Photography tips

A small camera should be your preferred option for street photography for two reasons. Firstly, you’re going to be doing a lot of walking, so a bulky camera is going to weigh you down. More importantly, a smaller camera draws less attention to you from the passing public. The moment someone spots you, the candidness that is synonymous with street photography is gone. As a result, you’re going to get forced photographs — you don’t want that. The best cameras for street photography combine good image quality, useful features, and compact designs. Depending on your style, you may want a mirrorless camera with interchangeable lenses, or maybe a pocketable camera with a fixed-lens that’s easier to carry with you. The Ricoh GR III is popular amongst street photographers because it’s very compact, but has image quality up there with larger mirrorless and DSLR cameras. Its 24-megapixel APS-C sensor is the same size and resolution as the mirrorless (and much larger) Sony A6400, while it’s fixed 28mm lens keeps a low profile and offers a good angle of view for street shots. Alternatively, popular brands like Fujifilm, Nikon, and Olympus all make compact mirrorless cameras that are ideal for street photography if you want interchangeable lenses.

While taking a photograph is undoubtedly essential, beginners can often neglect the importance of proper editing and retouching in professional portrait photography. A lot of the "professional" feel of the images is due to appropriate editing techniques. While this is a whole different subject on its own, some simple techniques can significantly improve the quality of your pictures. Purists may see editing as a negative, but programs like Photoshop are just tools to enhance your images. Consider a situation where you have taken a headshot and part of the body is not visible in the frame. Perhaps one of the hands is too widely spread to include in the frame. Now you would need to crop the hand to retain focus on the face. When cropping extremities, however, you should be careful to crop halfway between limbs or joints. Cropping half a bicep or half a forearm will make your image better proportioned. Always avoid cutting off fingers, shoes, or hair from the image, as this has the tendency to ruin your portrait.

Tip: Shooting in the RAW format gives you a lot of flexibility at the post-processing stage.

There are a lot of different tools you can use but the most common ones by far, are Instasize, Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. For good reason too, as they can easily do all the things you need to do while remaining relatively affordable. Instasize is geared to those who work with mobile photography, and is downloadable for both iOS and Android devices. Other than cropping and resizing photos, beauty tools can be used to automatically smoothen out blemishes from portraits with minimal fuss. Its catalogue of borders and color filters can also be used to enhance shots. You can use Photoshop to retouch or remove elements from the picture. Content-aware fill and the clone tool can allow you to erase unwanted objects. Even if you are already happy with the quality of your photo, editing can help emphasize your preferred visual style and express your creativity. Most software has preset that you can select from based on your particular conditions. Then you can individually tweak the photos to produce the best result. You can then export the image to your desired quality settings.

Understanding the rules and practicing them can be a precursor to get creative and break the rules. When you break the rules, you create unusual and unique work that would make your brand, especially when you are in a session of senior portraits. Think out of the box and experiment with different portrait photography ideas, camera angles, composition, and even model poses. For example, while the Rule of Thirds is an effective formula to compose balanced images, breaking this rule by placing your subject on the edge or right in the center can create compelling, impactful photos.

Tip: Shooting black and white portrait photography creates intimate, personal portraits

Most portrait photographs are shot by placing the camera at the eye level of the subject. Shooting at the eye level produces excellent portraiture shots with the subject's eyes becoming the focus of the photograph. However, choosing an unconventional angle can make your portraits stand out. Create interesting angles by shooting your subject from high up, looking down at the subject. Or you can shoot from a shallow position, getting as close as you can to the ground and looking up at your subject. These angles can add a lot of impact and variety to your photographs. You can make your subjects look slimmer, thicker, shorter, or wider, depending on the angle from where you are shooting them. Move around the scene and see what specific angle captures the image best. Tilting the camera can also add a dramatic effect to the picture.

If you have ever taken a physics lecture about light, you would have learned that light is directional. Lighting is critical to a photographer and forms the golden rule of lighting in photography. Directional lighting is the reason why standing in front of a light source will make the subject dark and hardly visible. Similarly, having a light source to the side will make half the subject light up and the half in shadows. For a fully lit picture, it is also easier to stand facing a light source. The creative use of the sun as a light source in outdoor portrait photography can produce stunning results. A good photographer should be able to use the available lighting to his advantage. However, you will not always be shooting in the sun. If you are using a portrait photography studio, you should also be comfortable with artificial sources. More specifically, think about investing in a flashgun. It is a quick and portable. Many people are hesitant in the use of flash, but it can be useful in the dark scene or add drama to portrayals. Flash can also be used with the sun, to balance out exposure and unevenness of natural lighting to create the perfect portrait photography lighting setup. Another tip on best aperture for portraits - You may also use a camera with a low aperture to get the most details in a picture taken in a less lit area. A useful tool for lighting is the use of Reflectors for turning hard shadows into softer ones. Reflectors are cheap to buy, and if you are an amateur on a budget, they might be a good starting point. Here's a great article on mastering lighting setups for portrait photography.

Tip: There are infinite possibilities when it comes to portraiture photograph lighting. You can create a mood using side-lighting. Silhouetting your subject using backlighting can be impactful.