How to Shoot Studio Quality Portraits on a Shoestring Budget
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This is the presentation used at a re:artiste workshop on how to shoot studio quality portrait on a shoestring budget. Would you like to learn how to take portraits like these? In just two hours, you’ll learn tips on how to light faces and direct your models to pose in various assignment situations. This is a simple, no-nonsense but hands-on workshop where you get to shoot a series of professional-quality headshots for your own portfolio. You'll have an opportunity to shoot portraits of each other. You can use any camera with a zoom capability of at least 85 mm. Although DSLRs are preferred, you can use a point-and-shoot camera. Beginners are welcome, however, we recommend that you have a thorough understanding of how your camera works, particularly manual settings for aperture and shutter priorities.
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How to Shoot Studio Quality Portraits on a Shoestring Budget
- 1. How to shoot studio quality portraits on a shoestring budget REBECCA MB. PEARSON, PHOTOGRAPHER www.rmbpearson.photography
- 2. About Me I find joy when I can tell people’s stories from behind a camera lens and I have been doing this since my dad handed me a Kodak Brownie Reflex at the age of 10. I started my career in journalism as a beat reporter. Along with my pen and notebook, I always had my camera with me, always ready to take a snapshot of a story that I am writing about. I transitioned into photojournalism about five years ago. My work has appeared in the Bucks County Courier Times (PA), as well as Sunshine Artist Magazine (FL), TimeOut New York (NY), East Village Times (NY), and several other publications. My fine art photography has also been on exhibit at the Soho Photo Gallery, The Bar Gallery in the Lower East Side, the Kimmel Center at NYU, and The Darkroom Gallery in Vermont. I am a graduate of Rider University in New Jersey with a Master of Arts degree from NYU. It’s easy to take a cellphone selfie. But if you want your story told through the lens of a camera by someone with experience, then let’s talk.
- 4. Key Lessons • Lighting tools • Lighting and light sources • Basic techniques • Focus • Framing and Composing • Interacting with the model • Post processing • Hands-on shooting • Critiques
- 6. Lighting Tools: The Reflector Disk
- 7. Clamp Spotlight with Reflector
- 8. Lighting Kit
- 11. Key lesson: Understanding light
- 12. Key lesson: Understanding light
- 14. Using Flash for Strobe Lighting
- 15. Flash as Strobe
- 16. Which to use?
- 17. Outdoors
- 19. Tunnel Lighting
- 20. Tunnel Lighting
- 21. Hair lights
- 22. Hair lights
- 23. Lighting Challenges and Solutions • Try and move your subject to the shade • Use your handy reflector disk – have the model hold it for you. • Use flash as a last resort only
- 24. Before Flash With Flash Fill
- 25. Before Flash With Flash Fill
- 26. Techniques
- 27. Focus on the eyes
- 28. Zoom In and Frame the full face
- 30. Direction
- 31. Unposed
- 32. Unposed
- 33. Post Processing
- 34. A quick word about photo editing
- 35. Before and After
- 36. We’ll take a 10-minute break then LET’S SHOOT SOME PORTRAITS
Editor's Notes
- Many people think that to get studio quality portrait you’ll need to have a studio equipped with all sorts of fancy lighting equipment That’s what I thought too… which is why I took John’s class. I was expecting very complicated processes and lots of things to remember. But tonight I’m going to break down in very simple terms what you need to know to turn those photos you’ve been taking all your life and amp it up to where they’ll look like it was shot by a pro. One of the things John promised that first evening was that we would walk away having shot portrait quality photos before class ended. And we did… So by then end of this workshop, you’ll all have a chance at shooting these studio-quality portraits and walk away with the knowledge that I got myself
- These are the photos I took that first night of class. The first two you see here were taken in the classroom with all that harsh fluorescent lighting And the one of John was in a lobby It didn’t take much… we certainly didn’t set up fancy equipment that first night… not one photographic umbrella… We didn’t even use flash.
