Little Things Mean a Lot in Portraiture

[rpcrowe]

It's not just with dogs, it is with every type of portraiture. Little anomalies, that can easily be corrected, can spoil a portrait.

When photographing Alisa, one of our latest rescue dogs, I noticed that the hair on her nose was blocking her right (camera left) eye...



I mentioned this to my wife who simply moistened her finger and plastered down the hair, allowing full view of her eyes. This image was shot from a slightly different angle.



This type of dynamic occurs frequently in portraiture of humans also. Looking carefully at your subject will allow you to notice things like wisps of hair out of place, the need to moisten lips to get a slight shine, need for adjusting clothing, and with females, perhaps the need to apply of some strategic makeup.

Some of the easiest portraits I have ever done are ones in which there is a hair stylist and a makeup artist working on the subject.




Taking a few moments to actually "SEE" your subject instead of just "LOOKING" at the subject will often be a factor in improving a portrait or at least limiting the need for retouching that portrait. It's always good to get the very best image out of your camera possible...

[Shadowman]

Nice tips, the same goes for any genre of photography especially still life, although sometimes you have little choice but to take the capture as is, an example would be street photography or cityscapes (electrical wires or a trash can).

[rpcrowe]

John,

I agree with your comment about "any genre of photography" and would like to add something to that thought.

Sometimes the intruding wires or trash cans can be avoided by selecting a slightly different angle from which to shoot. Other times they can be "Photoshopped: out with the clone tool or some other marvelous Photoshop gizmo

Areas in which extraneous things often intrude into a photo are the background of the subject and the sides, top or bottom of the image. I make certain to look around the edges of my frame and into the background of my image to ensure that these negative elements (such as the tree growing out of the subject's head and partial body parts intruding into the side of the frame) are not present in my image.

That is one reason I detest using the LCD as a primary viewfinder. When I look through the TTL viewfinder of my Canon 7D the image is quite large and vivid. I can easily spot, even small, intruding objects in the BG or from the edges of my image.

However when viewing a smallish 3-inch (~75 mm) or so LCD at a 12-18 inch (~ 30-45 cm) distance, it is very difficult, for me at least, to spot small things; either in the background or intruding from the sides, bottom or top of my image. It is even more difficult to see this in the bright sun...