Different face shapes benefit from different lighting patterns. Read on to find out how to slim down a wide face or fill out a narrow one by changing just small thing – the angle of your subject’s nose relative to your main light. According to the people who measure these things, there are seven basic face shapes: oval, round, square, diamond, heart, pear and oblong. For our purposes, however, we’ll use a shape sorter with just two categories. The first …
Above all other elements – composition, camera settings and camera equipment included – lighting will determine whether a shot goes from being pretty standard to perfectly stunning. For example, you can photograph someone with model looks, but if the noon sun is causing them to squint and casts dark shadows in their eye sockets and under their nose, they will look mediocre at best. Moving them to a shaded area or using a diffuser would quickly remedy the problem. Equally, …
I don’t often bring props into my portraits: they have to be there for a reason. In this case, the prop belonged to my subject, and it was the perfect way of visually revealing a little about the man himself. This is Alex McAleer, who is better known as ‘Alex The Mind Reader’. I photographed him as part of the Champions of Magic series. His shoot in our studio is the reason why we have a signed playing card stuck …