To crop, or not to crop? For all portraits other than full-length ones, you have to decide whereabouts on your subject’s body to place the edge of the frame. There are a few places where cropping is fine, and a few you should always avoid. The nice thing about working on location is that, more often than not, you can create numerous images out of one spot, and make them look very different simply by changing your crop. I photographed …
Of all the age groups I photograph, teenagers are by far my favourite. They are at their physical peak, and often walk in full of attitude, which translates into compelling portraits, like this one. Laura needed a headshot for her performing arts course, which could also be used for future auditions. I wanted to open up my aperture to get a really shallow depth of field, with just Laura’s nearest eye sharp and everything else in front and behind …
A crop is the removal of unwanted elements from the frame in order to improve the composition or to increase the focus on other elements. For example, a close-up shot involves a conscious decision to exclude the rest of the subject’s body, in order to focus on their eyes, for example. Conversely, you may want to show the full body of your subject by not cropping, and perhaps show some of their environment, too. Tightly cropped portraits tend to have …
You don’t need studio flash to achieve a clean, simple portrait with great lighting. This was taken outdoors at the end of the shoot, and is ridiculously easy once you know the trick. I had nearly finished a family shoot and wanted to get a simple portrait of each member of the family. I asked Willow to sit on the curb at the road side so her face tilted slightly towards me as she looked up towards the camera. This meant …