- So let’s start talking about lighting tools because I’m sure that’s the first thing you’re thinking of, how much is all this going to cost? I also want to start off talking about lighting tools because these can better explain how we use them when we go into understanding light, which will be the next topic We’ll talk about how you can understand light in simple terms and how the tools you’ll use can enhance light that will set you apart from the amateurs Techniques – these are very simple rules that will help you understand why some photos you take work and why others don’t; these are techniques that have other people ask you, ‘how’d you do that?’ or ‘how come my pictures don’t come out that way?’ As we mentioned in the description of this workshop, while you can use point-and-shoot cameras and even your cell phone to create studio quality portraits, you will have even better quality portraits with a camera that has manual controls Post processing is what the film photographers call the stuff they do in the darkroom. The great thing about digital cameras is you no longer need the expensive set up of a darkroom. I’m not going to go into a lot of detail here; rather give you some resources you can use to fix some of the basic flaws like red eye and exposure and what software will give you the best bang for your buck. Active shooting – with a model and then amongst yourselves here. And then we’ll dedicate the last half hour of the class going over your shots and providing critiques
- One of the things that people get hung up about when we talk about studio quality is equipment. We all think this is what we need and it’s pretty intimidating. I don’t know how many people can actually get their dog to pose like this under all those light, sitting on white paper without wrinkling it, or worse, peeing on it. More often than not, you’ll just see your pet and you’ll think the light is perfect and you’d just like to snap away with your cell phone.
- One of the first things you’re going to want to get is a reflector disk. This is what I got for myself And as you can see, I got it from Amazon for $10. It’s portable and pretty handy Now John has the bigger size, that’s a 43-inch. And this version comes as a 43-inch for $20.
- The other thing you’ll to have is one of these. I got mine from the Home Depot for $10. They come in varying wattages. I would recommend getting one that can take 500 watts.
- For those of you who want to take your studio portraiture one step further, then then you’ll want to invest in a lighting kit. Now this is a simple, really inexpensive kit. It’s got two umbrellas, two stands, and a bag to put them all in. This one went for $50. Lighting stands have great uses. You can put camp your spot light to it, you can attach a flash to diffuse light through an umbrella, or you can clamp you reflector disk. It comes in really handy especially when you don’t have an assistant Now at John’s class, we didn’t get to using a lighting kit until the third class. If you are interested in taking a full course on portrait photography, John teaches the class at NYU. What we’re doing here is a one class version of the full course.
- So there you have it… for pretty much under $100, you’ve got your studio lighting set up. Apart from a flash, this is all I have to take capture photos like these…
- And with just these basic tools, I was able to produce some of my best studio work with these shots.
- So now let’s talk about lighting, the single most important thing you need to know when taking photos When I first started John’s class, lighting in photography was one of those things that just eluded me. And if you’ve ever tried looking up information on lighting, you’ll find mathematical equations that will make your head spin. First thing I learned was to simply look around at where your light is coming from. If it’s behind the model, his or her face will be dark. If it’s overhead, you’ll have harsh shadows around the eyes and cheekbones. Can you tell what’s wrong with the lighting in this picture? 1/60 f4
- So here’s John again teaching us about light. I like his expression, and maybe some of the shadows add some dimension but I found them a bit too deep and perhaps it could use a little fill to lighten up those deep shadows. That’s when he placed his reflector disk just below his waist to lighten up those shadows Here you can see the difference. (Have a model sit and demonstrate the light with reflector)
- What I wanted to show you here is how a single light bulb dangled above the model’s face. We have a few highlight blown out here because the light was included in my picture. But once I moved my camera to exclude the light bulb and just focused on the model’s face, you have a much more dramatic effect.
- Here we used a flash and one umbrella as our makeshift strobe We aren’t going to go into details on how to use flash but I wanted to show you what portraits looked like when using flash as a strobe.
- You’ve seen how we use light indoors and with a few tools make a portrait picture look like a portrait. Which should you use? It depends on the light that’s in the room. In the classroom, we had fluorescent lights. By adding an incandescent bulb, warmed up the faces. By using a reflector, we filled in the shadows. In using a flash-like strobe, our portraits had much a much cooler quality which is great when you’re taking press photo headshots. Warm portraits are great for glam shots; when you want a bride to look radiant, for example.
