5 Portrait Photography Tricks for Stunning Portraits

Photography is an art and art needs constant experimenting and polishing. Of the various styles of photography, let’s talk about portraiture. Portrait photography focuses on a person or a group of people and helps capture the personality of the subject.

Gone are the days where the subject would look into the photographer’s camera and have only a serious monotonous expression captured. The new trend is to experiment when it comes to portrait photography. While the subject still remains the focus of the portrait, the background and other elements cannot be ignored entirely.

Here we give you 5 photography tricks that has a seal of approval from reputed portrait photographers:

1. Use a prop

Adding a prop to the portrait adds another element of interest in the picture. However, it is important to keep in mind that the focus shouldn’t entirely shift from the main subject. The addition of a prop must be visually appealing and it shouldn’t appear as if the prop is forcefully included.

2. Go creative with lighting

Lighting allows you to do a variety of things. Use shadows, contrasts, frontlighting, backlighting to depict various moods.

3. Experiment with eye contact and eye level

The subject doesn’t necessarily have to be looking towards the camera. The trick lies in experimenting with the eye contact. It helps give a new perspective to the portrait. There are various ways of doing it:

Eye Level

When the subject is at a lower level, you can focus on a particular aspect of their personality and hide the rest. This trick helps in adding a wow factor to the image, if used correctly.

Eye contact

• Look away from the camera: When the subject looks at something outside the field of view of the camera, it adds an element of curiosity for anyone who looks at the picture. You can make them look at something they love or something that they completely despise. Photography needn’t be boring.
• Look within the frame but not at the camera: Looking at the camera is passe. When it comes to a group of people, make them look at each other or at an object which lies within the frame. This trick works best for family portraits. Let’s say the family owns a dog whom they love a lot. Make the dog the center point of the portrait and have people’s eyes focused on it. Make sure that they don’t look at it like it is a piece of meat. Yes, we are not kidding. It happens.

4. Reflections

Try using reflections. There are various reflective surfaces that can give you stunning portraits. You can consider using glass, water etc. Use reflections to depict an emotion, intensify it and make it shine through. The emotion could be as simple as playfulness of a child.

5. Go Candid

Not everyone is good at posing. There are many people who find it very uncomfortable to pose for a picture. In such cases, it is best to go candid.

Capture the subject doing something that they love. It helps to make the portrait more natural and catchy. While going beyond the comfort zone is good for some, some are best captured in the moments where they feel at ease.