Portrait photography session - home edition (tips and tricks)
Hello there :)
I have decided to talk more about what I know, and to share the knowledge I have. In this post I will talk a bit about portrait photography. And yes, it is home edition, which means I will show you how to create amazing portraits at home with almost no equipment. ;)
A few days ago I organised a mini photo-session with my close friend, and now next-door neighbour, Helga. You can do amazing home photo-sessions with almost no equipment and just a bit of creativity. First, create your mood-board (more about mood boards coming in the next posts). Think about what are you trying to say, what do you want to show, is there a story behind this, or you just want to create beautiful photographs for your portfolio? What I would suggest is to go to your closest bookstore that sells fashion or art magazines and take a look, this is the place to find inspiration from. Obviously, your inspiration can come from every day life, a movie, a book, a painting.. your friend can be your inspiration. A beautiful Sunday morning can also be inspirational. But try to stay away from Instagram inspiration. Why? One of the reasons why is that Instagram rarely offers a good quality photography, only if you would go to a specific accounts, such as the accounts of professional photographers, magazines, art accounts etc. What we mainly see on a daily basis on Instagram, is not the photography you want to use as guidelines.
After you have your mood board ready, you will need to figure out what do you need for this session. A model.. if you are just starting or you can’t afford to pay for the agency models, you can always ask some of your friends to model for you. It is always nice to offer them something in return for giving you their time, and well, themselves in some way. When it comes to the equipment, you will of course need a camera. I strongly believe that the camera does not make a photographer, meaning that doesn’t matter if you don’t have some crazy good quality camera.. you can still create amazing photos even using your phone camera (especially nowadays). Do you need some extra lights? Do you need any kind of special props? Do you need specific clothing? If you do, do you have that clothing or maybe your friend has it, or someone else can borrow you? These are just small things you should think about before you start your session.
Now we come to the part where I will show you how to create amazing photos with only using your camera and natural lighting.
As Helga is also an amazing artist (https://edottir.com) , we created the mood board together, talked about what do we want to create. We used what we had in her wardrobe and the natural light and furniture I have in the apartment I currently live in. For achieving this studio-like feeling, use the white walls in your apartment. If it’s possible, use the wall that is the closest to the light. Look around your apartment and see what kind of furniture you could incorporate into your photos. I love this elephants paining on the wall, and I decided to include a little piece of it. For me this painting represents a caring, loving person.. that Helga definitely is!
In case you don’t have a great light, and your camera can’t take nice bright photos, improve the lighting situation in your post production. Put the exposure a bit higher. Try out different situations and see what works the best.
Some of the cameras (depends as well on the lens you use) won’t be able to get that perfect bright crispy sharp photograph, but that’s okay, because you can create a specific mood if you put your ISO up, and your photograph gets this grainy look. Otherwise, user lower Aperture numbers, shutter-speed around 1/100,1/125 and ISO 100.
Hope this will help you in your next photo session, home edition.
Let me know what you created and if you have any topics you would like me to cover in my next posts!
Love,
Ena :)
