Portrait Scale and Setting
I have been looking at this exercise for a couple of weeks now and I have to admit that it has caused me some difficulty. It hasn’t been the taking of the photographs but the finding of the model that has caused me some problems. This and both work commitments in the run up to the Olympic Games and the weather has really held me back. I decided to look at some previous images that I had taken in a studio to get the principles right and I will move on. Later in the summer I will undertake this section again.
The first images I looked at was an image where the I had cropped in close to the face, focusing on the eyes.
Image 1
As you can see I managed to get the reflection if the soft box in her eyes.
I was then asked to get an image showing head and shoulders.
Image 2
Image 3
The next image was of the torso including arms and hands.
Image 4
The last image for this exercise asked me to take an image of the full figure.
Image 5
I looked at the images and was pleased with the results. For me the important thing was to make sure that the eyes were sharp. Adding or making sure that there is a catch light in the models eyes can help draw the viewer’s attention to the subject’s eyes.
Image 6
A soft box was used to produce an even spread of soft light. Similar to the way that sunlight enters through a window.
(See The Essential Lighting Manual for Photographers , Chris Weston ISBN 978-2-9403789-46-3)
I do think that the viewer would be drawn to the models face in the first set of images, not so in the full torso image.