Taking Portraits: Creating Flattering Headshots
In professional portrait photographs, everyone looks great. Surely photographers use some kind of tricksancient, carefully guarded trade secretsto make Uncle Ernie look so distinguished and handsome. On the contrary, there are no fancy secrets to great headshots. You can make any subject (or any uncle) look his best by applying the simple principles in this section whenever you shoot someone from the shoulders up.
You can take good portraits even if you have the cheapest camera on the planet. But a few additional features, like the following, go a long, long way:
- Manual or aperture-priority mode. When you take a portrait, you want clear focus on your subject and a softer background. The lenses in point-and-shoot cameras generally put everything in the frame in the same sharp focus. Manual settings, especially aperture-priority mode, give you greater control over the focal depth.
- Zoom lens. Not essential, but helpful for bringing your subject into clear foreground focus.
- Fill-in flash. Check to see if your camera’s flash offers different settings. Even if you have enough light to shoot without a flash, a reduced flash setting can help eliminate shadows from your subject’s face.
1. Soften the background
Although the next few pages show you several portrait styles, all successful portraits have one thing in common: the subject draws you in. You hardly notice the background because the photographer has intentionally downplayed it, usually by blurring it slightly. A shot with a soft-focus background has what the pros call shallow depth of field. Depth of field indicates how much of the picture is in focus. When you’re snapping your family in front of the Great Wall of China, you probably want a deep depth of field, with both foreground (family) and background (Great Wall) in clear focus. But in typical headshots, you need a shallow depth of fieldand a blurry background.
So how do you control the depth of field? Here are a few ways:
- Zoom in. At first, it doesn’t seem logical to use your camera’s zoom lens for a portrait. After all, you can get as close as you want to the subject just by walking closer. But thanks to a quirk of optics, zooming in helps create a shallow depth of field, which is just what you want for portraits. So if your camera has a zoom lens, zoom in slightly as you frame your subject. Step back a bit if necessary.
- Move the background back. The farther away your model is from the background, the softer the background appears. If you choose an ivy-covered wall as your backdrop, for example, position your subject 10, 20, or 30 feet away from the wall. Usually, the farther, the better.
- Use a portrait setting. Many cameras offer a Portrait mode, often designated on the control dial by the silhouette of a human head. Setting the camera to Portrait mode automatically creates a short depth of field, blurring the background.
If your camera has a Portrait mode indicated on this camera and many others by a silhouette of a human headyou may not have to fiddle with manual aperture settings.
- Use a wide aperture setting. As explained earlier in this chapter, two factors determine how much light fills a shot: how long the shutter remains open (the shutter speed) and how wide it opens (the aperture). In sports photography, what you care about most is usually the shutter speed. In portrait photography, what you care about most is the aperture settingbecause the size of the aperture controls the depth of field. Wide aperture settings, indicated by low numbers like f-2.8 or f-4, let lots of light through the lens (Figure below). These wide settings also help create soft backgrounds for portraits.
Top: The trick to creating a soft background, whether for a portrait or a landscape shot, is to use a large aperture setting, like f-2.8 or f-4. (Oddly enough, low f-numbers indicate larger aperture settings.) If your camera has an aperture-priority mode, you can lock in this setting and the camera sets the correct shutter speed.
Bottom: For greater depth of field (clear focus from front to back), use a higher setting like f-11 or f-16,
2. Understanding aperture-priority mode
Expensive cameras offer more control over depth of field in the form of an aperture-priority mode. This mode lets you tell the camera: “I want to control how much of this shot is in focus, so I want to set the aperture myself. You, the camera, should worry about the other half of the equationthe shutter speed.” Turning on aperture-priority mode (if your camera has it) may be as simple as changing a dial to the A or AV position, or as complicated as pulling up the camera’s onscreen menu system.
Turning on aperture-priority mode is similar to turning on your camera’s shutter-priority mode. Often, they’re right next to each other. In any case, once you’ve turned on this mode, you adjust the aperture by turning a knob or pressing the up/down buttons. On the screen, you’ll see the changing f-stop numbers, which represent different size apertures.
3. Fill-in flash
Adjust the flash settings so the flash is forced to go off. That provides a nice supplemental burst of light to better illuminate your subject. Don’t stand more than ten feet away from your subject or your fill-in flash won’t reach.
4. Taking the picture
If you can, shoot on a cloudy day, first thing in the morning or late in the afternoon, especially if you’re shooting outdoors. At these hours, the light is softer and more flattering. Otherwise, try to place the model in open shadeunder a tree, for example.
More headshot tips:
- Position your model so the backdrop is in the distance. Check for telephone poles or anything else that may appear to pierce the subject’s head.
- Stand within ten feet of your subject, so your fill-in flash reaches. Use your zoom lens so your model’s upper body fills the frame and helps soften the background. (Unwittingly, most people stand too far away from their subjects.)
- After a few frames, review your work and adjust as necessary. The soft background effect may not be as strong on a consumer-grade digicam as with a pro camera and a telephoto lens, but you’ll definitely notice a pleasant difference.
