Photographing people, my first attempt

Nice job Angela!

Nice pictures, thanks for sharing..

YOu did a good job Angela.

My daughter is a natural ham, so it's pretty easy to take her photo. As far as the background goes....I just use what is there...sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Nice job, wow! Wish you were near Central Georgia. I have some graduation photos that need to be taken!

Nice shots!

Nice job!

Very Good Job.

Great shots and cute couple :)

Those are some neat pics

Great shots, you did a good job.

As far as backgrounds go I just deal with what is there. If it works, it works. Sometimes you just cant pick the perfect background. If im taking special pictures, I try to find what I think/feel is the best, but make do with what I have and hope that it works.

My people shots don't turn out well - it's very hard to get a natural look. You did great on these! You had beautiful models though.

Nice work.

Thanks everyone, Kevin me too cause while stepping out of my comfort zone (Animals bugs and flowers.) I really enjoyed this. I did senior photos shots that Im waiting for the memory card on I let them take it home to download the shots on their computer and pick the ones the wanted. We have one more prom and in May I get to do some Grad Photos.

Thanks Jennifer, I think they done such a great job of picking out their outfits too.
I love that he wore a pink shirt to match her dress. They get two Proms this year I cant wait to get some more shots of them, his next outfit he will have a black shirt and a pink tie. Shes will wear the same dress we just could go another 300 for a different one. Im looking for a shaw to go over her shoulders to change it up a bit.

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great job

the first couple shot is really pretty good.

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You did a great job taking the pictures, they are all pretty.

You took some very good shots!

Job well done!

Thanks for posting this to BEST ORIGINAL PHOTOS, ART AND WRITING FOR 2008.

I love the one near the water! Great job!

You did really great work! They look so beautiful!

i say you did a great job... lovely subjects... fantastic... cool...

This is to tell you that all the pictures are great. I especially like the one in front of the picture of a bridge. The background pictures made great photo,s.

nice job

You did really good. Doing people (especially young kids) is tricky because like you said the scenery, relaxing and staying still all comes into play.

I think you did an excellent job. Scenery is always hard...I have never tried taking a portraite type photo of anyone before, just silly shots. I think these are great!

Awww what an adorable couple! I love the fact too that he wore a matching shirt. What a great guy.

Regarding photographing people.. I haven't been brave at all about that.. I did have a very fun "photo shoot" last summer with my daughter. It was more a play thing for her, I played professional photographer and she played model. For me it was play and practice! LOL.

I've done a lot of research on it though. There's lots of websites out there regarding this. There's some interesting stuff to learn about how to position men vs women in regards to their head position and hands.

For example, the picture of the woman. She is looking dead on at the camera. Same with the guy.

There are certain ways to turn the body, tilt the head etc... head straight on is typically a "no-no" with portrait photography.

As for background, I've always been told two of the biggest things to watch for is 1. That the background is not too "busy" and 2. That there is nothing "growing out of the top of your subjects head".

That second one is a BIG one to watch for. Ever since that was pointed out to me, I've caught myself doing JUST that many times... It's specially important to watch for when you've got trees (don't want a branch growing out of your subjects head hehe), poles etc.


I've been trying to find a link to a website that had amazing tutorials for this with great pictures to go along as examples... If I can find it again, I'll come back and get you a link.

In the mean time here is another website... I don't like this one as much because it doesn't have example pictures... Once you can SEEE what they are talking about, you'll have it click in your head.. WOW what a difference!

But, the suggestions etc are awesome... LOTS of reading though. The website says "Weddings" but the tips work for general Portrait Photography too.

Another big one for me, personally, is getting a real smile. The average person can spot a fake smile a mile away. This is a great website, try it out!! It's FUN and it will seriously help you with getting great smiles... I know it sounds odd.. It's a Science and Nature website.. I did an article on this if you wanna read first.

What they do is have you watch some very short clips of people smiling. You decide if it's a fake smile or real. Then after you're done you get to see how many you got right.

It has to do with peoples eyes and the muscles in the upper cheeks. When someone forces a smile, those eye muscles don't really move. When they smile for real, the muscles move a lot. You can see this clearly.

So with Portrait photography, it's best to try to get your subject to really smile.. Either by catching him/her off guard or come up with some way to make him/her really smile... like come up with some good funny jokes to tell that will get your subject(s) to smile/laugh.

Oh DUH... The links!! I almost forgot.. Sorry in a hurry to get out of here.

Here is the SMILE TEST link

and here is the Portrait Tips Website link

Hope this information is helpful and useful to you.

:)

Great job Angela! You should be very proud of yourself! Keep it up!
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They turned out fantastic!

These are wonderful shot!

They look relaxed to me. Nice shots of humans. I like the bugs and flowers too.

Thanks for posting on all_photos_welcome

Angela, very nice work.

The bust shot of the couple is the best framed out of all of these, but, gee now I sound like Simon, this is a good first attempt! I read and loved melanies' reply. she took a lot of care and time to explain all of that too you..bravo for her! Give it time sweetie and practice. I find that portraits often look better if they are not shot straight on, if the body is turned just a little and face tilted a little. I have a couple of portraits of my daughter on RedBubble I should upload them here so you can see them.
I agree with the busy background thing, you are losing your couple in that compilation but there are ways to correct that in a photo program :)