Natural portraits
Portraits are a supreme discipline in photography: capturing people in a natural and authentic way is demanding and requires trust between the photographer and the person being portrayed.
The exciting thing about portrait photography is the human encounter. I think the most important aspect is to engage with your subject and try to find a common ground. There is no recipe for this - because each person is unique. Find out if it helps to talk to your 'model' - or if you get better results by being more quiet and focused during the shoot.
A little distraction can also help to lighten the mood from time to time. The more portraits you shoot, the more experience and feeling you will gain. Allow yourself enough time to prepare for the shoot. Personally, I don't like endless long shoots, my experience is that I tend to need a bit of time pressure. On average I need about 15 to 30 minutes for a portrait "on location". At the beginning I would allow a little more time so that you don't get stressed.
The idea for the picture
- Before taking a portrait, it helps to think about the composition of the image.
- Do you want the background to provide additional information about the person (environment, workplace)?
- Which location suits the person?
- Would you like the background to be blurred or neutral?
- What lighting suits the person (soft or hard light)?
- Should the light illuminate the entire face or just part of it?
- At what time of day is the light at the desired location the way I want it to be?
- Which lens is suitable?
The light
Outside, the weather and time of day determine the quality of the light. If you're looking for a soft light, a slightly cloudy or, even better, hazy day is perfect. On a sunny day, you can get soft light by using indirect lighting. This means reflecting sunlight off a wall, a glass front or a natural brightener such as snow, sand or water. Hard light is easy to find on sunny days.
After sunrise and before sunset you will find very warm light, which can be too red depending on your skin type. However, I like to shoot portraits in the first or last rays of the sun.
Another advantage of photographing during the golden hour is the direction of the light. Because the sun is low, you can play with the light and, for example, illuminate only part of the face to give the image more plasticity.
Portraits from Dominik Baur's current book project "The Flow"
In the portrait of Gordon, I liked the direct sunlight coming in from the side and warming up from the left in the evening. Camera settings: Aperture 3.2, 1/2,000s.
The background, the baby and the surfboard tell the story of the surfer by the sea. Camera settings: Aperture 4.1, 1/2,000s.
For the portrait of Fred, I deliberately left out the background, as I wanted to capture the charisma of this surfer directly after surfing. That's why I used the 70mm lens and an open aperture of f/2.8.