- As a rule of thumb, outdoor light looks best when the sun is over the horizon and overhead. So we’re talking sunrise and sunset. The light gives photos that luminescent glow, shadows are more interesting… High noon shots will give you harsh shadows particularly below the eyes. In most cases a reflector dish is all you’ll need to fill in the shadows When looking for your key light source, don’t just look at the sun. The sun throws reflections everywhere that can bounce and illuminate your model quite nicely.
- We took these shots outdoor by the city hall fountain. John had pointed at where the sun’s light was hitting, which was on the pavement. With the aid of a reflector dish we created some lovely shots that afternoon.
- Another interesting technique of lighting I learned from John was the use of a tunnel to create lovely portrait lighting. Having your model stand just outside of the tunnel creates a beautiful natural light
- Another interesting technique of lighting I learned from John was the use of a tunnel to create lovely portrait lighting. Having your model stand just outside of the tunnel creates a beautiful natural light
- Hair lights create a wonderful dimension in portrait photography Light that comes from behind your model creates hair light Of course, when light is coming from behind your model, his or her face is going to be in the shadow. How many times have we done that? Taken photos where the light was behind and then we wonder why faces were in the dark? Some of you may think, well let’s just have the subject face the sun. And then what happens, your subject starts to squint. The better way to do this is to take advantage of sunlight to create the hair lights and a reflector disk to fill in your model’s face. Both of these photos had the model standing just outside the tunnel.
- So how did we create those beautiful hairlight shots without dark faces? Well… your reflector disk. By channeling some of that sunlight to Fay’s face here, we solve that problem and create a lovely glowing complexion on our model.
- Now of course, you won’t always have optimal light when shooting outdoors and lugging studio equipment isn’t always an option I shoot portraits of the artists that exhibit at the WSOAE and that event starts at noon. Worse time to take pictures because of, as I mentioned, harsh shadows. That’s where your reflector disk comes in. You can have your model hold the reflector disk up to light his or her face. Use the white disk so as not to make them squint. More often than not, I use my pop up flash as a the fill light. Now I’m advocating using this sparingly because pop up flashes tend to be very harsh and can white-wash your model’s face.
- Here are examples of point and shoot photos just so you know that it doesn’t take heavy duty equipment to shoot well-lit photos. The photo on the left are what you most often see on facebook.
- As you can see, all you need is a little knowledge about light and you can produce photos that raise the quality of the image.
- Whatever you do in a portrait, your subject’s eyes are the most important and compelling part of a portrait. So it’s very important to focus on the eyes and make them tack sharp On your point and shoot, you can use your finger to pinpoint the eyes to focus on. Frame the whole picture with your model’s face
- It’s standard to frame the full face with the eyes about 1/3 of the way up or in Henry’s case, 1/3 below. If you want that nice blurry effect in a photo, use your telephoto lens and zoon in as close as you can and focus on the eyes.
- There’s a psychology behind this composition of thirds and that the human eye sees everything in balance in thirds. Take a look at a variety of photos, particularly landscapes taken by the pros. You’ll always see the rule of thirds being used. That’s not to say you can’t break the rule when it calls for it. But as a rule of thumb, put your subject or the main focus of your photo in any of the thirds of a frame – never in the center.
- One of the things you need to do when taking photos of a model is to give them direction. If a model has hired you take their portrait shots, ask them what the photos are for. Go through magazines and the Internet and find photos that meet your client’s need. Richard Patik is an aspiring actor and my thought was to take his headshots in a variety of poses that a casting agent might want to see him in.
- Since my background is in photojournalism, I am most comfortable taking portraits of people when they least expect it. And if that’s something works for you, you should go for it.
- Since my background is in photojournalism, I am most comfortable taking portraits of people when they least expect it. And if that’s something works for you, you should go for it.
- There are a ton of photo-editing software out there that don’t cost a lot of money. It’s not necessary to get Photoshop, the monster of them all and very difficult to learn. Photoshop Essentials that’s a smaller version of the full PS program and really, that’s all you need. Portrait Pro is something I recently discovered that can take your photos into glamosphere. Topaz Labs is another application that I use when I’ve really screwed up my lighting and my photos come out noisy and I have to fix them because I actually have a client whose paying me money to deliver high quality photos.