Self Portrait and Portraits Part 1

1. Alter Your Perspective

Most portraits are taken with the camera at (or around) the eye level of the subject. While this is good common sense – completely changing the angle that you shoot from can give your portrait a real WOW factor.

Photo by striatic

Get up high and shoot down on your subject or get as close to the ground as you can and shoot up. Either way you’ll be seeing your subject from an angle that is bound to create interest.

4. Experiment with Lighting

Another element of randomness that you can introduce to your portraits is the way that you light them. There are almost unlimited possibilities when it comes to using light in portraits.
Side-lighting can create mood, backlighting and silhouetting your subject to hide their features can be powerful.

Photo by Bukutgirl

Using techniques like slow synch flash can create an impressive wow factor.



Settings—The Other Subject
The settings in which you make pictures of people are important because they add to the viewer's understanding of your subject. The room in which a person lives or works, their house, the city street they walk, the place in which they seek relaxation—whatever it is, the setting provides information about people and tells us something about their lives. Seek balance between subject and environment. Include enough of the setting to aid your image, but not so much that the subject is lost in it.


Environmental Portrait

I like this environmental portrait because you can tell that cooking is this person's favorite thing to do. I picked it because I thought it looked like a pleasant, simple photo.

I like this portrait because of energy and action going on in it. I picked it because it was very different from the other environmental portrait, but still the same type of portrait.



Photography Self Portrait


I think that this photography self portrait is very creative for having a peacock feather replace an eye. I picked it because it is interesting.




I like this one because of the different emotions taking place. I picked it because there are multiple versions of the same person.



Casual Portrait


This portrait has very creative placement. I picked it because it resembles someone's brains being blown out by a gun.




This casual self portrait is calm and ordinary. I picked it because it seemed vey casual.




This portrait is intriguing because it is very different and creative.





I especially like this one because it is simple yet beautiful.


I will probably shoot myself because I find it awkward to take pictures of other people. I will most likely shoot somewhere in nature, for example, a wooded area or near a lake. To make the shot successful, I'll need to use the rules of photography as well as do something out of the ordinary that will make my portrait interesting.