Portraits
The Art of the Portrait
A portrait is nothing more than just an image of a person. Portraits are one of my favorite types images to capture. These kinds of images often times bring out the most affect and are usually some of my best work. To me, anybody and anytime and anywhere can make a good portrait (smiling like you did for school photos in highschool isn't necessary).
You might be thinking, what goes into a portrait? Besides just a person, what else can you make your portraits stand out? The best ways are to either use a studio or your surroundings. The studio has lighting options and green screening, so you can really master your images and add really cool post-editing effects. When using your surroundings, you are more limited in that you can only use what you have, but to any great photographer that shouldn't be daunting. Beautiful backgrounds are made by a creative eye, so never forget to try shooting in the last place you would expect to, because you never know.
There are many kinds of portraits, but my two favorites are photoshoot and street. First, photoshoot portraits are the ones you set up with people you plan to take pictures of. You can even plan out how the picture is going to look and where you are going to do it before hand, but often times I like to just run freeform and use my available surroundings combined with my creativity. I shoot plenty of portraits of my friends, but I also do work for others in need of images for their own personal uses or businesses.
Second is the street portrait. Photoshoot portraits can be done in the streets, but they aren't the same in that there is no planning in street portraits. Street portraits is how I really learned stealth and the need to master my technique in order to capture the shot. I hail from New York, and New York City is a playground for street portraits. You always have to keep all eyes open in all directions, because the best shot of your career can flash before you in the blink of an eye and can never come back again. That ideology fuels my interest in this realm of photography, and with practice makes perfection.