover in post-production, even shoot 1 stop under exposure is not a problem as this may give more details in the shadows.

Always focus on the eyes, the eyes are what draw you into the picture and tell the best story behind the person you are trying to understand.

Talk to and get to know the person you are trying to capture, understand who they are and pick the right setting and clothes, you aren’t going to put a biker in full leathers on a sunny beach. This may sound obvious, but I have seen so many good portraits put in the wrong location. It's not all about you subject it's what is around in the background that people miss and forget about. I did a wedding last year where I had to take out of the wedding ceremony a man having a fag in his Speedos in the background, I don't think my client would have liked that so much!.......Also taking to you subject puts them at ease, hence better and more natural shots………..

So next time you are out and about just try and follow these simple and easy steps and you should see a vast improvement to your work.

Let me introduce myself

When did my love for photography first start? 

This is an easy and interesting one, and it started many years ago.
I was Serving as an infantry Soldier with very little... actually, no real reading and writing skills on my side, but I wanted to document my life as well as others lives as soldiers and what we went though on a daily basis.

When my first Middle East operation tour came up I was ready and armed, not with just a rifle but with my camera, a trust Nikon D3000 with an 18-55mm Kit Lense.

I have always said this is some of my best and worst photography, because I didn't have a clue how to work the camera and I was trying to do my job an fight a war.

I didn't want to just show what we as soldiers went though but for the civilians that had to live in a war zone.
I remember children playing, people trying to live and work though the hell, and all these emotions was great to document.
Real life !

I still have this camera now, i feel so attached to it as like me it has seen so much and been to many places across this world.

When I left the Army I wanted to see a bit more of the world but I just didn't have the money to jump on a plane and to go to all the places I wanted, So I became a European lorry driver!!!
Yes, that's right a LORRY DRIVER. I moved to Holland and fell in love with the country and started driving,first only covering Holland,Belguim,France and Germany.
I started seeing Europe and armed with my camera again I fell in love with the European landscape.
I would go away for 2 - 3 weeks at a time, each weekend being somewhere new.
I could have up to 45 hours to document as much of the  country as I could.
I would walk before sunrise to find somewhere to capture the sun coming up and I would walk till late at night so I wouldn't miss a thing. An opportunity came around where I could cover the whole of Europe.
So Of course I took it, who wouldn’t.
I was doing 2 to 3 months away at a time,each weekend a different city,something new to see.

I never thought about editing the images I captured and to be honest I didn't even know I could.
But regardless, for me it was more about the images and places I wanted to see and go to rather than that finished product you see in my work now.

In the end, as I created more images, I would go online and say to myself "Why don't my images look like that" ?
So what I did was found out what programs were needed and I taught myself how to edit.

So every weekend I would be out capturing stunning landscapes and throughout the week when I stopped driving for the day, I would be learning how to edit.
And making those images captured more fantastic! Giving them life.

A opportunity came up after 9 years of being on the road.
A chance to move and work in Spain.

i had been to Spain many times and loved the landscape of the country, so I said to myself "why not" I packed my bags and went. As quick and as easy as that.

My photography was never going to be my job, I loved driving.

It became a secondary job when someone came to me and said "How much do you want for that picture" not thinking I said you can have it!
It happened again, so I was left thinking people are actually enjoying my work, i had never thought of it as a business, it was, then, to me, just a hobby and something I enjoyed.

7 years I have now lived in Spain and I have the best job I could ask for. Capturing moments for people that will last a life time. As well as beautiful scenery.

I love shooting Weddings, the fast pace of it all, being creative and to see the clients face when they receive there images back is a brilliant fulfilling feeling.

And now with a photography business fast growing, it’s turning into a family run business with my wife now learning and running the office.

JUST ONE LAST THING, I started my career in photography without really knowing. With no academic skills... there was a lot of mistakes in this but the wife helped.... anyway, if you are really set on something it can happen!
I am 100 percent self taught and proud of it.
You can achieve anything in this world if you put the work in, it all pay off!