This document provides tips for taking expressive portraits that capture a subject's essence and personality. It discusses using textures, lighting effects like backlighting, poses, focus, movement, shadows, reflections, capturing candid moments, colors, emotions, props, cropping close, and referencing at least five styles in a photo assignment with two edited prints. The goal is to go beyond ordinary snapshots and reveal characteristics about the subject that may otherwise go unnoticed.

1. What is an
Expressive Portrait?

2. • more than just a picture of a person
• express the essence of a person’s nature
• reveal the characteristics that would go
unnoticed in an ordinary snapshot
• capture the subject’s personality
Expressive Portraits

3. • Think about your subjects and choose elements
and tips from the following pages to help you
create and capture expressive portraits of them.
Expressive Portraits

4. TEXTURE
If texture is a part of
your subject, make it
stand out and make
it obvious.
Match up the
textures between
your subject and
your background.

6. OVEREXPOSE
Blowing out the highlights creates a soft portrait
with a light airy feeling. Smaller details and defects
are blown away too, making image look smoother.

8. UNDEREXPOSE
A dominantly dark or
low-key image will
naturally draw your
eyes to the lighter
parts.
These tend to have a
grittier and harder
look to them than the
high-key images.

10. BACK-LIGHT
Hair lights up
beautifully when it’s
back-lit, so if you
want to emphasize
hair place your
subject between
you and a light
source.

12. POSING
Consider a crazy
pose and position —
even if it looks
uncomfortable, it
could make an
interesting photo.
Also consider your
own position —
shoot from different
angles to achieve
different impacts.

16. (UN)FOCUS
Out-of-focus subjects can be more interesting than the
in-focus subjects. It adds mystery to the image
because you can’t quite make out who that person is.

18. MOVEMENT
Use movement to show action, even if it blurs out
the subject entirely. Think of the person as a way of
creating the subject rather than being the subject.

20. SHADOWS
Make the shadow an
important part of
the image.
Sometimes the
shadow can be even
more prominent
than the actual
subject casting the
shadow.

22. REFLECTIONS
Make use of
different surfaces to
add an extra
dimension —
windows, mirrors,
and water are all
very good reflective
surfaces that give a
different result and
texture.

24. CAPTURE THE
MOMENT
Catch somebody doing
something they love,
even if it’s not staged.
Street photography is a
terrific genre because it
captures life as it
happens — unstaged
and unposed.

26. COLORS
Use vibrant and contrasting colors to draw attention
to parts of your subject… makeup, clothing,
accessories, etc.

29. GET SERIOUS
Not all portraits need to have a smile, capture
the serious emotions too. Some strong portraits
are highly emotional.

31. PROPS
Use the props and
tools around you to
make the setting
more interesting.
Find things to place
your subject in, on,
under, around, etc.

33. GET CLOSE
There’s no rule
against cropping
out most of the
subject’s face.
This draws more
attention to the
parts that are left
in the frame.

35. Assignment:
40 Images uploaded to drive plus 2
final pics edited and ready to be
printed.
• At least 2 subjects (one of them can
be you), no more than 5!
• Be able to reference at least 5 of the
styles/tips discussed in this
presentation
DUE:
Wednesday, Dec. 2