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Where is Your Subject Looking and Why Does it Matter?
When posing a portrait subject, two important questions to ask yourself include: 1. ‘where are they looking?’ 2. ‘what impact does this have on the shot?’ Where your subject is looking can have a real impact upon your image and how those looking at your image view it. In many instances your subjects eyes determines […]
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Posing Tips for Portraits – Shoulders
When taking head shot and upper body portraits of people one simple posing tip that I’ve picked up over the years is to angle the shoulders of your subject rather than to have them even or squared in your shot. While the shoulders might not seem like an important aspect of a portrait they can […]
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A Fresh Look at Depth of Field: Using foreground to achieve creative depth of field
We talk a lot around here at Digital Photography School about Depth of Field. I’m writing this based on the assumption that we all understand that in layman terms, “depth of field” is the portion of an image that is in sharp focus. To illustrate: in landscape photography, generally you’re working to achieve a very […]
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Posing Tip for Portraits – Which Way Should Your Subject Lean?
I once took some body language classes in a previous job to help me learn both how to read people and how to present myself. One of the tips that stuck with me from it was that when you lean towards a person that you’re interacting with you present yourself as interested and engaging. Similarly […]
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What the Mona Lisa Can Teach You About Taking Great Portraits
When it comes to famous images the Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci is one of the most recognized in the world. When I visited the Lourve in Paris a couple of years ago I was stunned by the crowds of people gathering around this small image, pushing and shoving to get close and to […]
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Environmental Portraits
On the birth of our first child we were given by a friend a gift certificate for a photographic family portrait. The deal included one photo shoot in a studio and some prints. While I had taken thousands of shots of our baby I thought it’d be fun to go in for our photo shoot […]
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10 Tips for Photographing Babies
Most regular Digital Photography School readers are aware that a month ago I became a Dad. Our new son’s name is Xavier (you’ll get to know him over the course of this tutorial). I’ve previously written about the topic of photographing babies and children from the perspective of someone who has had his services engaged […]
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Asking Permission to Photograph People
“I’m heading to India next week and am looking forward to using my new DSLR. I’m particularly looking forward to photographing the people I come across but am a bit worried about whether I need to ask permission before photographing them in the street or other public places. Any suggestions?” – question submitted by DPS […]
